House of Lords · Unanimous; Lords Keith, Ackner, Oliver, Jauncey and Lowry
Facts
On 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, police allowed too many Liverpool supporters into the central pens, causing a crush in which ninety-five people died and many were injured. The Chief Constable of South Yorkshire admitted that the police had been negligent towards those killed or injured. The plaintiffs were relatives and friends of people in the stands who developed psychiatric illness. Some were at the ground, some watched the events on live television or heard them on the radio, and some identified bodies at the mortuary many hours later.
History
Hidden J found for some of the plaintiffs. The Court of Appeal allowed the Chief Constable's appeal and rejected the claims, and ten plaintiffs appealed to the House of Lords.
Issue
What conditions must be met by a secondary victim, who is not himself in danger, to recover damages in negligence for a recognised psychiatric illness caused by the death or injury of another person.
Held
The appeals were dismissed. None of the plaintiffs satisfied the requirements for a duty of care to a secondary victim.
Ratio
- A secondary victim of psychiatric injury can recover only where there was a close tie of love and affection with the primary victim, which is presumed for parent and child and for spouses but must otherwise be proved, the claimant was close in time and space to the event or its immediate aftermath, and the illness was caused by the claimant's own unaided perception of the event or its immediate aftermath.
- Reasonable foreseeability of psychiatric illness is necessary but not sufficient, since policy-based control mechanisms are needed to limit the range of claimants and avoid indeterminate liability.
The judgments
Lord Ackner (concurring)
Identified the requirements of a sufficiently close relationship, proximity in time and space to the event or its immediate aftermath, and direct perception by the claimant's own unaided senses. Held that a simultaneous television broadcast was not equivalent to being present, and that viewing broadcast pictures was not the event or its aftermath.
Lord Oliver (concurring)
Reviewed the authorities and explained why foreseeability alone was inadequate, treating the relationship, proximity in time and space, and the means by which the shock was caused as the elements of proximity limiting the duty.
Lord Keith (concurring)
Agreed that the claims failed and that the limits on the duty were justified by the need to restrict liability, and that the broadcasts did not amount to the necessary direct perception.
Lords Jauncey and Lowry (concurring)
Agreed that the appeals should be dismissed for the reasons given.
Key reasoning
- McLoughlin v O'Brian [1983] 1 AC 410 recognised that claimants must have close ties and be close to the event or its aftermath, and the House now treated those factors as limiting a duty which foreseeability alone would extend too far.
- For relationships outside those presumed, such as siblings or a fiance, the claimant must prove a tie of love and affection, and several plaintiffs failed to do so or were not in a relationship close enough to qualify.
- Live television pictures did not show the suffering of recognisable individuals, given the broadcasting guidelines, and were not the equivalent of being present or of the immediate aftermath; identifying a body at the mortuary many hours after the disaster was too remote from it.
Obiter
- Their Lordships doubted whether a mere bystander with no tie to the victims could recover, other than perhaps in a case of a catastrophe so horrific that it would shock a person of ordinary fortitude.
Where it fits in the module
On the FHS Tort list under psychiatric injury. Alcock is the fixed point of the secondary victim rules: tie of love and affection, proximity in time and space, and direct perception, with a recognisable psychiatric illness induced by shock. It is the base for the debate whether the control mechanisms are principled or arbitrary, and for the contrast with primary victims in Page v Smith and with the rescuer and employee claims in White. Recent consideration of how far the rules extend appears in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1, which confirmed that the Alcock criteria require an accident and declined to extend liability to medical negligence cases.
Criticisms
- The control mechanisms are arbitrary: the presumption of a close tie for some relationships but not others, and the exclusion of broadcast perception, treat similar suffering differently and do not follow from foreseeability.
- The requirement of a sudden shock excludes psychiatric illness caused by the gradual realisation of a loved one's fate, a distinction that has little to do with the claimant's suffering or the defendant's fault.
- Fear of indeterminate liability is asserted as the justification for the limits, without evidence that floodgates would open, and the technology of modern communication makes the requirement of unaided senses increasingly artificial.
Written with AI (claude-sonnet-5.5 (Claude Code writer)) on 1 November 2026, reviewed for errors by a second model (claude-sonnet-5.5 (Claude Code checker)). Read the case itself at [1992] 1 AC 310. Spotted an error? Tell us.