Bradford fire: astonishing new evidence

[Coro]

Bradford fire: expert demands new investigation into blaze• Nigel Adams says not reopening case is ‘moralistically impossible’
• ‘At that time most fire investigators were not much more than dust-kickers’

 

A leading fire investigator has described it as “moralistically impossible” that there is not a new investigation into the Bradford City fire in the wake of Martin Fletcher’s book about the 1985 disaster.

Nigel Adams, the founder of Fire Investigation Services, said there were fundamental errors in the inquiry and Fletcher’s book was “one of the best accounts of a fire, as seen from a victim’s point of view, and as a piece of investigative writing, I have ever read”.

 

Adams spent 30 years in the fire service, the last 12 of which were as a specialist investigator, and now works to educate police forces and fire professionals about the forensics of his industry. He agrees with Fletcher that the inquiry into Bradford, led by the judge Sir Oliver Popplewell, was inadequate and that there are many unanswered questions.

 

“In 1985 fire investigation in this country was in its infancy,” Adams said. “Some would say at that time most fire investigators were not much more than dust-kickers. Like all areas of forensic investigations, it has come on leaps and bounds. However, there is a lot in this book that troubles me about the science, or lack of it, used in the testing of the investigators’ hypothesis as to the source of the ignition.

 

“The book also raises concerns about the speed of the inquiry and the fact that it commenced a few weeks after the fire and lasted for only a few days, whereas other inquiries into similar incidents, pre and post the Bradford fire, have taken years to come to fruition and months to be heard. The fact the inquiry also embraced the investigation into another incident which happened on the same day, a riot in which a young boy died at Birmingham City, makes it seem more frivolous.

 

“These days I lecture to students and professionals about fire investigation. I will recommend this book as essential reading and use it to set a project. That project will be entitled: ‘How would you conduct this investigation if this incident happened today?’ If the answer reflects the investigation which actually took place, the student will fail.”

 

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, has also said there should be a new investigation, adding: “If there is potential new evidence, it should be examined.”

 

Fletcher, who was at 12 at the time, escaped from the fire, but his brother, Andrew, was the youngest victim, aged 11. Their father, John, 34, uncle Peter, 32, and grandfather Eddie, 63, were among the 56 to die.

 

Fletcher’s book, 56 – The Story of the Bradford Fire, is the culmination of a 15-year investigation into the tragedy, leading the author to sacrifice his career as a tax accountant in pursuit of the truth. His evidence uncovered there had been at least eight major fires at other business premises either owned by or connected to the club’s chairman at the time, Stafford Heginbotham. Fletcher has asked why this was not investigated and Popplewell has admitted he had not known about these details when he chaired the inquiry.

 

“The book is written by a well-informed layman allowing anybody with an interest in this particular incident to read and understand the facts,” Adams said. “It is the remarkable story of a survivor of the incident and his troubled journey through his teens and young adulthood. It is the account of a man who is looking for answers, and to some extent finds them, but I don’t think it’s the end of his story, just the first instalment.

 

“I have read in some newspapers that he is being berated for his campaign to have a new inquiry. I don’t see that. There is no malicious vendetta, there is no over-exaggeration, there are no trumped-up facts. It is a simple account laid out for all to see. Fletcher has taken facts and presented them in such a way that it should make it moralistically impossible for this incident not to be looked at again.”

 

[matt1983]

Bradford City stadium fire: New evidence casts more doubt on verdict Bradford fire was accident

 

EXCLUSIVE: National Archive papers reveal testing – rushed and scant as it was – undermines theory lit match caused stadium disaster

 

 

The fire, in which killed 56 supporters died, 30 years ago next month, was found by the official inquiry conducted by High Court judge Sir Oliver Popplewell to have been caused by debris beneath the seats in the main stand being accidentally set alight. But an investigation for Popplewell into the likely causes, published by the Department of the Environment’s Fire Research Station (FRS) 30 days after the tragedy and part of the body of evidence relating to the disaster at the National Archive in Kew, tested the likelihood of a match struck by a spectator still being alight when it fell to the floor. The experiments, which recreated the conditions at Valley Parade, found that 35 out of 48 matches tested “self-extinguished” before they reached the wooden platform beneath which debris lay.

 

That means only 27 per cent of matches were still alight when they reached the floor. Then one of those still alight would have had to fall through a gap between floorboards and ignite debris below to cause combustion.

