NEWSNIGHT: Hillsborough survivor witness statements changed — Transcript

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1. 0:02[Music]
2. 0:09If you were there, you know, if you were
3. 0:12on the terrace inside, 3,000 were packed
4. 0:15behind the goal. You thank Mercy you
5. 0:17survived. 96 didn't.
6. 0:21But for untold numbers, escaping the
7. 0:23crush was only the start of decades of
8. 0:26trauma.
9. 0:28I wasn't the same person. I the top had
10. 0:31come off for me and I couldn't keep it
11. 0:33all within anymore
12. 0:35and I just didn't want to carry on.
13. 0:41Some feel their trauma was made far
14. 0:43worse by the attitude of the officers
15. 0:46whose job it was to mount an independent
16. 0:48investigation into what went wrong at
17. 0:50Hillsborough. Survivors will tell you
18. 0:53that certain of these officers from the
19. 0:55West Midlands Force seem to regard them
20. 0:58not so much as vulnerable but invaluable
21. 1:01witnesses, more as though they were the
22. 1:04accused.
23. 1:05He told me he was going to put together
24. 1:07a case to charge me with wasting police
25. 1:10time. I'm a 19year-old boy, 3 weeks out
26. 1:13of Hillsborough, traumatized, and he's
27. 1:16threatening me that he's going to put
28. 1:18together a case for um wasting police
29. 1:21time because he didn't like my evidence.
30. 1:25Nick, a 19-year-old Sheffield student at
31. 1:27the time, was an Ipsswitch fan, a
32. 1:29neutral, excited to be going to a cup
33. 1:32semi-final with friends from Liverpool.
34. 1:34But as soon as he arrived outside the
35. 1:36ground, he saw the chaos.
36. 1:39There was a very dangerous crush outside
37. 1:41the stadium which developed. There were
38. 1:44very few police around. Um, no
39. 1:45directions, no filtering, no barriers,
40. 1:48nothing at all.
41. 1:51Nick and over a thousand others went
42. 1:53into the ground when police ordered the
43. 1:56opening of an exit gate. Within seconds,
44. 1:58they were in a lethal crush on the
45. 2:00terrace. John was just 17.
46. 2:04The sound that still resonates with me
47. 2:07to this day is the sound of a of a crash
48. 2:09barrier just snapping. Um, and everyone
49. 2:13seemed just a topple in a domino effect.
50. 2:16Um, and I went down under and through
51. 2:21the crowd. I think I passed out
52. 2:24underneath and and within the crowd and
53. 2:27came to miraculously
54. 2:30um near the front left of the pen um and
55. 2:33came to
56. 2:35amongst
57. 2:37people that I now know were dead or were
58. 2:40dying.
59. 2:44My luck is in landing a matter of meters
60. 2:47away from a gate that leads onto the
61. 2:50pitch. Um there was a policeman on the
62. 2:53gate. Um literally
63. 2:56the cries are are simple cries, you
64. 2:58know.
65. 3:00Um people are dying.
66. 3:03Um
67. 3:05the guy turns his back on us, turns his
68. 3:08back on us, ignores us. So he just
69. 3:10didn't comprehend what was going on in
70. 3:11front of his eyes.
71. 3:12He he could not have understood it. I
72. 3:15remember standing next to a guy with um
73. 3:17dark greasy hair obviously from the
74. 3:20sweat. Um we were totally pushed against
75. 3:24each other in such a way that
76. 3:27it's impossible to describe.
77. 3:30It's just me and him fighting for our
78. 3:32lives. And I don't know if he was one of
79. 3:36the 96. I don't know if he got out. But
80. 3:39I know that I had to stand on him to get
81. 3:41out.
82. 3:44John helped carry the dead and dying and
83. 3:47then collapsed. In the following weeks,
84. 3:50he and Nick Brily and others were asked
85. 3:52to make statements to the West Midlands
86. 3:54Police who'd been called in to
87. 3:55investigate. The questions weren't what
88. 3:58they'd expected.
89. 4:00I was the questions along the line of,
90. 4:02you know, how can you how can you give
91. 4:04evidence against a policeman? How can
92. 4:06you make statements like that? Who are
93. 4:08you to try and stitch us up and all this
94. 4:10nonsense? Um he then turned quite
95. 4:14aggressive and started to question me.
96. 4:18Was I leftwing agitator? Was I a student
97. 4:20agitator? Was I a member of of the
98. 4:22Socialist Workers Party? It was observed
99. 4:25that the day before I had been wearing a
100. 4:28Free Mandela t-shirt and that apparently
101. 4:32that made me a a leftwing agitator.
102. 4:34What did you say to this?
103. 4:36I kind of I kind of laughed initially,
104. 4:38but it's like, you know, are you
105. 4:41serious? I'm I'm I'm just I'm just a fan
106. 4:43of the g the game of football.
107. 4:46John, the school boy, says two officers
108. 4:48came to his house and sent his parents
109. 4:50away supposedly to spare their feelings.
110. 4:53He told them everything, including his
111. 4:55plan to join the police. He says they
112. 4:58dismissed his account as unimportant.
113. 5:00They'd heard it all before.
