by CAROLINE COOLEY Trevor Hicks, the former Hatch End resident whose daughters died in the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, has condemned the appointment of a former South Yorkshire police office as Chief Constable of Merseyside.

Mr Hicks, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group and who now lives in Yorkshire, last week slammed the appointment of Norman Bettison as insensitive.

"Our case, quite simply, is that Mr Bettison was an active member of a team involved in attempting to shift the blame for the tragedy from South Yorkshire police very much on to the people whom you represent," Mr Hicks told members of Merseyside police authority.

As a chief inspector, Mr Bettison was a member of a team set up in the aftermath of the disaster which killed 96 Liverpool fans.

Among the dead were Victoria and Sarah Hicks who were on the Hillsborough terraces. Their father was elsewhere in the ground and saw the tragedy unfold.

"You have made an insensitive and unacceptable decision," Mr Hicks told the police authority. "You appear to be out of touch with the people you represent."

Relatives of Hillsborough victims are demanding his Mr Bettison does not take the job, which he is due to start on Monday.

Mr Hicks began a private prosecution against the police in the summer after Home secretary Jack Straw rejected demands for a new probe into the tragedy, despite a report published earlier this year which criticised the South Yorkshire force for lying about what had happened.

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