Sir Norman George Bettison, QPM was born on 3 January 1956 and is a British former police officer and the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.
30 Facts About Norman Bettison
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Norman Bettison resigned in October 2012 amidst controversy about his role in the Hillsborough disaster, in which he was involved in the implementation of a cover-up of police errors.
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Norman Bettison remained the subject of an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation, and was charged on the 28 June 2017 with four counts of misconduct in public office.
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Norman Bettison was born in Rotherham, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 3 January 1956, the son of George Norman Bettison, a steelworker, and Betty Heathcote.
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Norman Bettison said that he attended football matches as a spectator from time to time, following Sheffield Wednesday.
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Norman Bettison described his experience as a 14-year-old boy watching Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City on 22 April 1970 from the Leppings Lane terraces at Hillsborough stadium:.
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Norman Bettison attended South Grove Comprehensive School before leaving at the age of 16 to join South Yorkshire Police as a cadet.
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Norman Bettison is a graduate of the FBI Executive Programme.
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Norman Bettison began his police career in 1975 when, at the age of 19, he joined South Yorkshire Police as a Constable.
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Norman Bettison served through its ranks, acting as a Superintendent in the Traffic Division from October 1989 to January 1991, whilst simultaneously working in the Hillsborough disaster liaison unit; as Superintendent in the Divisional Commander's office from January 1991 to April 1992; and as Chief Superintendent in the Corporate Development unit from April 1992 to May 1993.
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Norman Bettison left West Yorkshire in 1998 to become Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, covering the area where most of the Hillsborough victims had lived and still had relatives living.
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Norman Bettison offered to meet the families to defuse the controversy.
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Norman Bettison retired from the police in January 2005 to become Chief Executive of Centrex, which provided training and development to police forces in the UK and enforcement agencies throughout the world until it was abolished in March 2007.
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Norman Bettison rejoined the police service in January 2007 as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.
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Norman Bettison attempted to secure a package to receive both a retirement pension from Merseyside and a salary from the new post; he threatened legal action but the claim was settled out of court.
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Shortly after taking office as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, Sir Norman Bettison ordered a review of shifts worked by officers claiming they did not provide the best service to the public as they included four rest days when officers were not at work.
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In October 2008, Norman Bettison was touted as a possible replacement for Sir Ian Blair as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but ruled himself out of consideration citing the politicisation of the role and the way Blair was removed.
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Norman Bettison criticized the notion, in the National Health Service and other government bureaus, that public sector organisations had to offer wages for senior managers comparable to those for private industry, or that businesspeople should be brought in to conduct strategic reviews of public agencies.
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Norman Bettison subsequently left his seat and joined in the South Yorkshire Police efforts to control the unfolding disaster.
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Norman Bettison has been asked to explain how exactly his role was peripheral, what exactly his role was, who he was answerable to, and what he did for the two-year period.
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On 12 July 1990, Norman Bettison prepared and submitted a document for the Hillsborough contribution hearings, the civil court case through which the police sought to recover damages from other parties with liability such as the football club and stadium engineers.
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On 13 September 2012 former Home Secretary Jack Straw said in a radio interview that Norman Bettison was "bound to be considering his position".
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Norman Bettison added that in his experience Bettison was a fine police officer.
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Later that same day, Norman Bettison was referred to the West Yorkshire Police Authority, over his role and post-disaster conduct at the Hillsborough disaster.
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On 23 October 2012, Norman Bettison resigned with immediate effect as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, after Maria Eagle MP on the floor of the House and thus protected by Parliamentary privilege, accused him of boasting about the Hillsborough cover-up operation involving concocting a story that all the Liverpool fans were drunk and that police were afraid that they were going to break down the gates and so decided to open them.
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Norman Bettison denied the claim, and more general allegations about his conduct, saying "there is nothing I'm ashamed of".
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Norman Bettison is to be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over allegations that he was involved in the theft of a substantial quantity of precious metal on 11 August 1987.
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Norman Bettison was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University in 2004.
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Liverpool John Moores University came under pressure to rescind Norman Bettison's fellowship, following the publication of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.
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Norman Bettison was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of the University by the University of Huddersfield in 2012.