 

The slim statistical basis appears to bear out the claims by Martin Fletcher, a survivor of the disaster who lost his father, brother, uncle and grandfather, that the investigation into the fire was inadequate. In his book 56 – The Story of the Bradford Fire, Fletcher finds that there had been eight other fires at businesses owned by or associated with Stafford Heginbotham, the late Bradford chairman. Fletcher says that the number of other fires was an extraordinary coincidence and that Popplewell’s inquiry should have investigated Heginbotham’s background.

 

Nowhere in the substantial body of FRS and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) papers at Kew is there any mention of such a possibility being investigated and discounted. But they do reveal the concerns of FRS director Dr David Woolley that he was being given too short a time to undertake a detailed enough investigation for Popplewell into how the fire could have started and consumed the stand at such extraordinary speed.

 

“We were concerned that there might be, because of the rapidity of the fire, a mechanism which was hitherto unknown to us,” Dr Woolley told the inquiry, which gave the FRS, based at Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, just four weeks to gather evidence and put Woolley through a mere two hours of questioning.

 

The FRS’s tests did not lead it to discount the hypothesis that a burning match might have caused the fire. Its report concludes: “It would seem quit feasible for a lighted match, dropped through a gap in the flooring of the stand to ignite rubbish beneath.” The body’s “technical assessments” found that the possibility of a match causing the fire would have increased “markedly” if the head of the match was accidentally broken in the act of striking it. They concluded that a dropped cigarette would need “good contact with the material [it sets fire to]” to cause a fire and says that pipe material was a more likely cause of the fire than matches. “The glowing zone may be larger than with cigarettes. The effect… will be greater.”

 

The FRS’s statistical data demonstrates the need to have put the body’s evidence to greater scrutiny. If a match was the cause there is also the unanswered question of how tens of thousands could have been thrown to the floor since the stadium was opened in 1908 – never causing a fire before. By some estimates as many as 1.25 million people smoked there over the years. There were no ashtrays and no smoking restrictions.

 

A view of the Bradford City stadium fireA view of the Bradford City stadium fire

 

The Kew Archive also reveals correspondence from the Timber Research and Development Association which had also rejected the theory that the ignition of debris under the stands had caused the fire.

 

The documents paint a picture of the desperate rush to gather evidence for Popplewell, with one of its staff writing to West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Police in June 1985 pleading for copies of the force’s photographs of the Valley Parade disaster. “My inspection [of your photographs] was curtailed because Dr Woolley was called to give evidence and I had to rush away and brief him on a few additional points which I had found from the photographs.” Woolley also tells the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory in a letter: “I’m still finding great difficulty in obtaining a set of photographs of the fire. The photographic coverage of the fire was enormous but the supply seems limited.”

 

The papers also reveal attempts to avoid public blame for the disaster in the months that followed. An internal memo from HSE director general J D Rimmington in 1985 reveals that the organisation’s, inspector, a Mr Laird, had seen rubbish under the stand in 1980 but “did not assess the hazard arising from the rubbish… as so serious that he should discuss it with the fire authority.”

 

Rimmington reveals that a review of liaison procedures is to be carried out but says the HSC “should not make it public” as it “could provide the idea that the commission and executive are already clear something is wrong and we are at fault”.

[FanchesterCity]

1 in 4 of the matches would remain lit.

If there was an average of 1000 in the stand for 20 home games, that's 20,000 spectators for a season.

If only 10% of them smoked, that would be 2000 smokers per season.

If during a game, they only lit 2 matches, that's 4000 lit matches per season

 

So, of 4000 lit matches fell to the floor, 1000 of them would remain lit.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe 1 in 1000 of them might drop through a 1/2 inch gap.

 

The in you want to multiply that over a number of seasons....

 

It's really not at all remarkable.

[Evelyn Tentions]

1 in 4 of the matches would remain lit.

If there was an average of 1000 in the stand for 20 home games, that's 20,000 spectators for a season.

If only 10% of them smoked, that would be 2000 smokers per season.

If during a game, they only lit 2 matches, that's 4000 lit matches per season

 

So, of 4000 lit matches fell to the floor, 1000 of them would remain lit.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe 1 in 1000 of them might drop through a 1/2 inch gap.

 

The in you want to multiply that over a number of seasons....

 

It's really not at all remarkable.

Not very many people, even in the days of unfettered smoking, would drop a burning match.

They would then have stay burning for long enough to ignite rubbish, which has to become a fire but probably couldn't give the rapidity of the spread. There are lots of other scientific questions posed in the article as well as evidential matters (like where are all the official photos?)

