'This is not a Hillsborough Law and it does not have the support of the families'
Hillsborough Law campaign responds to government over their response to the Jones Report
Elkan Abrahamson, solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter and director of Hillsborough Law Now, said:
“To wait six years for a government to respond to a report about a disaster that took place 34 years ago speaks volumes. To deliver that response on a day when all eyes are on a former prime minister giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry only seeks to increase the cynicism felt amongst Hillsborough families and the thousands of others who would benefit from a change in the law.
“What we have heard from the Home Secretary today is misleadingly being characterised as a “Hillsborough Law”. It isn’t. The one relevant clause in the Criminal Justice Bill (clause 73), falls way short of what campaigners have asked for , it is not a “Hillsborough Law”, and it does not have the support of the families. It merely provides for a meaningless code of conduct for the police which does not add to what already exists. It lacks any accountability for other public servants, for national and local public services, and for private companies and their officers responsible for public health and safety. Today, of all days, when we have Boris Johnson giving evidence at the Covid Inquiry, surely demonstrates the need for more public accountability across all public services. The government is not listening to those who know only too well the barriers the state puts up when the truth is called for.
“Only the full reintroduction of the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, which was introduced by Andy Burnham but fell when the 2017 general election was called, will do; namely making a duty of candour enforceable, and ensuring a level playing field between public authorities and those affected by disasters and wrongdoing at inquests and inquiries.
“Keir Starmer has pledged to enact this wide-ranging bill if he leads the Labour Party into power, and tiresome as it is to have to keep reminding the government of this, we will again be asking them to do the same. All public servants must be accountable for their actions. Is their reluctance to do so entirely self-serving?”
Tonight there will be an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Public Accountability at 5:30 – 6:30pm in the Grimond Room, Portcullis House, London, SW1A 2JR
The event will be an opportunity to hear from campaigners on their reaction to the government’s response and the impact of the Victims and Prisoners Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill.
Speakers include:
Elkan Abrahamson, solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter and director of Hillsborough Law Now, who will give his reaction on the government’s response and the need for a duty of candour
Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant with KRW Law Belfast
Joe Delaney, Justice4Grenfell
Clair Walton, Positive Women
If you would like to attend, please reserve you place here.
Background briefing:
* There is an urgent need to introduce a statutory duty of candour for those operating across public services, such as policing, health, social care and housing. A duty of candour would place a legal requirement on organisations to approach public scrutiny, including inquiries and inquests into state related deaths, in a candid and transparent manner. This duty would enable public servants and others delivering state services to carry out their role diligently, whilst empowering them to flag dangerous practices that risk lives, without risk of penalty from their managers.
* Major investigations including public inquiries and inquests following disasters, often take many years to complete and cost eye-watering amounts of public money. A statutory duty of candour with clear requirements will greatly shorten such processes. Swifter justice is a massive plus for families and survivors. It also saves tens of millions of pounds of public funds, and enables life-saving changes to made much sooner.
* By requiring openness and transparency, a statutory duty of candour would assist in creating a culture change in how state bodies approach investigations, including inquests and inquiries. It would give confidence to individual members of an organisation who want to fully assist proceedings, inquiries and investigations, but may experience pressure from their colleagues not to do so. A statutory duty of candour would compel co-operation with proceedings, inquiries and investigations, dismantling the culture of “colleague protection” in the police service, for example. The NHS currently has a duty of candour whereby there is no liability for breaches. The need for sanctions on a duty of candour was recently evidenced by the inquiry into deaths in Essex Mental Health Services. Before the inquiry was converted to a statutory inquiry, the then Chair had said she could not effectively do her job and that only 30% of named staff had agreed to attend evidence sessions.
