This from the Guardian...
Senior South
Yorkshire police officers who were freemasons orchestrated a “masonic
conspiracy” to shift the blame after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, the
inquests into the deaths of the 96 victims have been told.
Maxwell Groome, a
constable at the time, said that after the disaster at the FA Cup semi-final
between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s football
ground, “the word” inside the force was that freemason officers held a meeting
to blame superintendent Roger Marshall.
Groome said he
heard that the meeting took place in portable cabins at South Yorkshire
police’s area office, and was attended by Chief superintendent David
Duckenfield, who had commanded the match.
Questioned by
Michael Mansfield QC, representing 75 families whose relatives were killed at
Hillsborough, Groome said he believed Duckenfield was “a grandmaster of a
particularly influential lodge” – the Dore lodge in Sheffield.
Groome also told
the inquest that senior officers pressured junior officers to change their
statements after the disaster, because they were “terrified” of criticism of
the force’s command. He said he was “duped” into agreeing to the changes,
because he believed if he did not, he would never be called to give evidence to
Lord Justice Taylor’s official inquiry or to the first inquest, and his
statement would be “magicked away, dumped in a box, never to see the light of
day again”.
Groome said a
colleague, PC Brookes – whose first name was not given in court – called the
inquiry team at West Midlands police to complain it was “a masonic conspiracy”.
Groome said Brookes
told him West Midlands police asked if he could prove the conspiracy. Brookes
told them he couldn’t, and Groome said they concluded it would not be
investigated.
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Asked why in
earlier accounts about the events of the day he did not include the rumoured
meeting of freemason officers, Groome replied: “Basically, I’d have been
committing professional suicide.”
Marshall, who was
in command outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles at Hillsborough, had requested
a large exit gate to be opened, to alleviate a crush of Liverpool supporters
outside the ground, and allow a large number in. The jury has heard that police
did not close off a tunnel inside, which led to the Leppings Lane terrace’s
crowded central “pens”, that many of the incoming fans headed down it, and the
lethal crush happened in those pens.
Groome said he
subsequently heard of the meeting between senior officers, said to have
included Duckenfield, superintendents Roger Greenwood and Bernard Murray,
Inspector Steven Sewell and Chief inspector David Beal.
“Being unable to
prove it, I believe that most of them were masons,” he said.
The coroner, Lord
Justice Goldring, sent out the jury of seven women and four men to allow legal
discussions after Groome gave his evidence about the freemasons’ meeting. At
the end of the day, the coroner referred the jury to “evidence of a meeting
said by Mr Groome, on the basis of rumour, to have taken place on the morning
of April 16”.
Goldring told them:
“I should say this quite clearly to you: we have no other evidence than this
rumour, said to emanate from the [South Yorkshire police] area office. It
amounts to no more than what the witness described as ‘scuttlebutt’.’”
Groome, who on the
day helped Liverpool supporters carry one of the 96 victims, Colin Wafer, 19,
on an advertising hoarding being used as a makeshift stretcher, said the police
operation as the disaster unfolded was “chaotic”. The inquest was shown
Groome’s original statement – typed “recollections” made on plain paper after
the event. He said officers were told not to write their accounts in their
official police pocketbooks. Groome’s criticisms, which were removed in
handwritten amendments after he submitted the statement, included a comment
that “certain supervisory officers were conspicuous by their absence”.
Asked by Jonathan
Hough, counsel for the coroner, to whom that comment was referring, Groome
replied: “Duckenfield”.
Groome had also
written: “The control room [where Duckenfield was in command] seemed to have
been hit by some sort of paralysis.”
Other criticisms he
made in his statement, which were also deleted, included the decision not to
delay the match’s 3pm kick-off; reductions in police manpower; staffing of the
control room; that “too many officers were sitting around in the gymnasium” and
pointed to the removal from command at Hillsborough of the experienced officer,
Chief superintendant Brian Mole. The jury has heard that Mole was replaced on
27 March 1989, 19 days before the semi-final which 54,000 people would attend,
by Duckenfield, who had never commanded a match at Hillsborough before.
Groome subsequently
signed a typed up version of his amended statement, he says, because he feared
that it would not see the light of day otherwise.
The “main thrust”
of the pressure to change his statement was, Groome said: “They were terrified
of junior officers criticising senior officers and therefore, in their eyes,
undermining the command structure of South Yorkshire police.”
The inquests
continue.
