Hillsborough: Officer felt 'bullied' into making different statement

Kevin Williams, 15, travelled to the match with three friends

A former special police constable at Hillsborough has told a jury she was "bullied and manipulated" into making a second statement about the disaster.

In her first account, Debra Martin said 15-year-old Kevin Williams started breathing, opened his eyes and said "mum", before dying in her arms.

Ms Martin told the inquests a police officer harassed her into signing a second version, omitting those details.

Former Sgt Julie Appleton strongly denied Ms Martin's allegations.

Ms Martin was giving evidence as the new Hillsborough inquests focussed on the final minutes of Kevin's life.

He was one of 96 football fans fatally injured during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield on 15 April 1989.

Kevin's mother, Anne Williams, led a long campaign for fresh inquests into the tragedy, but died months after they were ordered in 2012.

'Cradled'

Ms Martin, who was part of the policing operation, told the court she had seen Kevin lying on the pitch.

She helped carry him to the stadium's gymnasium, where many of the casualties were taken.

There, she tried to resuscitate him and felt a "very, very feeble pulse".

She told the jury: "I just automatically picked him up and cradled him. That's when Kevin's eyes opened and he did say 'mum'.

"He looked straight through me - then his eyes closed and he just went very, very limp altogether, so I placed him down on the ground again and I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth again and heart massage.

"And that's when I got a tap on my shoulder and it was another police officer and that's when he said 'leave him, he's gone, you've done all you can do'."

The court heard how, in her first statement made shortly after the disaster, she said Kevin "started breathing and opened his eyes".

She added: "His only word was 'mum' and he then died."

Ninety-six fans died following crushing at the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough stadium on 15 April 1989

In her second account, signed 17 March 1990, she said: "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to believe the boy was dead - I didn't know if he was dead or not, but I decided I had got to attempt to revive him.

"I started to give him mouth-to-mouth, but someone, I don't know who, touched me on the shoulder and told me he was dead.

"By this time, my head was gone. I was not aware of what I was doing or what was really happening."

The statement added that she "can't be positive that the details are accurate" and that she had been "quite badly affected by the whole incident".

Asked why there was a change in her accounts, Ms Martin said: "There was my original statement at the beginning, and then there was a further statement made out by someone else who had written that themselves.

"I had to sign it under duress. What was in that statement was their wording, not mine.

"It was a statement that I didn't read at all. It was done under duress and bullying and manipulation.

"The words you see in the statement are not mine. This statement was actually made to make me look as though I had no idea what I was undertaking on that day, how I just took myself down and it was just not my statement."

'Extreme pressure'

Ms Martin claimed Ms Appleton, then a West Midlands Police sergeant, called at her home "three or four times" on consecutive Saturdays to talk through her first statement.

"Her main aim was to ensure that I changed my original statement to the statement that she wanted," Ms Martin said.

Ms Martin also told the court Ms Appleton tried to "tear me to bits", put her under "extreme pressure" and "literally called me a liar".

Police Federation barrister Sam Green QC said Ms Martin had been "unreliable" in her recollections of the disaster.

"I'm in no position to suggest positively whether you're a fantasist or the genuine victim of your own confused imagination," he added.

"But what I do suggest... is that your version of your dealings with Julie Appleton is wrong and her's is right."

Ms Martin replied: "Her's is wrong and mine is right, sir."

Ms Appleton told the jury she "wouldn't put any pressure on anybody. I didn't try to get anybody to alter a statement."

She added: "I take exception to being accused of bullying Debra. I did not bully Debra. I have every sympathy for the experience she had had."

She said Ms Martin "wanted to clarify things that had happened" and things had changed since the first statement.

Asked by Mark George QC if she was sent to change the part of her account about Kevin possibly "being alive as late as 16:00", she replied: "100% not."

The inquests, in Warrington, Cheshire, continue.

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