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    The 1985 Valley Parade fire

    NHH wrote: Martin Fletcher keeps coming back to a strong plastic smell in the area of the fire's first appearrance, which he doesn't believe was investigated; the suggestion is that this could have been an accelerant.
    Hm. Well, no evidence of an accelerant was found by the investigators. And Czes Pachela referred to a cigarette and a plastic cup when he was interviewed at the time. Reported by Associated Press - there's an online archive of the Galveston Times that carries the AP piece: http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/36357310/

    Czes Pachela, who escaped with his 5-year-old daughter Joanne, said he had told police he saw the -"pure accident" that led to the inferno. Pachela said he was sitting in the Valley Parade grandstand ^Saturday and noticed three men , nearby drinking from plastic cups. ,.He believed one of them dropped a I. cigarette butt in a cup and then he smelled burning plastic. "One of the men said, 'My mate ,has set something alight.' Then , one of them got down and was crawling about on his hands and knees as if he was looking for something," Pachela said. "I saw flames under the floorboards. They had spread quickly before the smoke became visible. Then an orange,flame appeared and it flared very quickly," he said.

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      The 1985 Valley Parade fire

      Impressive sock-puppetry. Have you considered a job in the Conservative Party?

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        The 1985 Valley Parade fire

        In this Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/15/bradford-fire-stafford-heginbotham-martin-fletcher there's a list of the eight fires at "business premises either owned by, or connected to, Stafford Heginbotham". For some of these buildings, the connection is apparently that Heginbotham had previously owned them. I.e., he didn't own them (and wouldn't benefit from any insurance payout) at the time of the fire. See Wintersgill here: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/17/bradford-fire-disaster-scousers-had-an-injustice-we-havent or James Heginbotham on Claret & Banter.

        Fletcher asks "Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?"

        The answer appears to be "not half as unlucky as you've been making out".

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          The 1985 Valley Parade fire

          From that sort of article-ish you linked to:

          The first of these three was at the five-storey Douglas Mills on Manchester road in 1977.
          Which of the two 1977 fires at Douglas Mills does this refer to?

          Two further fires, in 1981 and 1982 or 1983, hit a single-storey unit next to Douglas Mills occupied by a company called AB Plastics. Heginbotham had sold the unit by the time it went up in flames, according to Wintersgill.
          There's nothing in the list of 8 in 1982 or 1983.

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            The 1985 Valley Parade fire

            The main problem with the arson theory is that there is not a shred of evidence that the fire was deliberately set. None of the investigators found any traces of incendiary devices or accelerants. No plausible theory as to how the fire could have been deliberately started has been put forward.

            It is clear from the relevant section of Martin Fletcher's book that he also has no theory as to how the fire was started. He points out the rather muddled witness statements that were offered to the inquiry and how these are occasionally at odds with what was reported in the press (e.g. Czes Pachella, in his evidence at the inquiry, denied having seen anybody stubbing out cigarettes in a plastic cup) but no alternative explanation is offered. Instead, he resorts to some rather ill-advised innuendo about the people who were sat in the area where the fire first appeared:

            [I've removed the names although they are mentioned in the book]

            Rereading the testimony, it seemed about half the occupants of the seats identified by Popplewell were not regular Bradford fans, but normal people who had just decided to come to the game to celebrate Bradford's promotion. Both [A] and [B] had emigrated to Australia 20 years earlier and were now visiting relatives in Bradford. Although neither had followed the club when they lived locally, they told the inquiry they were keen to see the presentation they'd read about, and they had got tickets to a sold-out stand on the morning of the match, but took none of their relatives with them.

            ...

            Then, after all other supporter testimony was heard on the opening day of the inquiry, on its penultimate day a [C] was called. He'd bought a ticket the week before, and he arrived too late, and for some reason he was directed by a steward, through a sold-out stand, not to his seat in C Block, but to an empty seat J141, in the supposedly sold-out G Block. There, a fire started beneath him just minutes later.

            ...

            I think the police should have confronted potential suspects with anomalies, contrasting what they said with what was possible, from inconsistent information.
            Yet the reason that police did not confront "potential suspects" is that they had no reason to believe that a crime had been committed. Martin Fletcher obviously did not see it that way, but the result is a chapter that is just a mess - it leaps from inconsistent eyewitness statements, to a cursory discussion of the scientific analysis of the fire and then back to the list of fires supposedly connected to Heginbotham. He clearly believes that Heginbotham was responsible so every single thing relating to the investigation is tied back to this point, ignoring the fact that nothing in the investigation actually points to arson.

            A lot of the discussion on both sides has focused on the question of motive. Was Heginbotham linked to the earlier fires or not? Did the old stand have insurance value or was it worthless? This seems to me to be missing the point. Unless there is substantial new evidence regarding the actual cause of the fire, then all talk of why it might have been set deliberately is irrelevant. As things stand, this is a motive in search of a crime.

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              The 1985 Valley Parade fire

              Given that Heginbotham had been warned by the council, and the Health and Safety executive (twice) about the deathdrap nature of the accumulated paper underneath the stand, why does he need accelerant? If NHH's theory (that if the fire is too look like an accident, it can only happen when people are there) is correct, then accelerant is the last thing that you want.

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                The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                CR - I disagree; what comes out from Fletcher's book most strongly is that the investigation wasn't very thorough at all - there was no mock-up built to test whatever theory was proposed by investigators and the suspicion is that any investigation was much more perfunctory than it should have been given it was the biggest disaster in West Yorkshire's history, never mind the suspicion of Heginbotham.

                What emerges is that a series of incompetent agencies were given a narrow brief for political reasons, having all agreed in advance that it seemed like a case of a fire and many of them were variously interested in that line of argument. The Fire authority had been woefully incompetent in using their powers to ensure the ground was safe, for example.

