LEEDS - The police match commander accused of causing the Hillsborough soccer disaster could face a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict on manslaughter charges.
Former chief superintendent David Duckenfield walked free from Leeds Crown Court after the jury was discharged after five days of deliberations. The decision to dismiss the jury after the six-week trial followed the acquittal at the weekend of Duckenfield's deputy, former superintendent Bernard Murray, on the two sample charges of manslaughter.
Relatives of the victims of Britain's worst sports disaster - in which 96 people died - who brought the private prosecution were to meet their lawyers before applying for a retrial today.
Sources in the Hillsborough Family Support Group said they would seek a new prosecution, despite £1 million ($3.27 million) costs and the possibility of having to meet the defence legal bill of £3 million.
Lord Justice Taylor's 1990 report into the disaster at the FA Cup semifinal in Sheffield on April 15, 1989, found a "breakdown in police control" was to blame.
More than 50 family members packed the court to hear Justice Anthony Hooper discharge the jurors.
He said: "Notwithstanding your very best efforts, I understand you are not going to be able to reach a verdict in this case. In these circumstances, I will discharge you from doing so."
The jury, trying to find a majority verdict on Duckenfield, had been deliberating for 24 hours over 4 1/2 days. Because of an order preventing publication of reaction to the failure to reach a verdict ahead of any retrial, the views of the relatives could not be reported.
Duckenfield, of Bournemouth, Dorset, who retired on health grounds from South Yorkshire police after the disaster, was silent as he was escorted from the court. He had pleaded not guilty with Murray, of Pontefract, West Yorkshire, to killing Liverpool fans John Anderson, aged 62, and John Aspinall, 18, who were crushed to death when a gate to the Leppings Lane terraces of the Sheffield Wednesday stadium was opened just before kick-off at the game against Nottingham Forest.
Prosecutors claimed during the trial that Duckenfield and Murray were responsible for causing the fatal crush by ordering the opening of the blue steel Gate C.
Thousands of Liverpool fans rushed through the gate and down a tunnel leading to the two pens on the terrace. The surge killed or mortally wounded 96 fans as they were crushed on metal railings.
The prosecution alleged that the tragedy, which happened over 13 minutes, could have been prevented if Duckenfield or Murray had done their duty by taking steps to block the tunnel to the already crowded pens.
But William Clegg, QC, for Duckenfield, called the disaster "unprecedented, unforeseeable, unique" and said it had been caused by a situation beyond the two men's control.
The court heard that Gate C had also been opened because the weight of those waiting to get in to see the football match had created a life-threatening situation outside the ground.
- INDEPENDENT
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