Now that Martin Fletcher has written his book the cracks are starting to appear. It looks like a rushed inquest,with a preordained result - after all they were only football fans.

Sound familiar?

[Anubis]

Still not evidence of actual foul play, but certainly adds to the argument for a more thorough investigation.

[zigackly]

Regardless of whether it turns anything up and what wounds it might open, they deserve a proper investigation and the more I hear the more I realise they never had one.

[ratcatcher]

Still not evidence of actual foul play, but certainly adds to the argument for a more thorough investigation.

 

Im not sure it does. Recently, a couple won a 2nd million pound lottery win beating odds of something like 480 billion to 1.

 

The small statistical sample for the matches still showed there was a 27% chance of a lighted match starting the fire.

 

As Ive said before though, if the families of the Bradford disaster want a new enquiry, they should get it asap.

[xerxes]

What surprises me is that no evidence has been produced to substantiate the idea that the fire was started deliberately. The author spent fourteen years on the case, Paul Foot, one of the most distinguished investigative journalists of his time with the backing of the Mirror was unable to produce anything, and the widespread publicity subsequently has also drawn a blank.

 

Trying to prove that something didn’t happen is always more difficult than proving that something didn’t, because if something didn’t happen, there is no associated evidence. So this suggestion is unlikely to go away.

 

What is called new evidence hardly amounts to much. It does appear that there were eight previous fires associated with the ex- Chairman’s ownerships. However no detail regarding the nature of the fires, the investigations both criminal and insurance, and ownerships are given. In three instances it appears individuals were successfully prosecuted, in at least two instances, it appears that he didn’t even own the premises. Neither the Police, nor insurance companies, ignore serial fires.

 

It does seem odd that the history was not presented at the enquiry, even if it were simply to confirm that the history had no probable bearing on this incident. But then again, mindful of the numbers of police, fire, and insurance staff who would have been involved in those past investigations, if concerns did exist the opportunity to present that to the enquiry, or the media, would have been there.

 

The dropped match theory had a 1/3 chance of igniting a fire, an unextinguished cigarette or pipe tobacco even more on the FRS’s own evidence.

 

I simply do not believe that “The Kew Archive also reveals correspondence from the Timber Research and Development Association which had also rejected the theory that the ignition of debris under the stands had caused the fire” is true. If it was, and could be substantiated, the Enquiry could never have found as it did. And the idea that debris under the stands, which was there, could not have been ignited by discarded smoking material and set fire to a wooden stand that self-evidently burned ferociously is preposterous.

 

The Chairman’s son claims the stand was not insured. No insurance company or associated individual has come forward to claim that it was. A general insurance pay out was made, the quantum of which it would have been impossible to determine in advance. No-one has claimed that the Chairman stood to, or did, benefit personally from any pay-out, and in any case he was a co-owner. That co-owner is still alive. Was he in on it too? If he wasn’t, and he will most certainly have known his co-owners history, why did he not say anything? If a third party did it, who was it, and when, and why? Or may be it was just a fire accidentally started in an old stand with plenty of combustible material?

 

Anything is possible, but no evidence that a co-owner decided to burn down a stand with several thousand of his fellow fans, townsfolk, associates and family in it at a time when it was most likely to be put out with so many people around has been offered.

[xerxes]

I can't find any evidence to show it was going to be knocked down.

Together the evidence, short of looking at the demolition contract, is convincing:

 

You may not regard Wiki as trustworthy, but:

 

“The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the fire risk that the rubbish accumulating under the stand had posed. The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work just two days later”

 

“The stand had been officially condemned and was due for demolition.”

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire

 

(My note- how would you get insurance on a condemned stand? What value would it have versus the premium?)

 

“That stadium was going to be pulled down 48 hours after the game, on the Monday morning.”

 

"So why would you burn down a club that had been deemed uninsurable and no use for any insurance claim.”

Simon Heginbotham

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1467013/bradford-football-fire-my-dad-is-no-arsonist

 

(My note I think that he meant the stand, rather than the entire stadium, which was due to be redeveloped in stages)

 

 

“No insurance company is going to pay out on something that was going to have only half an hour’s life. Anyway, that’s a point. But the truth is there still wasn’t a single piece of evidence that suggested this was arson.”

 

Justice Popplewell

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/27/bradford-fire-inquiry-oliver-popplewell-interview

[FanchesterCity]

 

“The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the fire risk that the rubbish accumulating under the stand had posed. The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work just two days later”

 

“The stand had been officially condemned and was due for demolition.”

