Guardian investigations correspondent David Conn has told Press Gazette about the role his journalism has played in the passage of the proposed ‘Hillsborough law’.
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which forbids officials from lying to the public, was approved by the House of Commons last month, representing a victory for families impacted by the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 that killed 97 Liverpool football fans.
Conn began reporting on the “miscarriage of justice” that surrounds the Hillsborough tragedy in his 1997 book “The Football Business”. He exposed how South Yorkshire Police put forward a false narrative to evade responsibility for their negligence and mismanagement, deflecting responsibility onto the victims of the tragedy.
In a landmark Guardian investigation published in 2009, Conn drew attention to the fact statements of junior officers had been amended to omit criticisms of the police’s conduct during the unfolding tragedy.
After the article was published, and just days before then Culture Secretary Andy Burnham was due to deliver a speech at the 20-year memorial service for the Hillsborough victims, Conn said: “Andy called me and said he was going to call for all the documents relating to the disaster to be published.”
Burnham remembered this moment in his book, Head North: “As I sat and read David’s article in my kitchen, I could finally see a way forward. I would make a public call for disclosure of all Hillsborough documents using David’s article as the trigger”
He also wrote that Conn is “without a doubt one of the finest journalists this country has ever produced.”
Conn said that Burnham “was committed to getting something solid out of it… something concrete” and added: “I’m not sure people understand how effective he was.”
He cited Burnham’s intervention as “a huge moment of clarity and realisation” and praised him for taking the action required to achieve justice for the families who lost their loved ones in the disaster.
Conn said that “there wasn’t much that was new” between when he first reported on the tragedy in 1997 and his Guardian article in 2009.
“It shouldn’t have taken until the 20th anniversary”, he said, but recognised that it was this “peg” that made the story relevant again.
Following Burnham’s pledge to release the documents, the Hillsborough Independent Panel was formed to sort through them and produce a public report.
The report was published in 2012 and within three months the “accidental death” verdicts for the 96 victims who initially died were quashed. In April 2016 an inquest jury concluded that they had been unlawfully killed, and football fans were exonerated of blame. The inquests found commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield was “responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence”.
However, Conn said that “justice was not done in terms of accountability”.
He continued to report on the progress of this battle for justice between the state and the Hillsborough families, ensuring that their efforts were never again ignored.
Conn remembered visiting the Hammond family, who lost their 14-year-old son in the Hillsborough disaster, and said: “I ended up staying with them for three hours and talking to them… you’re absolutely hit by their humanity.”
Of all the families of the victims, he said: “The love that they have for their family members and their loyalty and relentless determination that they would not accept the lies was very apparent and very powerful.”
Although the narrative spun by the police and some elements of media presented them as “angry Scousers”, Conn said, he argued that “they were actually role models and exemplars of what it means to be a parent, relative or a person”.
Burnham’s first speech in the Commons after returning as an MP in July was to advocate for the Hillsborough law.
He said: “We have had a situation in this country where people suffer the trauma of the initial bereavement, the incident that took their loved ones away, and then they are re-traumatised by the behaviour of the state.
“We can’t take that hurt away tonight. But we can put decency back at the heart of the British state, and that is what this bill does.”
Following on from his reporting of the Hillsborough disaster, Conn wrote an article in 2012 headlined: “Hillsborough and Battle of Orgreave: one police force, two disgraces“, in which he revealed South Yorkshire Police’s connection to “strikingly similar blunders during the miners’ strike in 1984.”
The Battle of Orgreave saw 95 miners wrongly prosecuted for rioting. All were acquitted amid accusations of fabrication of evidence by the police.
Conn remembered learning of the “jaw-dropping” prosecutions and making the connection between Orgreave and Hillsborough as early as 1999. However, it took the success of his reporting on the Hillsborough tragedy for this connection to be recognised publicly.
The Orgreave Inquiry, an independent public inquiry to investigate the violent clashes between miners and police officers 40 years ago, was formally announced in July 2025 and was officially launched in March this year.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
