Court case[1992] 1 AC 310

On 15 April 1989 an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was played at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. The South Yorkshire police, responsible for crowd control, allowed an excessive number of spectators into already full pens behind one goal; 95 people were crushed to death and several hundred were injured. The events were broadcast live on television, though in accordance with broadcasting guidelines no recognisable individuals were shown suffering or dying. The police admitted negligence towards those killed and injured. Sixteen claimants who had suffered psychiatric illness sued: they were parents, brothers, a brother-in-law, a fiance and other relatives or friends of the victims. Some were in other parts of the stadium, some watched on live television or heard radio reports, and some went to the mortuary to identify bodies some eight or more hours later.

The House of Lords dismissed all the claims. Lord Oliver distinguished primary victims, involved as participants in the event, from secondary victims, who are no more than passive and unwilling witnesses of injury to others. A secondary victim can recover only if psychiatric injury to a person of ordinary fortitude was foreseeable and he satisfies three conditions: a close tie of love and affection with the person killed or injured, which is presumed for parents and children and spouses (and may be for fiances) but must otherwise be proved; proximity in time and space to the accident or its immediate aftermath; and perception of the accident or its aftermath by his own unaided senses. Watching the live broadcast was not equivalent to being present, since no identifiable individuals were shown; identification at the mortuary some eight hours later was outside the immediate aftermath. The claimants failed on one or more of these conditions; the brothers and brother-in-law had not proved the required closeness.