114. 5:02or I hadn't told them anything they
115. 5:04didn't already know. And although I'd
116. 5:06been talking, I didn't know what he'd
117. 5:08written.
118. 5:10And
119. 5:13they stood around me. I remember
120. 5:14standing up because I wasn't happy. And
121. 5:17I went to speak to him. I said, "I want
122. 5:19to read it." And the pair of them stood
123. 5:21around me. And now I know that that was
124. 5:25oppressive behavior because they were
125. 5:27physically intimidating of two grown
126. 5:30men, detectives
127. 5:33in my house. I felt I had no power to
128. 5:36tell them what to do.
129. 5:37You were a child.
130. 5:39Yeah. And they simply told me to sign
131. 5:42it. They said, "You don't need to read
132. 5:45it. I've written what you've told me.
133. 5:49All you need to do is sign this now.
134. 5:53So what happened?
135. 5:54Signed him.
136. 5:55You didn't read it?
137. 5:56No, they wouldn't let me.
138. 5:58Nick Brily says to him, "The police
139. 6:00became increasingly hostile."
140. 6:03He then turned on me as to whether I was
141. 6:05a a criminal with a grudge against the
142. 6:07police. He told me he was going to check
143. 6:09my criminal record. Um he just, you
144. 6:12know, just said I wasn't there. I
145. 6:14couldn't have been there.
146. 6:14You couldn't have been at the game.
147. 6:15Yeah. And I'm like, "Well, you got my
148. 6:16match ticket. What more do you need for
149. 6:19me to prove I was there?" He said,
150. 6:21"Well, anyone could you could have found
151. 6:22that."
152. 6:24What's particularly troubling is that
153. 6:26these stories of survivors feeling
154. 6:28intimidated and abused are not uncommon.
155. 6:32Many now see a thread stretching from
156. 6:35the South Yorkshire Force who bungled
157. 6:37the organization at Hillsborough to the
158. 6:39West Midlands Police now deemed to have
159. 6:42failed in their investigation.
160. 6:47As main author of the Hillsborough Panel
161. 6:49report and after 25 years researching
162. 6:51the disaster, Professor Phil Scraton
163. 6:54believes survivors like the berieved
164. 6:56weren't interviewed, they were
165. 6:58interrogated.
166. 7:00There was a mindset amongst the police
167. 7:02investigators and that mindset hinged on
168. 7:07uh crowd related violence
169. 7:11um hooliganism for once of a better
170. 7:13phrase
171. 7:15drunkenness
172. 7:16late arrival antiqulessness that was the
173. 7:19mindset. What I think is so significant
174. 7:23about this is that if you put that
175. 7:25alongside knowledge that the police
176. 7:29statements were being reviewed and
177. 7:31altered, it brings into question the
178. 7:34entire evidential base upon which the
179. 7:36inquiries and investigations were
180. 7:38conducted.
181. 7:40Phil Scratton says the way statements
182. 7:42were taken only added to the unresolved
183. 7:45trauma. John was both typical and
184. 7:48unique. He joined the police, the Mets
185. 7:50murder squad, but was haunted by what he
186. 7:52calls survivor guilt. 15 years on, he
187. 7:56tried to kill himself. The sounds of the
188. 7:58barrier, the screams,
189. 8:02and still the feel of of that guy's hair
190. 8:06in my face. Still
191. 8:09feel it. I feel it now. Feel it today.
192. 8:12Um, and I didn't want it anymore. I
193. 8:15didn't think I deserved to still be
194. 8:17around. So,
195. 8:18what did you do?
196. 8:19I tried to drive a car into a tree.
197. 8:23John resigned from the police and has
198. 8:25now rebuilt his life.
199. 8:29At the Warrington headquarters of the
200. 8:31Independent Police Complaints
201. 8:32Commission, they're reintering
202. 8:34survivors. After nearly a quarter of a
203. 8:36century, all the original statements
204. 8:38were handed to the Hillsborough panel
205. 8:40and are stored here. Nick Brily seen his
206. 8:43and says it doesn't reflect the truth.
207. 8:46He's also seen internal West Midland's
208. 8:48police memos and notes. And there
209. 8:51handwritten are the lines referring to
210. 8:54him. Came across as totally anti-
211. 8:56police. At first doubt it had been at
212. 8:59the match. And then there's his Nelson
213. 9:01Mandela t-shirt. Left-wing type. Actual
214. 9:04motif not known.
215. 9:07What do you think of it? What they've
216. 9:09written down?
217. 9:10What is it? which I think is nonsense.
218. 9:12It's just a part of it's just a a cover
219. 9:14up of a cover up if you like.
220. 9:17John's finally got to see the statement
221. 9:19he was refused sight of 25 years ago. He
222. 9:23says it even places him in the wrong
223. 9:24part of the ground.
224. 9:26The way they dealt with me on that day,
225. 9:28I felt
226. 9:30dirty when they walked out the door. I
227. 9:32felt that they didn't want to listen to
228. 9:34me and they'd come with an agenda and it
229. 9:37totally vindicates my thoughts then.
230. 9:41West Midland's police aren't commenting
231. 9:43on any of this. They say they're
232. 9:45awaiting the completion of continuing
233. 9:47investigations and the fresh
234. 9:50Hillsborough inquests.
235. 9:51[Music]