Hillsborough inquests - September 23

The report below - and the witness testimony contained within it - does not necessarily reflect the views of Liverpool FC. Please be aware that the reports on these pages will contain evidence about the day of the disaster which may be distressing.

To view archive reports from each day of the inquest hearings, click here.

Courtesy of the Liverpool Echo - September 23

A Liverpool FC fan said he "pleaded" to a police officer to help as a woman was crushed against him on the terrace at Hillsborough.

The inquests into the 96 deaths were read a statement from supporter David Hughes, who has since died, who described a woman in the pens he believed may have been 26-year-old Paula Smith, from Clubmoor.

He described the crowd building up in the pen and said there was a sudden surge from behind.

He said: “I was then aware that there was a girl directly in front of me.

“She was crushed up against my stomach.

“All I could see of her was her head.

“This girl crushed up against me was talking to me, asking for air, she couldn’t breathe.

“She only spoke briefly then she went quiet.

“I asked the man who was next to her if she was awake. He said he could not see her at all.

“I became concerned for this girl as she’d by now gone limp and was still quiet.

“I began shouting to a policewoman with a ponytail stood on the other side of the fence that this girl had collapsed.

“She only replied that she couldn’t do anything.

“The girl was slowly slipping down onto the floor, so I tried to lift her up with my knee.”

He said: “I was pleading to the policewoman to help.”

He added: “I was keeping my eye on the girl, trying to get her to wake, shouting at her.

“At one stage she lifted herself.

“I thought she’d come round.

“No sooner than she’d moved no more than half an inch than she slipped down again and went limp.”

In the statement, Mr Hughes said: “I am sure that the girl, who was still on my stomach, was dead.

“I still kept hold of her, I didn’t want her to go down on the floor and get trampled.”

Mr Hughes said eventually he fell to the floor.

He said that he had seen Paula’s picture in the paper and believed she was the girl who had been crushed against him.

But, he added: “When I fell onto the floor, I don’t know where the girl went to.

“Deep down, I don’t really know if this girl actually died or not.”

The court heard Paul Wadsworth, a PC with South Yorkshire Police, saw Paula outside the ground between 1.05pm and 1.15pm, when she showed him her ticket and checked if she was going the right way.

He said he later saw her lying on the floor of pen three when he went into the ground some time after about 3.15pm.

In a report written in the days following the disaster, he said: “I picked up her legs and shouted to another officer to pull her up so that we could move her onto the pitch.

“I remember her face and hands were purple.

“We moved her through the gate which had been opened.”

He said while in the pen he looked into her mouth to check for breathing but said it looked black.

He said: “It seemed to me at that point that any CPR couldn’t have had any effect, sadly.”

The court heard he passed her to officers outside the gate and did not see her again.

Footage showed Paula on the pitch, with her face covered, at 3.27pm.

A spectator was shown approaching her and appearing to uncover her face.

Clips from 3.29pm and 3.30pm showed her being placed on a hoarding and carried across the pitch.

The court heard she was taken to the gymnasium, where she was confirmed dead at 4.25pm.

She was identified by her brother Michael at the Medico-Legal Centre in Sheffield at 10.30pm the following day.

The brother of a teenager killed at Hillsborough searched for him after the game was stopped, the inquests heard.

Graham Wright, 17, had travelled to the match from Huyton with friend James Aspinall, 18, who also died in the disaster on April 15, 1989.

The court heard Graham’s brother, Stephen, had also been at the match, but had been in the North Stand.

Matthew Hill, counsel to the inquests, said: “After the match was abandoned, Stephen went onto the pitch and up to the Leppings Lane terrace to try to find Graham, before looking for him on the coaches outside the ground.

“He phoned home and was told by his brother, who was concerned for him, to come home to Liverpool, which he did.

“Upon arriving home and realising that Graham had not returned from the stadium, Stephen returned to Sheffield, where he looked for Graham at the Northern General Hospital and the Royal Hallamshire Hospital.

“He then went to Hillsborough stadium at around four in the morning, on Sunday, April 16, where he attended the gymnasium.”

The court heard Stephen identified Graham’s body in the gymnasium at about 4.35am.

The jury was also told that before the match Stephen had told his brother to stand to the side of the Leppings Lane terrace.

Police officers Philip House and Peter Roch both told the court they had helped to carry Graham into the gymnasium.

Mr House said he had come across the teenager at the Leppings Lane end of the pitch, while Mr Roch said he had joined people with Graham at the Spion Kop end.

Photos showed both officers standing by Graham, who appeared to have a jacket covering his face, as he lay on a hoarding at the Spion Kop end of the pitch at about 3.36pm.

Neither recalled anyone treating or assessing Graham, and neither recalled doing any checks themselves.

Mr Roch said: “When I saw him he was covered, so the assumption was that he’d been treated.”

Another officer, Gurucharan Singh, had described checking Graham and attempting first aid in a statement he made in 1989.

But in a statement in 1990 he said he may have confused him with another casualty.

The court heard Graham was confirmed dead in the gymnasium at about 4.10pm.