IOPC Hillsborough report to be released in November

Ninety-seven Liverpool fans were fatally injured at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989

A watchdog report into the actions of police during and after the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster will be published in November.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) had been investigating South Yorkshire Police (SYP) since 2012.

In March the IOPC said in a letter to the Hillsborough families that no officers would face misconduct proceedings because legislation in place at the time did not require the police to have a "duty of candour".

An update published this week said the report would bring together "the key findings of our work, a summary of the outcomes of the complaints we considered and the key evidence we used to inform those decisions".

SYP claimed for years that ticketless Liverpool fans contributed to a crush which killed 97 people at the Leppings Lane stand in the Sheffield stadium on 15 April 1989.

After decades of campaigning the police narrative was comprehensively debunked, most notably by the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012 and the 2016 Goldring inquests, which ruled the victims had been unlawfully killed.

A number of public bodies faced criticism in the aftermath of the disaster

The IOPC had confirmed in July that it would slim down its report to 400 pages after concerns were raised by the families.

They had urged the watchdog not to undermine the findings of the panel or the 2016 inquests when it came to police conduct, but the IOPC stressed its findings "aligned" with both.

It said: "We found no evidence to support police accounts to the media, the Taylor Inquiry and both sets of inquests, which suggested that the behaviour of supporters caused or in any way contributed to the disaster."

It said the exact date would be clarified in coming days and the families of the victims would be able to examine the report a day before it was published.

In September the government introduced the so-called Hillsborough Law to the House of Commons.

The legislation, formally titled the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, will include a duty of candour forcing public officials to act with honesty and integrity at all times or face criminal sanctions.

The bill had been delayed after the Hillsborough families raised concerns it was going to be "watered down".

Margaret Aspinall, who lost her 18-year-old son James at Hillsborough, said during the Labour Party Conference last month: "It's not about what politics you believe in, or who you vote for, this was about getting the Hillsborough Law for the ordinary people of this country."