The Strategic Constable

The 15^th of April 1989 will be remembered for many reasons.  The day that resulted in 96 people losing their lives for attending a football match, the day when worlds were changed forever and the day when “the biggest cover up of all time” was instigated.

Within hours of the first deaths South Yorkshire Police set in motion a smear campaign of a magnitude never seen before and likely will never be seen again.  

At the forefront of this campaign was the South Yorkshire Police Federation and its Secretary at the time, Constable Paul Middup.

I contacted the now retired Middup three times on the morning of 15 September 2012 by telephone. Below are the transcripts from the three conversations:

11:37am - 15 Sep 12

PM: Hello?

Me: Mr Middup?

PM: Yes

Me: Mr Middup, Good Morning, I wonder if you’d like to answer some questions regarding Hillsborough.

PM: No thank you, I’m not making any comment at all, thanks very much, bye... (Hangs Up)

12:20pm - 15 Sep 12

PM: Hello?

Me: Mr Middup, this is your chance to put forward your side of the story

PM: No thank you

Me: Mr Middup, you were happy to chat after Hillsborough

PM: (Silence….. hangs up)

14:43pm - 15 Sep 12

Mrs Middup: Hello?

Me: Hi, can I speak to Mr Middup please?

Mrs Middup: I’m sorry he’s not in can I help?

Me: I was hoping to speak to him reference ‘ticketless drunk mob’ claims made 23 years ago?

Mrs Middup: Is this about Hillsborough?

Me: Yes it is, I was hoping he’d like to put his version of events forward

Mrs Middup: I’m afraid he’s not speaking to the press; he’ll talk to you but won’t say anything

Me: It may be in his best interest to release his side of the events which took place during a meeting on 19 April 1989

Mrs Middup: I’ll pass the message on but I think the answer will still be no

Me: Well you have my number so please ask him to call if he’d like to

Mrs Middup: Thank you very much (Conversation ends.. hangs up)

I tried to contact the former Constable Middup a further number of times during 15 September 2012 but his telephone was either engaged or rang out without answer.

This somewhat confused me.  Middup was extremely vocal in the hours and days after the Hillsborough disaster.  He was one of the first to push the image of drunken fans urinating on Police Officers; he was the first to push the idea of fans stealing from the dead.  He later remarked in a meeting of the Joint Branch Board (19/04/89) that:

“He had initially been interviewed on radio – Radio Sheffield, which had been successful and it had snowballed from there” 

In the days after Hillsborough Middup met with Senior Police Officers and the MP for Sheffield Hallam (Irvine Patnick) and conspired to write a version of events which was released to Sheffield based, White’s News Agency.  This version of events was picked up by The Sun and directly led to the now infamous ‘The Truth’ headline and subsequent article.

However, prior to this Middup went on television to publicly reinforce a web of deceit that was spun in the hours after the disaster.  Middup went on Yorkshire TV the day after Hillsborough and gave the following interview at 6 minutes and 22 seconds:

Pay particular attention to the phrases which began to be used at every opportunity:

"And I’m saying to you that if police officers had have been in there, when this mob surged through, the police officers would’ve been trampled to death underneath it. You just can’t handle them. And the vast majority of that lot had been drinking, the ones that were arriving late, and they will not be told what to do, they won’t do anything you try to do, and what can you do? "

This line of blame continued and was underlined again in the meeting of the Joint Branch Board (19/04/89) where the then Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, Peter Wright, backed Middup’s claims and insisted: 

“If anybody should be blamed it should be the drunken ticketless individuals"

Middup claimed “the Chief Constable had said the truth could not come from him but had given the Secretary a totally free hand and supported him. The Secretary commented that never before have so many senior officers sought him out and thanked him”

Middup portrayed himself as the knight in shining armour, the one that would save face for the South Yorkshire Police.  Surely he must have known that as a member of a uniformed service his words would be taken on face value.  He must have known that with his direct input the blame would be automatically shifted from incompetent policing onto a ‘drunken mob of late arriving ticketless louts’. 

I wanted to talk to Middup about where these seeds were originated and by whom.  Was it all his idea? Was he coaxed into being the face at the front?

Middup has not broken his silence since the release of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report.

This leads me to my final question, and maybe the most notable:

Middup was only a Constable; in modern military terms he would be described as a ‘Strategic Corporal’ a soldier that possesses technical mastery in the skill of arms while being aware that his judgment, decision-making and action can all have strategic and political consequences.

Were the South Yorkshire Police so bereft of leadership that they allowed a base rank to orchestrate one of the biggest lies and cover-ups of the 20^th century?