The Popplewell report stated no such thing. You can read it here if you wish:

 

https://bradfordcityfire.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/popplewell-inquiry-interim-report-bradford-city-fire.pdf

 

The Popplewell report DID illustrate numerous concerns and warnings about the fire risk, both from the materials and litter.

The Popplewell report DID illustrate that the roof was subject to repair via a grant, and was due to be repaired soon afterwards.

The Popplewell report DID NOT illustrate any evidence that the stand had been condemned, or was due for demolition (which would be entirely at odds with a roof repair anyway).

 

For brevity I'll highlight the parts that show it was the roof in question (and about to be repaired) alongside wider and grave concern over the general fire safety, but there is not a single line in the Popplewell report that states the stand was condemned and about to be demolished. Rather than trust Wiki, I went to the actual report.

 

 

Then we have the general concerns about the stand and accumulated rubbish, but no mention of it being 'condemned or about to be demolished'.

 

Then we have the council's own inspection which again illustrated the danger with emphasis on the roof.

 

 

 

Then we have the letter that the council sent to BCFC to help them gain a grant for repair of the roof:

 

 

 

 

There is no evidence that the stand had been condemned as was due for demolition. Certainly not in the Popplewell report as you suggest.

[FanchesterCity]

At a push, one might interpret 'condemned' to mean 'criticised'. But in this context, I would have thought 'condemned' meant officially designated for demolition.

 

As far as I can tell from the Popplewell report... the roof was falling in, and that was about to be repaired. The rest of the stand was still a nightmare, but it wasn't going to be replaced immediately (hence obtaining a grant for a new roof).

 

Conveniently, Popplewell's report has been misquoted, and that's turned into 'the stand was due for demolition' which helps to bolster the Pro Hegginbotham argument.

 

I'm Pro Heginbotham (so far), but it's not right to misquote the report.

[Sparky]

Haven't seen this linked yet, Daniel Taylor's interview with Popplewell from a few days ago:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/27/bradford-fire-inquiry-oliver-popplewell-interview

[xerxes]

There is no evidence that the stand had been condemned as was due for demolition. Certainly not in the Popplewell report as you suggest.

I don't have the report in front of me.

 

But if Popplewell said it, and it is there in the Guardian interview, and Heginbotham's son said it, both are direct quotes, that is evidence.

 

Of course they be wrong, or lying, but the replacement of a stand is not something that there would not be significant circumstantial evidence for.

[FanchesterCity]

Well, lying is a strong accusation.

 

The report itself just provides evidence of warnings about the risk, and that the roof was to be replaced 2 days later (not the entire stand).

 

It could be argued (and probably will be) that in order to facilitate the new roof, significant stand improvements would be undertaken too. It MIGHT even have been demolished, but Popplewell's report doesn't mention it, so the wikipedia entry is quite misleading.

 

I'm sure it suits the pro Heginbotham side to say the entire stand was about to be demolished. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a lie, just that it's conjecture so far.

 

I've yet to see any demolition contracts. Only roof replacement letters and grants.

Ultimately I don't think it really matters though, it's nit picking. The real crux is 'arson' vs 'accident' (loose definition of accident, as it was a known safety concern).

 

So far, I'm with accident, and I'm sticking with it until I find something persuasive for arson.

 

I think it's very emotive to pair Hillsborough and Bradford, and it's quite easy to see both as a 'cover up'. Hillsborough was, and I believed it from the moment I read the Taylor report. I don't think Bradford was.

 

With Bradford, the fans weren't really blamed at all. In fact it was far more critical of the club, fire brigade and council.

[xerxes]

I agree that debating when a new stand is a new stand is a bit of a rabbit hole. A new roof on a stand like that would require substantial rebuilding anyway. At Anfield the lower main stand, the ARE lower and Centenary Lower all have relics from earlier stands as part of their structures. In addition to the quotes I recall contemporaneously that the stand was due to "come down"- hence my pursuit of the point.

 

I also agree that the Hillsborough parallels are not there beyond" a slum sport played in slum grounds" and a terrible loss of life.

 

For me, the conspiracy theory has failed to produce any evidence, nor motive, despite years of research, and substantial new publicity.

 

The history of previous fires is at first glance very concerning. But the fact that neither the author nor Paul Foot was able to draw any common strands from those fires doesn't really get the case for out of the starting blocks. Insurance, fire and police reports all provide, and provided, hard reference points. Nothing has come from them.

