Two senior West Midlands Police officers 'should have faced disciplinary action' over Hillsborough cover-up claim
Two senior West Midlands Police officers should have faced gross misconduct proceedings over their conduct following the Hillsborough disaster, a report has said.
Mervyn Jones, who was assistant chief constable of West Midlands Police at the time, and then-detective chief superintendent Michael Foster, led the now discredited investigation into the disaster which led to the deaths of 97 football fans.
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A new report, by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, revealed that they were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for their failings, but the threshold for prosecution was not found to have been met
But the IOPC report said both former officers would have had a case to answer for gross misconduct after failing to conduct a rigorous investigation because they were 'biased towards the force and against the supporters'.
West Midlands Police was instructed to carry out a criminal investigation into South Yorkshire Police following the crush at the FA Cup semi final on April 15, 1989.
Mr Jones led the criminal inquiry, which the IOPC described as “extremely and inexplicably limited”.
In 2013 he provided the IOPC with 14 policy notebooks he had kept at the time but had not previously provided. When investigators restored police databases, it emerged Mr Jones had requested some of the electronic policy files related to the investigation should be deleted from the system.
Before doing so, he requested printed copies were made. Searches of police premises were made and a warrant was obtained to search Mr Jones’s home but the files were not recovered, the IOPC said.
The watchdog said Mr Jones would have had a case to answer for gross misconduct for discreditable conduct in relation to the deletion of the files, falsehood or prevarication regarding the retention of the policy books and neglect of duty. It also found he would have had a case to answer for failing to investigate South Yorkshire Police effectively and for not intervening in the force’s account amendment process.
Mr Foster, then a detective chief superintendent, was the most senior detective for the criminal investigation, which the IOPC identified a series of failings with.
The watchdog found the file the force submitted to the director for public prosecutions' did not accurately reflect the totality of the underlying evidence' and in a section of analysis from Mr Foster he included repeated references to the behaviour of supporters and how much alcohol had been consumed.