                None of that says that anyone was engaged in a conspiracy but that in that context, it leaves an awful lot of unanswered questions in the light of the deeply odd behaviour of Heginbotham in the days afterwards, and his background.

                I'd agree the sections where Fletcher tries to reconstruct what happened on the day are a little confused (I'm still unclear the provenance of the chapter on whether doors were locked or opened, other than that the continued mystery shows what a dog's breakfast the Inquiry was and how useless Popplewell was when compared to a Lord Justice Taylor) but given the remaining evidence is so piss-poor, that's to be expected. He'll unlikely land a blow, but hopefully, the discussion of this will tease out what always happens in these cases, where various people have been holding little pieces of the puzzle to themselves, and a process of revelation enables them to be brought together to create a new picture that was previously unavailable.

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                  The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                  NHH wrote: CR - I disagree; what comes out from Fletcher's book most strongly is that the investigation wasn't very thorough at all - there was no mock-up built to test whatever theory was proposed by investigators and the suspicion is that any investigation was much more perfunctory than it should have been given it was the biggest disaster in West Yorkshire's history, never mind the suspicion of Heginbotham.

                  What emerges is that a series of incompetent agencies were given a narrow brief for political reasons, having all agreed in advance that it seemed like a case of a fire and many of them were variously interested in that line of argument. The Fire authority had been woefully incompetent in using their powers to ensure the ground was safe, for example.

                  None of that says that anyone was engaged in a conspiracy but that in that context, it leaves an awful lot of unanswered questions in the light of the deeply odd behaviour of Heginbotham in the days afterwards, and his background.

                  I'd agree the sections where Fletcher tries to reconstruct what happened on the day are a little confused (I'm still unclear the provenance of the chapter on whether doors were locked or opened, other than that the continued mystery shows what a dog's breakfast the Inquiry was and how useless Popplewell was when compared to a Lord Justice Taylor) but given the remaining evidence is so piss-poor, that's to be expected. He'll unlikely land a blow, but hopefully, the discussion of this will tease out what always happens in these cases, where various people have been holding little pieces of the puzzle to themselves, and a process of revelation enables them to be brought together to create a new picture that was previously unavailable.
                  Couldn't agree more. Ultimately no one is going to find the answer just sitting there on Google. A proper inquiry needs to take place which is methodical and weighs all the evidence. It is quite clear the original investigation was seriously flawed and this needs to be rectified.

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                    The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                    Expert calls for new investigation.

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                      The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                      That is very interesting stuff CR from the book.

                      The fan [C] who turns up with a ticket for another part of the stand, is directed to another seat by a steward and then the fire starts directly below... It almost seems too fishy.

                      Through reading the Popplewell and the Telegraph & Argus article from the cop who supposedly interviewed the man it is very easy to connect the dots and figure out who they are referring to as the culprit - who in this scenario would infact be the patsy.

                      I don't recall reading any account of events in the Popplewell report that matches the description of what [C] experienced. Perhaps Fletcher had access to full statements that were not included in the final report.

                      I found it hard to believe the starting a fire during the match would be the plan, but as mentioned if there were no buildings or electrics it would need to happen during the game or shortly after to be believable.

                      In that case you would assume the plan was the fire would start slowly under the stand and as it was hard to get to would have had time to spread but also spread slowly enough for people to get out. Then, of course, it took hold faster and the roof catching flame led to disaster. There was a lot of talk about the fire risk of the litter but I wonder if any of the fire service evaluation's had mentioned the materials in the roofing. Could be that any plan to set the wooden stands alight had simply not taken into account just how devastating things would be if the roof caught fire before everybody got out.

                      The timing at 43 minutes would also mean that a fire started just before half time and expected to burn slowly would then catch hold during halftime when a lot of people had already headed to the snack bar - I wasn't a match goer in those days. Would people in a main stand leave their seats in as large numbers as they do today? At least they would be more likely to leave their seats at HT rather than during the game.

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                        The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                        Fuck me...

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                          The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                          NHH wrote: Fuck me...
                          Jesus. What an incompetent, arrogant tosser.

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                            The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                            If the bloke who carried out a half arsed and incompetent investigation says there's nothing to see here then that's good enough for me.

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                              The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                              Mr Beast wrote: If the bloke who carried out a half arsed and incompetent investigation says there's nothing to see here then that's good enough for me.
                              I think it's disgraceful for the reporter to be badgering a kindly old gentlemen in such a manner.

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                                The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                                What a nasty, arrogant shitbox Popplewell is.

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                                  The 1985 Valley Parade fire

                                  I'd like to know more about the claim that someone was alerted to the fire at 15h30 and told to open the gates.

                                  I know the Popplewell mentions that some fans were aware of a fire or a dropped cigarette starting a blaze under the stand before it really took firm hold.

                                  Could be that those events occurred 10-15 minutes before the police were actually alerted at 15h40, but I highly doubt there would ever be a case where a fan has mentioned to a steward that there might be an element of danger and immediately the gates have been opened. Plus it had been mentioned in the Popplewell that fear of folk coming in for free meant they were taking special care to keep the doors shut.

                                  Popplewell also claims he never heard any report of the smell of plastic burning...

                                  From the 'Popplewell' Report:

                                  "1.22 Other witnesses in the area noticed that there was a smell of smoke which they variously described as the smell of plastic burning, and of cigarette/pipe smoke."

                                  You would think, given that the validity of his work was being discussed in the press that he would at least take the time to re-read his own report before agreeing to be interviewed - it wouldn't take long.

                                  A decent, honest person would surely - while, naturally, a little stung by the criticism - read Fletcher's book and consider the evident discrepancies. His approach is just sheer arrogance or something more sinister.

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