Murray Stuart-Smith

Murray Stuart-Smith is a former English barrister and judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. He is known for his controversial reexamination and affirmation of Lord Peter Taylor, Baron Taylor of Gosforth's inquiry on the Hillsborough disaster.

Stuart-Smith graduated from Corpus Christi College, after which he was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1978. In 1995, he became an assistant recorder and a full recorder in 1997. In 1997, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel. In his legal career, he has dealt with issues including tort and insurance contracts, technical disputes, contractual interpretation, duties of care, and common law remedies. Stuart-Smith was appointed as deputy High Court judge in 2010 and was appointed to the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court in 2012. In 2014, he became a presiding judge of the South Eastern Circuit.

The Hillsborough disaster was a crowd crush that occurred on April 15, 1989 during a soccer game at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The crush occurred after an exit gate––Gate C––was opened in an attempt to alleviate overcrowding outside the stadium's entrance turnstiles. The policemen in charge believed a crowd crush was about to happen outside and thought that opening the gate would reduce the risk. The gate was opened with no direction or regard to where the new crowd of people would disperse. Naturally, the people let in through the gate continued to move straight ahead through an unblocked tunnel leading to an open set of pens––Pens 3 and 4––outside the center field. The pens were already filled with people, and with nowhere else to go and unable to turn back, the incoming crowd continued to file into them. Police were typically stationed at the entrance of the tunnel outside the gate to redirect people to side pens when the two pens down the tunnel were full; due to a host of issues including inexperienced officers and a lack of communication, the tunnel was not being monitored. The pens were quickly bursting at the seams with people. Within minutes, the crowd crush began and many people inside the pens were overwhelmed by compressive asphyxia. A total of ninety-six people died in the crush.

The Taylor Report, created by Lord Peter Taylor, was a result of the Taylor Inquiry––an investigation into the cause of the crush––which took place over the course of thirty-one days, beginning on May 15, 1989. The report concluded that the crush was caused by

• the opening of Gate C and subsequent police failure to block off access to Pens 3 and 4;
• overcrowding in the pens before the gate was opened, caused by a lack of crowd monitoring; and
• collapse of a barrier in Pen 3 and the small number of gates on the fencing, which hindered rescue attempts.

In the report, Taylor placed most of the blame on the police's lack of crowd control. While they were to blame for the catalyst of the crush––the opening of Gate C––the Taylor Report was later perceived to have unduly placed all responsibility on the police and did not acknowledge the failures of other entities involved that may have also contributed to the crush.

In 1997, an independent scrutiny of the Hillsborough disaster and Taylor Inquiry was announced, with Stuart-Smith leading it. The scrutiny was limited to reviewing new evidence only, a factor that was criticized for not really being "scrutiny." It did allow families of the deceased to view prior evidence that had never been released to them, including various statements that were found to be altered and would therefore invalidate the findings of the prior investigation. However, it was deemed that this was not new evidence that would be admissible in court, even though it was new to the families and clearly invalidating. Stuart-Smith eventually determined that the Taylor Inquiry was fair and thorough.

In his findings, Stuart-Smith stated the following:

I have come to the clear conclusion that there is no basis upon which there should be a further Judicial Inquiry or a reopening of Lord Taylor's Inquiry. There is no basis for a renewed application to the Divisional Court or for the Attorney General to exercise his powers under the Coroners Act 1988. I do not consider that there is any material which should be put before the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Police Complaints Authority which might cause them to reconsider the decisions they have already taken. Nor do I consider that there is any justification for setting up any further inquiry into the performance of the emergency and hospital services. I have considered the circumstances in which alterations were made to some of the self-written statements of South Yorkshire Police officers, but I do not consider that there is any occasion for any further investigation.