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An MP closely associated with the campaign for justice for the 96 fans who died at Hillsborough in 1989 has called for an official inquiry into what he claims is a "malicious" leak of documents showing the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was told that a senior Merseyside police officer blamed "drunken Liverpool fans" for the disaster.
The evidence, one of thousands of previously secret documents being sifted through by an independent panel due to produce a definitive report on the causes and consequences of the tragedy, shows that four days after the tragedy a member of Thatcher's No10 policy unit met senior Merseyside officers.
There is long-standing anger among the families of victims that South Yorkshire police, which was heavily criticised in a report by Lord Justice Taylor for the overcrowding on the terraces at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, blamed Liverpool fans in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. It was the Sun's reporting of claims that Liverpool fans were responsible that helped feed damaging myths about the disaster.
The new documents, obtained by BBC Radio 4's The World at One, suggest Merseyside police also potentially contributed to misleading slurs that the families of victims have spent 23 years trying to correct. They include a note addressed to Thatcher dated 20 April 1989 headed "Merseyside Police views on Hillsborough" and marked "Confidential".
It contains an account of what was said to be a long-planned meeting between the No10 adviser and the then Merseyside chief constable Sir Kenneth Oxford and other senior officers from the force. According to the note, Oxford said: "A key factor in causing the disaster was the fact that large numbers of Liverpool fans had turned up without tickets. This was getting lost sight of in attempts to blame the police, the football authorities, etc."
Another officer – who was not named – was said to have directly blamed the supporters. "One officer, born and bred in Liverpool, said that he was deeply ashamed to say that it was drunken Liverpool fans who had caused this disaster, just as they had caused the deaths at Heysel," the note said.
Oxford, who died in 1998, was also said to have expressed concern at the way Liverpool's ground at Anfield had been turned into a "shrine" by grieving fans.
"He deplored the press's morbid concentration on pictures of bodies. He was also uneasy about the way in which Anfield was being turned into a shrine," the note said.
The note is initialled "MT", suggesting it was read by Thatcher, and the phrase "drunken Liverpool fans" is one of a number of passages underlined by hand.
Steve Rotheram, the MP for Liverpool Walton who last year spoke movingly in a Commons debate triggered by a petition that attracted more than 140,000 signatures and forced the government to reiterate that it would release all papers relating to the disaster, said that he believed the leak of the documents was "malicious".
"I am absolutely outraged, not only at the timing but the way someone has gone about this. They have picked a very selective document to leak. There are other documents I would love to have leaked. We have played by Queensbury rules, the panel have played by the rules and the families have done likewise," he said.
"Somebody has chosen to pick, out of the millions of documents, that particular aspect. Which, for me, is just reinforcing for some people the lies of nearly 23 years ago. I genuinely believe it's malicious, it's a nefarious act by somebody. If they wanted the truth to emerge, they needed to only wait a few more months for the independent panel to report." Margaret Aspinall of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, who lost her 18-year-old son James in the disaster, said Oxford's views were "appalling" but called for no further leaks before the panel's report in the autumn.
"The panel is there to scrutinise the documents and present a balanced report," she said. "It doesn't help the families of the victims, the survivors or the fans to have pieces of the jigsaw come out piece by piece – that is not how we will get to the truth."
Sheila Coleman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign said she was "disgusted" with the views of Merseyside Police but not surprised. She said was also "very suspicious" of how the information was leaked.
"We find it a strange coincidence that this information is leaked only days after we found out the panel are not going to report until the autumn," she said.
A spokesman for the Hillsborough Independent Panel, convened in 2009 and chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, would not comment on the leak but said the delay was due to new documents that had recently come to the panel's attention. It was originally due to report in the spring, accompanied by the release of all the documents it had considered, to the families and then the wider public.
"The work of the panel, including the analysis of the mass of documents so far disclosed to us, is demanding and complex. It is expected that the panel will complete its work in the autumn," he said.
Rotheram said he planned to call for an official inquiry into the leak and how it came about, fearing it would undermine the ability of the families of the 96 victims to get to the "truth".
"The level of access to get to this documentation, it's someone who has done it for very questionable reasons. It's another kick in the teeth for the families," he claimed.
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