Bradford fire - interview with Oliver Popplewell

Speechless. I know that for him to admit to making a mistake of that magnitude must be difficult, but even so.......

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

 

Not sure what you think his mistake was? His job as head of the inquiry was to assess the evidence brought before him at the time by local authority, police, fire services, and others and to draw appropriate conclusions. To badger a bloke who's now nearly 90 on the basis of information that wasn't presented 30 years ago seems pretty pointless to me. Yes - the insinuations in Martin Fletcher's book might be worthy of a further look by the authorities, and if that disclosed anything, to bring further civil or criminal proceedings as appropriate. (Clearly Higginbotham is beyond the scope of prosecution). But Fletcher stops short of presenting any actual evidence, and merely invites the reader to draw certain conclusions. The day we start convicting people of serious criminal offences on that basis will be a worrying one. Popplewell has been retired for over 15 years, and wouldn't be allowed to reopen his inquiry even if he wanted to do so.

 

Based on the evidence available at the time, his judgement may well have been - and still be - justified. However, he fully admits that the number of fires to happen to Higginbotham is highly suspicious, and these were not taken into account at the original enquiry. Obviously such evidence is only circumstantial, but as somebody (I can't remember who) once said - if something happens twice, it's a coincidence. If a coincidence happens more than twice then it is no longer a coincidence, or words to that effect. I feel that whilst Popplewell acknowledges that the pattern of fires leading up to the Bradford tragedy was unusual to say the least, at the same time he dismisses their significance in connection with it - it comes across as extremely arrogant, at least in the written interview.

 

It comes across as someone trying to defend a position when under attack to me.

It really isn't Popplewell's fault that the other fires were not brought to the inquiry. If the interviewer is looking for someone to blame in that regard he should be chasing the investigators who supplied the evidence not the man who sat in judgement. Popplewell cannot decide what is presented to him during the inquiry, he can only rule on what the witnesses say.

As far as the mistakes he's made in recent interviews and letters are concerned... if I reach the age of '87 (which I won't) I'll be well proud of myself if I can remember my own name and get through the day without shitting my pants, never mind recall the exact details of something that happened 30 years ago. We don't learn anything from testing the memory of an octogenarian, other than highlighting that the interviewer maybe isn't showing the respect that he should.

I always believed the Bradford fire was a terrible accident, due in large part to what Popplewell describes in that interview, ie that football grounds at that time were a disgrace. I'm still inclined to believe that as I struggle to get my head around the alternative. I can believe that a football chairman would burn their own stand down for the insurance, but not when it was full of people. However, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. People are capable of some monstrous things. The revelations about all the other fires should prompt a new investigation. Although coincidences work both ways. Even if Stafford Heginbotham is responsible for all the other fires, it doesn't mean he's responsible for this one. You can be the world's biggest arsonist and end up being caught in a fire that was not of your doing. We have a phrase for that too - poetic justice.

If the powers that be want to re-investigate what happened, I'm all for that. But I don't see what good it does questioning the judge on the initial inquiry when the evidence that has come to light wasn't presented to him. Particularly as he's now close to 90. I'm not surprised in the slightest a man with limited time left is trying to defend his legacy.

 

I think it's reasonable to question his judgement at bext, given that he was the original "Mr Justice Cocklecarrot".

 

He was at uni at the same time as me about 10 years ago as a (very) mature student. I met him and he was still incredibly sharp and a fairly nice bloke. I've realised this doesn't really add much to the discussion, but I've already typed it now

 

I'm inclined to agree that the interviewer comes across as being quite aggressive, at least on paper. Although as I alluded to in my previous post, the written word can convey significantly different nuances to what was intended when the actual words were spoken.

What seems to come across is that Popplewell interprets the suggestion that a new enquiry might be valid as an accusation that the original enquiry was somehow lacking in integrity, which I don't think is the case, and nor should it be. But just because something was done with integrity, it doesn't necessarily mean that it reached the correct conclusions.

 

I cannot believe that this was arson, but it looks as though that is not what Martin Fletcher is insinuating. I DO find it hard to understand why there was not a more immediate response as soon as the fire broke out and at the time that it appeared to be manageable and could have been controlled. There are pictures of two police officers standing guard over the fire and telling people to go away, some of whom obviously wanted to see if they could help put it out. I recall one City fan saying on a tv interview that he approached the officers and asked if he could do anything to help put it out and was told to go away. That's the part which baffles me.

 

Doesn't baffle me that. The police's job in that situation is to protect the public and in all honesty there was nothing anyone with a fire hose was gonna do about that fire given that within 2 minutes it had caught the roof and 2 minutes later the stand had burnt down. It was too late to consider putting it out and efforts concentrated solely on evacuation of the area. The police made a judgement call on that and it was the right one.