* A key element of the statutory duty of candour as put forward as an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill (NC14) is a duty of candour which would apply to all public authorities. A duty of candour needs to apply to all public authorities to ensure an effective end to evasive and obstructive practices following contentious deaths. State-related deaths, particularly major incidents such as the Hillsborough tragedy or Grenfell Tower Fire, commonly involve many different public agencies from local authorities to health services. Without ensuring a duty of candour that applies to all involved in relevant investigations, institutional defensiveness and delays will continue, and the fundamental purpose of such investigations – to prevent future deaths – will continue to be undermined. The version of a duty put forward in the Criminal Justice Bill only applies to police officers and is undefined and toothless.
* Institutional defensiveness has been found to be a pervasive issue in inquests and public inquiries. It causes additional suffering to bereaved persons, creates undue delay to inquests and inquiries, undermines public trust and confidence in the police, and undermines a fundamental purpose of inquests and inquiries – to understand what happened and to prevent recurrence. Establishing a statutory duty of candour would go a substantial way to addressing these issues. JUSTICE’s report When Things Go Wrong<https://files.justice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/06165913/When-Things-Go-Wrong.pdf> found that in both inquests and inquiries, “lack of candour and institutional defensiveness on the part of State and corporate interested persons and core participants are invariably cited as a cause of further suffering and a barrier to accountability”. In his Government commissioned report on the experiences of the Hillsborough families, the Right Reverend James Jones KBE concluded that South Yorkshire Police’s “repeated failure to fully and unequivocally accept the findings of independent inquiries and reviews has undoubtedly caused pain to the bereaved families”.
* Lack of candour frustrates the fundamental purpose of inquests and inquiries: to reach the truth and learn from mistakes so that similar tragedies do not occur in the future. Previous examples have shown how public bodies, such as the police, have consistently approached inquests and inquiries as if they were litigation, failing to make admissions and often failing to fully disclose the extent of their knowledge surrounding fatal events. In her 2017 review of deaths and serious incidents in custody, Dame Elish Angiolini concluded: “it is clear that the default position whenever there is a death or serious incident involving the police, tends to be one of defensiveness on the part of state bodies”. Additionally, the chair of the statutory Anthony Grainger inquiry, HHJ Teague QC, concluded that “it [was his] firm view that an unduly reticent, at times secretive attitude prevailed within [Greater Manchester Police]’s [Tactical Firearms Unit] throughout the period covered by this Inquiry.” By compelling co-operation, a statutory duty of candour would enable inquests and inquiries to fulfil their function of reaching the truth in order to make pertinent recommendations which address what went wrong and identify learning for the future.
* Failure to make full disclosure and act with transparency can also lead to lengthy delays as the investigation or inquiry grapples with identifying and resolving the issues in dispute, at cost to public funds and public safety. A recent example is the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, which was refused proper access to the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System (HOLMES) by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) over seven years. The Panel needed access to HOLMES to review the MPS’ investigations into Daniel Morgan’s murder, but the lengthy negotiations with the MPS about the Panel’s access led to “major delays to the Panel’s work”. These delays added to the Panel’s costs and furthered unnecessary distress to the family of Daniel Morgan. The Panel concluded that the MPS were “determined not to permit access to the HOLMES system”. A statutory duty of candour would significantly enhance the participation of bereaved people and survivors by ensuring that a public body’s position was clear from the outset, limiting the possibility of evasiveness. The duty would also direct the investigation to the most important matters at an early stage. This would strengthen the ability of the inquiry or investigation to reach the truth, and to do so without undue delay.
* As per Hillsborough Law, we believe there should be a duty of candour on all public bodies, and those delivering state services, going through inquests or investigations. Currently, the police have a duty of co-operation during court proceedings, inquiries and investigations however failure to comply with this duty is an internal misconduct matter, leaving the decision whether to investigate or initiate disciplinary proceedings in the hands of the police themselves. Institutional defensiveness continues despite reforms to the Police (Conduct) Regulations in 2020 to include an express duty on police officers to give appropriate cooperation during investigations, inquiries and formal proceedings. An independently enforceable statutory duty of candour is needed to ensure police cooperation. The independent enforceability of a statutory duty would remove the consequences of non-compliance from within the remit of internal misconduct processes. This external monitoring and enforcement would strengthen compliance with the duty.