The NAMES of up to 2,444 police officers could be considered in connection with the Hillsborough disaster, it has been revealed.
Staff from the Independent Police Complaints Commission appeared before a Parliamentary committee to give details of its investigation into the force.
It had initially been reported that the names of 1,444 officers had been passed to the IPCC as part of the probe.
But IPCC chief executive Jane Furniss told MPs 1,000 more names are expected.
The Home Affairs Select Committee was also told Sir Norman Bettison’s resignation as chief constable of West Yorkshire Police would not stop any investigation into his conduct after the tragedy.
The IPCC and the Director of Public Prosecutions are both conducting inquiries into the disaster.
Margaret Aspinall, of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, said the extra names were ‘a concern’ as they could ‘delay everything for the families who are desperate to see closure on this’.
She said: “I am concerned about where these extra names have come from – if there’s another 1,000, have they found something we don’t know about? If there were only 800 people on duty on that day, where have they all come from?”
The investigations were prompted by the Independent Hillsborough Panel Report, which found police and emergency services had made ‘strenuous attempts’ to deflect the blame for the disaster - in which 96 people died - on to fans.
The independent panel revealed 164 police statements had been altered – 116 of them to remove or change negative comments about the policing of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Sheffield stadium in April 1989.
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