Pete Weatherby KC discusses Hillsborough Law on ‘Law and Disorder’ podcast ahead of Bill’s second reading
3 November 2025
A 2016 vigil for the Hillsborough families outside St George’s Hall, Liverpool, following the inquest ruling that the 97 fans were unlawfully killed. Credit: St George’s Hall.
Ahead of Hillsborough Law’s second reading in Parliament this afternoon (3 November 2025), Garden Court North’s Pete Weatherby KC appeared on the ‘Law and Disorder’ podcast to discuss the law’s provisions, origin, and the bereaved families’ unwavering commitment in campaigning for it.
Pete led the team which drafted the 2017 Hillsborough Bill, and is one of five Directors of Hillsborough Law Now, which led the meetings with ministers and officials resulting in the new Bill being debated by MPs in September. It marks 36 years since the disaster, when 97 Liverpool FC fans were unlawfully killed at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium due to gross negligence by South Yorkshire Police.
In this episode, Pete joins ‘Law and Disorder’ hosts Sir Nicholas Mostyn, recently retired High Court judge, Baroness Helena Kennedy, a barrister and human rights campaigner, and Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer and former Lord Chancellor, to discuss the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, or Hillsborough Law.
Duty of Candour
Of the Hillsborough Law’s three main provisions, the Duty of Candour has received the most attention by media, legal critics and public authorities.
As Pete repeatedly states throughout the podcast, this provision of Hillsborough Law is overarchingly intended as a deterrent rather than means of criminalisation. Through the Duty of Candour, all public bodies and private entities are required to have codes and policies to ensure candour through their organisations, with a backstop offence to criminalise misleading the public in a significant way.
Following – and even during – the Hillsborough disaster, South Yorkshire Police realised the catastrophic negligence and began to close ranks.
“The cover-up started with remarkable speed”, Pete says. “Immediately, before all the 97 have died, some of them are still dying, the police sent out people to look for beer cans. That was an actual police action. On the evening itself, Peter Wright (the late police constable) set up two police teams, one to put out a false police narrative that the fans were all drunk, they’d all turned up late, and many of them were ticketless … the other team, set up under another senior officer, supported the narrative by fixing the evidence. The cover-up was really sophisticated and completely eye-watering in its extent.”
Senior police officers pressured junior officers to change their statements, and the police force’s solicitor even oversaw the rewriting 116 out of 164 statements in the following days.
Our episode on the #HillsboroughLaw is live.
This week, we spoke to the expert Pete Weatherby KC about the proposed law and the history of injustice faced by the Hillsborough disaster victims and their friends and families.
Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎙️🎙️ pic.twitter.com/eqNhBiZTyO
— Law & Disorder (@LawDisorderShow) November 2, 2025
While unpacking “the atmosphere of lies and dishonesty created”, Helena Kennedy also reminded listeners that “The Sun newspaper played a completely vile part in all of this”, spreading entirely false information that “fans went round and stole off the bodies of people who’d been crushed”, and “urinated on police officers”. This misleading coverage fed into the police narrative which blamed the fans.
Legal Funding for Bereaved Families
Pete discusses the intention behind another of Hillsborough Law’s key features: the extension of non-means tested public funding for bereaved families at inquests where the state is itself represented.
During the 1991 inquest into the disaster, “the police and other state bodies involved were fully lawyered up, and – with a bit of help from the coroner – managed to persuade the jury to return an accidental death verdict which exonerated the police”, Pete explains. “The [Hillsborough] families had a whip round, because there was no legal aid, and they managed to pay one junior barrister, ranged against legal teams for various public authorities, not just the police, who had silks.”
That inquest concluded with a majority verdict of “accidental death” for all 96 victims, which was widely criticized and later quashed. The original coroner, Dr. Stefan Popper, did not allow evidence of deaths beyond 3:15pm to be presented, a decision that was later challenged and led to the organisation of new inquests.
When the investigations begin, Pete says, “the police – aided by the coroner – persuaded pathologists to say that everybody had died within a few minutes. They had a cut-off point: 3:15pm.” They argued that whatever happened after that was out of their hands.
Years later, when Pete and the legal team representing the Hillsborough families received disclosure of the CCTV footage from the day, “you could see some of the people who died still moving at 3:20pm, 3:25pm”.
This provision alone will substantially rebalance the scales of justice and allow families to hold public officials to account.
Upon receiving praise for this “amazing achievement” and “incredible law” by the three co-hosts, Pete said: “We have worked incredibly hard on it. But this is absolutely the work of the families. We are the engineers, we’ve done our best to support them. But this is their project”.
“There are many campaigning Bills which are very worthy, and I’m sure we’d all support them, but they don’t make any difference. This has got both. It’s got the right intention, but it also works – and we can prove it works.”
All eyes now turn to Parliament where the Hillsborough Law will undergo its second reading later today (3 November 2025). In an op-ed for The Mirror, Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy called on MPs to “ensure this Bill isn’t watered down” and “bring forward the largest expansion of legal aid in a decade”.
Pete Weatherby KC is part of Garden Court North’s inquests and public inquiries team. He has represented many of the bereaved families involved in justice campaigns including Hillsborough, Covid-19, Grenfell, the Post Office scandal, and Manchester Arena bombing.
Additional media
Law and Disorder – The Hillsborough Law
BBC – Hillsborough Law will not be ‘watered down’
The Mirror – Hillsborough Law honours victims of too many tragedies – we must pass it now
Garden Court North Chambers – A Duty of Candour, Duty to Assist, and Legal Funding for Bereaved Families: Hillsborough Law to be presented in Parliament
For further information, please contact Alex Blair, Communications Manager at Garden Court North Chambers: ablair@gcnchambers.co.uk