[dennis tooth]

The Popplewell report stated no such thing. You can read it here if you wish:

 

https://bradfordcityfire.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/popplewell-inquiry-interim-report-bradford-city-fire.pdf

 

The Popplewell report DID illustrate numerous concerns and warnings about the fire risk, both from the materials and litter.

The Popplewell report DID illustrate that the roof was subject to repair via a grant, and was due to be repaired soon afterwards.

The Popplewell report DID NOT illustrate any evidence that the stand had been condemned, or was due for demolition (which would be entirely at odds with a roof repair anyway).

 

For brevity I'll highlight the parts that show it was the roof in question (and about to be repaired) alongside wider and grave concern over the general fire safety, but there is not a single line in the Popplewell report that states the stand was condemned and about to be demolished. Rather than trust Wiki, I went to the actual report.

 

 

 

Then we have the general concerns about the stand and accumulated rubbish, but no mention of it being 'condemned or about to be demolished'.

 

Then we have the council's own inspection which again illustrated the danger with emphasis on the roof.

 

 

 

Then we have the letter that the council sent to BCFC to help them gain a grant for repair of the roof:

 

 

 

 

There is no evidence that the stand had been condemned as was due for demolition. Certainly not in the Popplewell report as you suggest.

Is that relevant since theyd have had to upgrade it either way due to promotion?

[Trumo]

BT Sport are showing a doc on the Bradford Fire on Monday night, at 9 or 10 pm.

[Trumo]

They actually showed it this evening, and there is nothing like watching first-hand accounts from people who were there that day to hit home just how devastating it was. You see and hear their pain as they relive their memories of that day. While people will have heard of the Bradford fire, the families of the victims have almost been forgotten because there hasn't been a campaign of the sort undertaken by the Hillsborough families for example, so they don't have a public profile so to speak. Yet their pain is just as real and just as relevant. Nobody should do something as normal as going to the game and not get to come back home.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Good little documentary that.

 

Felt really sorry for the survivors who acted as impromptu rescuers, who to this day are still convincing themselves that they could have done more and saved more lives than they did. They were heroic doing what they did and whilst it's easier said then done they really shouldn't torture themselves as they saved lives.

 

Terry Yorath still looked really troubled by what he'd seen. Really hope he's had some form of PTSD counselling etc.

 

A really horrific tragedy. I couldn't even begin to imagine the horrifying sense of panic being caught up in that. The opening segment when they played the radio commentary as the fire first broke out was gut wrenching. The obvious panic and horror evident on the commentators voice.

 

Absolutely staggering how quickly the fire went from a tiny fire to a huge blazed which engulfed the entire stand.

 

I did laugh at the bit though when one of the survivors told how the plastic surgeon's and nurses decided to give them a day off their treatment, suspending their medication for a day, putting up the guard rails on the hospital beds and letting them bring in alcohol and get pissed on the ward.

[Harry Squatter]

Forgot that was on last night, luckily BT Sport showed that Crazy Gang documentary about 600 times so I'll probably get to see this soon. I remember my Dad putting the telly on and we both say there in disbelief. I've always thought that there was footage of some old fella sitting in his seat while the fire ripped through the stand. I watched the YouTube footage of it a few weeks back but it wasn't in that so i'm not sure whether i originally imagined it. The people who helped were true heroes risking their lives that day. It was scary how quickly the fire escalated.

 

RIP the Bradford fire victims and condolences to their families.

[Pureblood]

The documentary is here.

 

http://sport.bt.com/one-day-in-may-the-story-of-the-bradford-city-fire-91363980609335

[Coro]

Now, knowing the history of fires at previous properties either owned or linked with Heginbotham. that he was allowed to own a football club and leave the ground in such a state is simply mind boggling.

 

'A tinderbox'

 

The fire, which killed 56 people, resulted in Bradford City receiving insurance proceeds and associated grants of £988,000. In today’s adjusted terms that’s £7m. It’s also a bit of a joke that, back in 1985, nobody picked up on the fact that Heginbotham – seemingly a one-man walking nightmare for insurance companies – had already recouped nearly a million pounds (£10m in today’s terms) before his club was rewarded with the further gift of £1.46m (worth £10.25m in today’s money) by the local authority, to take his total fire proceeds from his Bradford firms to £2.74m – or £27m in today’s adjusted terms.

 

[General Dryness]

Amazing Lethal Goals in the last minutes .... With crazy commentators

 

http://goo.gl/divo1p

 

Fucking hell. Whats with all the bot attacks recently?