A PROFESSOR who gave evidence at the Hillsborough trial claims he warned police of an “identical” incident which happened eight years before the tragedy.

Norman Fenton, a risk management director at Queen Mary University, believes the Hillsborough tragedy, which saw 96 fans killed during a Liverpool v Nottingham Forest match in 1989, could have been prevented if police had listened when they questioned him the first time.

He told the Tottenham Independent he was working as the secretary of the Sheffield Spurs Supporters Society in 1981 when he witnessed a “near miss crush” outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles.

He saw a congestion building but a “quick thinking” steward opened a gate onto the pitch which saved everybody.

Although nobody was killed, Mr Fenton believes it was a warning police should have picked up on to prevent the same thing happening again.

Meanwhile, he believes the outcome of the inquest yesterday, which held police officers accountable for the deaths, was “justice” for the families.

Mr Fenton said: “They came to the correct conclusion, as it was a police error.

“Our supporters society had already warned the police of the near miss incident in 1981 but yet the exact same thing happened again only a few years later.”

Mr Fenton said he was approached in 2014 to provide information at the new Hillsborough inquest, but his evidence was not used when he was questioned by the police after the first incident.

He believes if the authorities had listened the first time, the “same mistakes” would not have happened.

He said: “We had written to the Football Association and complained, so they knew exactly what had happened before but made all the same mistakes again.”