CWU Conference Motion 15: Emotional Debate On 'Hillsborough Bill'

 

In an emotional debate resulting in the carrying of a motion on legislation knonw as the 'Hillsborough Bill' to the general public, Brian Kenny from Mersey Branch moved Motion 15 in a totally silent conference:

 

"Chair Conference, Brian Kenny, Mersey Branch to move motion 15. Conference, the Public Office Accountability Bill was introduced into Parliament in September last year. This bill is a promise that those who serve in public office will be held to the highest standards of honesty, transparency and responsibility.

 

For too long we've seen the damage caused when mistakes are hidden, when reports are buried and when the truth is treated as an inconvenience rather than a duty. And this Bill seeks to change that by establishing a clear legal duty of candour for public officials, ensuring that when mistakes happen they are acknowledged swiftly and fully.

 

Protecting whistleblowers so that those who speak up for the truth are not punished but are in fact valued. Creating criminal sanctions for those who deliberately mislead or conceal information from the public.

 

Accountability is not about punishing people for honest mistakes. It's about making sure that the public can trust the institutions that serve them. And by passing the bill, we send a message that truth matters, that justice matters, and that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the duty to be honest.

 

Sadly, there are too many examples of decent people who have suffered unimaginable heartache having to fight for far too long and far too hard against the might of the state to get the justice they deserve. Apart from Hillsborough, injustice is also being suffered by victims of the British Army's 1950s nuclear tests the contaminated blood scandals, the Grenfell fire, the Manchester Arena bombing and many more.

 

A Hillsborough law will introduce a package of measures which will help to rebalance the scales of justice. It would give bereaved families a greater role to have their say at inquests through publicly funded legal representation, while bringing to an end limitless legal spending by public bodies seeking to cover up or defend their wrongdoing.

 

Conference, this motion instructs the NEC to ensure that at all times, together with the TUC and other relevant bodies, the Public Office Accountability Bill is fully adhered to in both spirit and law. Nobody, nobody should ever have to suffer the same pain and torment as that experienced by the Hillsbury families and many, many others. No one should be denied the truth year after year. No one should ever again be let down so badly by the system. We must ensure that it's never repeated. So I urge you now to carry unanimously motion number 15. Thank you, Conference."

 

The motion was seconded by Joe Brennan, Capitol Branch whose personal experience of losing a family member; which made for an emotional speech:

 

"I had a cousin, Gary, a shy, gentle, funny, polite young man who died at Hillsborough. His parents or his family, devastated. All they got from the newspapers, from the police, from the local MP was not... we'll do our best to find out what happened and fix it all.

 

They immediately kicked in a plan to destroy any truth that could be gathered. I think there was 300 police statements found to be inducted. The commander in charge lied about what he did. He only admitted it years later when he could happily retire and nothing happened to him. The people who we pay good money to... who are supposedly people we look up to, public bodies, people we should be proud of to protect us, don't protect us. It's only through the Hillsborough campaign I find out that public bodies, there was no statutory law that they actually had to be honest. All they had to do is do what they need to do to make sure we keep paying them their money.

 

They didn't care about the people who died, they didn't care about the families who suffered, they didn't care that year after year, decade after decade, those families stood up and fought and told the truth only to be knocked down again. Even when we got an inquiry, they didn't want the inquiry to go past, I think it was quarter past three on that day, because they would have to look into things that they didn't want to look into.

 

I had another cousin who was there at the time, because my cousin Gary was taken onto the pitch when he died on the pitch. His cousin David found him there on the pitch. He was still alive. But the inquiry didn't want to know that because they didn't want to show that they'd also botched up the ambulances. So anybody who was injured, it was only the fans saving them, despite what the son had told everybody.

 

No ambulance got to him and there was no care done for them. The families complained about what was done with the bodies. The families complained about how they were treated by the police. The police didn't care about the truth. The police were trying to construct their own stories. My auntie and uncle had to sit there, obviously completely broken, while the police questioned them over and over again about their son's drinking habits. He never drank.

 

He was a young man who just happened to like football, but they wanted to make it look like he was some sort of hooligan. And they did that over and over again from, I think, 10 years old was the youngest, 14, 15. All they wanted to do is create their own story and they could get away with it because they didn't have to be honest.

 

So that's why I want you to support this and make sure that things like this, if they happen again, we find out who is to blame, what the truth is, and people don't have to fight for year after year after year, decade after decade, just to get the truth to what happened to their loved ones. Thank you,"

 

The National Executive Committee supported the motion without reservation. Indeed, speaking on their behalf, ...... delivered a from the heart speech in support:

 

"President, Conference, Rob Wotherspoon to wholeheartedly support this motion on behalf of the National Executive Council

and to thank the Mersey branch for bringing this up once again as they and the other Merseyside branches have brought this issue to conference over many years during the fight for justice and also that powerful contribution from Jo from the capital branch.

 

It took 27 years for the public to know the truth that the families knew all along. That massive police failings on the day led to the unlawful killings of 97 Liverpool fans. That inaction by the police and the ambulance services led to further deaths that could have been prevented.

 

That the cover-up started before the victims were even dead as police officers were instructed to go around looking for cans to prop up an entirely false narrative of drunken fans arriving late. They also blood tested all of the victims including those as young as 10 to try to prop up that narrative by finding alcohol in people's systems, which they did not do. As you have heard, there was a massive operation to change statements. They also colluded with the press to put out lies and smears about the fans. Not only that, over the years they've used the entire legal muscle of the state to browbeat the families and to try and hide the truth.

 

And this has been a conspiracy that went right to the top, as reported by Andy Burnham in Parliament to the press secretary of Margaret Thatcher. And shamefully, in the 2014-16 inquest, those lies and smears were repeated again. But this time, they couldn't bury the truth.

 

 

Sadly, no individual was successfully prosecuted for the events of Hillsborough. This law can't turn back the clock on that. But what it would change is that if public officials in the aftermath of a disaster lie about what's happened, they can be prosecuted. And there are specific offences of that nature.

 

Families would not be left without legal support as in the example of the 1990 Hillsborough inquest in which the families had to scrape together the money for a junior barrister whilst the state employed QCs, silks and an enormous legal team that resulted in the absolute travesty and lies that came out in that inquest. Furthermore, those officers who were lent on by senior officers to change their statements could now say no, would be protected by the whistleblowing protections in this. There is also an obligation in the aftermath of a disaster for public bodies to give a statement of facts at the outset. So at the very beginning they have to choose. Will we lie? leave ourselves open to prosecution? or will we tell the truth about what has happened? And that technique has already been employed in a near miss in the Stade de France in 2022.

 

So whilst we absolutely welcome that this bill has been moved in Parliament, we do have to urge vigilance. It has been reported by one of the key architects of the Bill, Pete Weatherby, KC, who's worked closely with the families. Whilst nobody's putting their head above the parapet, in the background, the police and the security services are making moves to try and water this down. We cannot allow that to happen.

 

Just finally, we must pay tribute to the courage and resilience of the Hillsborough families, the tenacity of the Hillsborough campaigners and the solidarity across the people of Liverpool, without which the truth would never have come out and this bill would never have reached Parliament.

Conference, please support."

 

Carried unanimously.

 

Source: CWU