Hillsborough inquests - August 26

The Hillsborough inquests commenced on March 31, 2014 and are the subject of reporting restrictions that have been imposed by the Attorney General's office. Liverpool Football Club is respectful of these restrictions and will therefore only be making available updates from other media channels for the duration of the inquest.

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

Courtesy of BBC - August 26

No senior police officer was in charge of the response to the Hillsborough disaster as it unfolded, the inquests into the deaths of 96 fans have heard.

Anthony Humphries, who was an inspector on the day, told the Warrington court the only instruction he got was to "help with the injured".

He said "everyone was talking at once over the radio" and no-one was "actually pulling it together".

The Liverpool fans died as a result of a crush at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final.

The now-retired officer said he had been faced with a "pile of bodies" when he went on to the Leppings Lane terraces of the stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday.

He said he then took responsibility for where he was positioned, directing those below him to assist casualties.

Officers worked to take those hurt out of the terrace via the tunnel at the back of it, separating the injured from the dead in the area behind the stand, he said.

Mr Humphries told the court he had helped a youth down the tunnel and tried to resuscitate him, even though he thought the young man had died.

He said the youth was then put against a wall with his T-shirt pulled up over his face, something he had thought was "not dignified".

He said officers had put some people in an ambulance and then given first aid, until a doctor arrived and "a triage-type system" was set up.

Asked if he thought some of those who had been considered to have died could have been revived, he said that "other people needed seeing".

He said no instructions were given by senior officers, something which he thought was a surprise, but had "just assumed that other people were elsewhere doing other things".

He added that he had never considered sending an officer to the nearby police control box to ask for more help.

Earlier, he told the jury the build-up to the Liverpool v Nottingham Forest semi-final, on 15 April 1989, had been "just like a normal football match" and that, while fans had been drinking beer and wine, there had been "no nastiness and nobody incapable".

He said none of the fans were "drunk and disorderly" and officers "didn't arrest anybody that day".

However, he said in the "highly-charged atmosphere", the mood of Liverpool fans had changed after the disaster.

"They were really angry, blaming us for being murderers and things like that and swearing and shouting.

"There was some spitting but there were a lot of them waving fists and shouting abuse, I suppose having seen what they had seen."

He said a lot of young police officers were on duty and he was "really quite proud of how they stood and took all the abuse".

He said he later saw small groups of officers who were all crying, something which he found "quite unnerving".

The inquests continue.