Top cop Bettison ‘tried to concoct a story of drunken fans’ at Hillsborough

‘A former chief inspector was part of an internal police group tasked with blaming football fans for the Hillsborough disaster, a court has heard.

Some 96 Liverpool fans died as a result of the 1989 disaster. John Barry and Mark Ellaby gave evidence to fresh inquests into their deaths last week.

They were on a part time business course with then chief inspector Norman Bettison at the time of the disaster.

John Barry described being in a pub with Bettison. He told the court, “Norman said, ‘I’ve been asked by my senior officers to pull together the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) evidence for the inquiry and we’re going to try and concoct a story that all of the Liverpool fans were drunk and that we were afraid they were going to break down the gates so we decided to open them.”’

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