Theresa May has to recognise that questions over the Bradford fire disaster will not go away

A charge of gross negligence manslaughter had been available but was disregarded

Crowds on the pitch at Valley Parade stadium after the stand caught fire on 11 May 1985. The disaster killed 56 supporters (Rex Features)

You may be unfamiliar with the heartbreaking individual tragedies of the Bradford City disaster, because it has not provoked the same collective sense of outrage and demand for transparency as other events in the 1980s: a time when the quality of policing and football stadiums were both considerably less than satisfactory.

There is the mother whose sons, aged 13 and 11, were led away from the worst of the flames by a traffic warden, who tried to shelter them under his tunic. Their bodies were still nestled in the thick overcoat when it was gently removed from the man, who died with them. The boys’ father perished, too. There was the man burned black, his hair already entirely scorched away from his scalp, who staggered into Bradford Royal Infirmary on that spring day in 1985 and – perhaps to ease the awkwardness of the young police officer lost for words at the sight of him – cracked a joke before being led away for treatment. “Will you tell my wife that I don’t want toast in the morning!” the man said. But he did not live to see the morning. There were the private agonies of junior officers, too. Did you know a 19-year-old led the team identifying the bodies?

Such sorrows were something that the West Yorkshire Police force seemed breathtakingly indifferent to when I asked them, through a Freedom of Information request this summer, what records they had about nine previous fires at companies owned by the Bradford City chairman at the time of the disaster, Stafford Heginbotham, who died in 1995. After a request from the force to accept a smaller scope of information than I had initially asked for, they formally replied by second-class post – 60 days after my enquiry – to say there had been nothing whatsoever in any of their files about Heginbotham.

Last Tuesday, the force confirmed this fact in a meeting with Martin Fletcher, the survivor who lost his brother, father, uncle and grandfather to the fire that claimed 56 victims. It was after the West Yorkshire Police had been shown a 20-page letter sent to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, by Fletcher and his lawyers, Leigh Day, that Detective Superintendent Nick Wallen, head of the force’s homicide and major inquiry team, sat down with him. The force said that the terms of reference of its original 1985 investigation had not included any consideration of criminality: an astonishing admission. They admitted that a charge of gross negligence manslaughter had been available back then but was disregarded.

After last week’s meeting at Westminster’s Portcullis House, which was set up by Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah, the force has voluntarily referred itself to an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation. Fletcher and Shah both say this act is welcome and a sign of enlightened policing. But it is only the first stage in the process of letting light flood in on what was known in 1985; how the investigation was run and what evidence, if any, was missing from that submitted for consideration by Sir Oliver Popplewell’s inquiry into the disaster.

In the second of two letters to May, dated 8 October, Fletcher’s lawyers asked her to acknowledge that the original inquiry could no longer be considered safe, given that Popplewell was unaware of Heginbotham’s history with fires. They requested an independent review into the disaster similar to the Hillsborough Independent Panel and listed 10 institutions which had information which would be relevant to it. May, whose office said a first letter to her requesting this, dated 11 September, had never arrived, replied to the second, observing that “given the complexity of the issues involved” she needs to consult with other Government departments before responding “in due course”. No promises. “In due course” is what the Bradford coroner’s office said when Fletcher asked for information four months ago. He has not heard from the office since.

Politicians and the authorities may be tempted to think they can dissemble, delay and obfuscate because Bradford is so low profile, with only a few of those families whose loved ones died so terribly demanding clarity about the ensuing investigation. Fletcher, whose recent book charting the inadequacies of the investigation, 56 – The Story of the Bradford Fire, was recently shortlisted for the most prestigious literary award of its kind, has been characterised by a section of Bradford fans as a troublemaker who should let it go.

It seems that many families would welcome new answers, though. When Fletcher’s mother attended the memorial service marking the 30th anniversary of the tragedy in May, the relatives of 14 victims approached her. All thanked her for the work her son was doing. And besides, does the moral obligation for a transparent review of the evidence become less compelling simply because the majority are not demanding it? Of course not. “If one family member feels wronged, then it is one family member too many and the reason for an investigation,” Shah tells me, her words echoing what fellow Labour MP Andy Burnham told The Guardian on 17 April.

“This was one of the largest [single] loss of life ever in Yorkshire and one of the biggest tragedies of our time,” Shah adds. “There must be empathy for those who do not want new inquiries, but it is incumbent upon us to be transparent. Perhaps we might not have discovered anything new at the end of this process but at least the families will know then that there is nothing else to take into account.”

True to the usual narrative of the Bradford disaster, news of West Yorkshire’s IPCC referral on Friday hardly reverberated around the nation, though mercifully that is irrelevant because those who want answers have some indomitable allies now. Shah, who was last month appointed to sit on the Home Affairs Select Committee, has been building a strong reputation since her election to Parliament in May. She is an indefatigable campaigner for justice, entering politics after pressing for the release of her mother, who served 14 years in prison for poisoning a local drug dealer at whose hands she had suffered years of abuse.

And then there are the lawyers. Leigh Day have challenged Shell, Trafigura, BP, Xstrata, Anglo American and Unilever, as well as the British and Japanese governments, in the past 10 years, becoming the scourge of the corporates and fierce upholders of human rights. May would be wise to appreciate that the alleged iniquities of the Bradford investigation will not be going away. For the memory of those fathers, sons, uncles, sisters and officers, there is an imperative that it be so.