'Why has the chair of the West Yorkshire Police AuthorityMark Burns-Williamson not moved for the suspension of Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison after the damning Hillsborough report?' Bradford West MP George Galloway demanded today.
'I have already put down a parliamentary motion calling for the chief constable's resignation and although he has said that he will retire next year that is not good enough. He should be suspended forthwith pending the outcome of the various inquiries. And the public needs to be told why the people with the power to do this have done nothing. Burns-Williamson has been the chair of the authority since 2003 and he needs to explain to the people of West Yorkshire why he has failed to remove this pernicious chief constable from day-to-day control of the force. It is destabilising for the police officers and it's an outrage to the families of the dead of Hillsborough.'
He continued: 'Burns-Williamson of Labour is also the leading candidate to become the handsomely-paid police commissioner next month. Let him start as he hopes to go on by calling an emergency meeting and sending Bettison home to polish his gong. This is no way prejudging Bettison's actions when he was on the South Yorkshire force. The Hillsborough Independent Panel has already passed judgment on him.'
Galloway was commenting after the Attorney General Dominic Grieve moved to have the inquest verdicts on the 96 who died at Hillsborough quashed.
Background:
The Hillsborough Independent Panel's report, published on 12 September, identified Bettison as a key figure in a South Yorkshire police operation, mounted after the disaster, which attempted to swing MPs' and public opinion against the Liverpool supporters and absolve the police themselves of blame for the disaster. Since being named in parliament in 1998 by the Labour MP Maria Eagle as a member of a "black propaganda unit", Bettison has denied involvement in any such campaign.
The documents released to the panel by South Yorkshire police, as part of the Hillsborough disclosure process, showed Bettison was a member of the force's Hillsborough inquiry team, set up to help manage its response to the disaster.
After Lord Justice Taylor's report in August 1989 identified police failings as "the prime cause" of the disaster, South Yorkshire police mounted a campaign to contest it. Bettison produced a 31-minute video of events at Hillsborough, which he presented as part of that response. Michael Shersby, the Conservative MP who represented the Police Federation's interests, was told stories by police of fans being drunk and misbehaving – which the panel found baseless – and promised to represent in parliament the officers' strong resentment of the Taylor report.
Early Day Motion 547
HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER AND SIR NORMAN BETTISON
Session: 2012-13
Date tabled: 18.09.2012
Primary sponsor: Galloway, George
Sponsors: Godsiff, Roger
That this House believes the cover-up by South Yorkshire police officers of the truth about the Hillsborough disaster is an outrage; further believes that this cover-up slurred Liverpool fans in general and those who so tragically died in particular; supports the call by Richard Wells, former Chief Constable of South Yorkshire after the disaster, for police officers involved in the comprehensive lies that were told by the police to be prosecuted; demands the resignation of Sir Norman Bettison, currently Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, as the highest ranking serving police officer who was centrally involved in the events in South Yorkshire police force following the disaster; and calls for an early meeting of the Forfeiture Committee to consider whether his knighthood is any longer appropriate.
