Hillsborough victim's relative followed by police for a week, report finds

The years-long inquiry into police conduct surrounding the Hillsborough tragedy found that police officers had followed a victim's family member. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), an independent office of police conduct (IOEC), investigated 27 reports from 25 individuals with links to the 1989 tragedy in connection with suspected police surveillance as part of its remit. According to the study, 12 police officers would have been charged with gross misconduct if they were still serving. South Yorkshire Police (SYP) failed to plan properly ahead of the stadium tragedy, which killed 97 people, and then tried to shift blame on supporters in the years that followed.

Those soldiers included SYP Chief Constable Peter Wright and match commander Ch Insp David Duckenfield. Repeated reports that Hillsborough families and activists had been subjected to police surveillance, led to widespread police surveillance over the years, with some reporting strange clicking sounds during phone calls.

All of the 25 complainants believed their phone calls had been monitored, while 16 of them suspect they had been exposed to other forms of surveillance, such as being followed. Although many reports were too vague to be investigated properly, one was upheld, according to the study.

The IOPC did look in detail into one particular allegation, where a family member was conspicuously followed by police officers for almost a week, and on at least one occasion, spoke directly with the officers.

This complaint was upheld. The study did not specify the force involved. When told to retrieve a document from a family member, another upheld complaint involved West Midlands Police (WMP) officers behaving in a

unnecessibly intimidating manner. The WMP had been ordered to look into the SYP's conduct during the Hillsborough tragedy, but the IOPC found it had been

biased" against supporters and in favour of its fellow troops, according to the IMOPC. The IOPC said it had written to all relevant police forces to request any evidence of telephone surveillance, but no records were found. This could mean no police phone monitoring was conducted or that records had been destroyed in accordance with retention policies, according to the agency.

'Disappointingly slow'

The Home Office will not disclose or deny that someone had been exposed to telephone intercept by the police, as part of a longstanding policy. However, the IOPC referred families to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which, according to the report, has the right to investigate government information on phone tapping. The IOPC has also investigated a number of burglaries in the Merseyside area, including two at the Hillsborough Centre and two at a Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC) shop. Two more incidents occurred at the home of an HJC member. Five reports pointing at potential police involvement were received, partly because documents were robbed that contained information of value to the police, according to the watchdog. The IOPC had called Merseyside Police for reports of its response to those burglaries and had initially received a disappointingly slow reply, which had to be escalated to senior officers, according to the IOPT. Following a discussion with the head of the Professional Standards Department, a Force spokesperson told the BBC,

We acknowledge the findings of the IOPC in relation to how this matter was handled and how it was quickly resolved.

Due to the fact that time was passing by before the request, there was a need to perform extensive investigations into force systems, and all of the details was sent to the IOPC as it was necessary that it be shared.

The IOPC said there were questions about how the robbery reports had been collected, including one log combining two of the incidents into one when records were released. The individual campaigner's home had no details about the robbery at his house.

The force had understood processes in place at the time, and further investigation has been carried out to ensure officers adhere to those procedures.

Understandably, the IOPC said there were no evidence of police involvement in robberies, and that one witness report referred to

newths

as responsible. According to the overall study, there were

fundamental mistakesby police andconcerted attempts

to blame fans. The legislation was updated in 2017 so that ex-officers can still face sex-officerant charges of misconduct, but not retroactively. Charlotte Hennessy, whose father James was killed in Hillsborough, said in a press conference after the study was published,

We will never fully understand the full extent of South Yorkshire Police's deception,

she said, but there is no hiding, there isn't any destroying, and there is also no way to conceal that they failed their jobs and then blame the victims.

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