Forensic expert who attended 7/7 bombings says Shoreham air disaster site 'like a bomb scene'

When Dr Julie Roberts was called to attend the Shoreham air disaster, she could never have predicted the devastation that awaited her. A decade earlier she had forensically combed through the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, a series of blasts that shook London and left 56 dead and more than 800 injured. Now, stood on the A27 in West Sussex, she was greeted with a similar scene. Chaos and debris from pilot Andrew Hill's Hawker Hunter jet lay strewn across the dual carriageway after it slammed into the tarmac, sending a fireball raging down the road. And somewhere amid the twisted wreckage were the remains of 11 men who lost their lives when Mr Hill failed to pull out of an acrobatic loop-the-loop stunt. Today, in her first interview since the 2015 disaster, Dr Roberts told how the crime scene was more akin to a terror attack. The forensic anthropologist said: "With the Shoreham Air Crash it was comparable in some ways to a bomb scene." She added: "The first thing that struck me was the scale of it really. Debris everywhere. Bits of aeroplane all over the dual carriageway, fuel spillage, cars, bicycles, lots of broken trees. "It was apparent from the early stages of the operation that multiple individuals had died as a result of the plane crash, but we didn't know how many. There were obviously a lot of people there, hundreds of officers, all trying to make order out of the chaos. "The weather at Shoreham was really challenging. Heavy, heavy rainfall in the two days that immediately followed the incident. Difficult working conditions but also not great in terms of preservation. "We can learn a lot even from very small fragments of bone or smaller body parts. We can determine biological sex; we can work out what their living height was. We can see any injuries on the bone. And ultimately determine the cause of death. "So one of the things that myself and my colleague did was to go around the site trying to limit the amount of further damage to any remains - you can't make it better but you can make it worse. So we covered them over." In the days that followed, Dr Roberts' team collected more than 1,250 separate remains. In an intricate forensic operation, DNA and dental records were used to identify those who had lost their lives. But each night before they left the disaster site, her team of experts would pay a haunting tribute to the dead. Dr Roberts said: "I was working on site on the A27 for probably about 10 days I think, prior to moving into the mortuary. "Once I'd relocated to the mortuary in Brighton, we started the actual examination process. Documenting and describing the body parts and also taking the DNA samples as well. At the end of each day when the remains were taken off site for transfer to the mortuary, we always had a little ceremony, if you like. "All personnel who were working on site would form a corridor and the remains would be driven down the corridor with a funeral director walking up front so everybody got the opportunity to pay their respects to the deceased before they left site. "Seeing the victims as people is incredibly important and we should never ever forget that when we're working in this field." Former British Airways pilot Mr Hill was attempting a loop manoeuvre in the vintage jet when he crashed on Saturday August 22, 2015. The 1950s aircraft broke into four parts, destroying eight vehicles on the dual carriageway in West Sussex. Mr Hill, 62, of Sandon, Herts, survived after being thrown clear but spent a week in an induced coma. As well as the 11 fatalities, a further 13 people were injured in the deadliest air show incident in the UK for more than 50 years. Despite desperate efforts to find those who had perished in the disaster, it took weeks to formally identify the victims. But within hours of the tragedy, families believed to have been affected were allowed to visit the scene. Among them was Caroline Schilt, 64, and her husband Bob, 73, whose son Jacob, 23, was killed in the inferno as he travelled to play football with his friend Matthew Grimstone, 23. Speaking as a new documentary - due to be broadcast on Channel 5 - examines the tragedy, Bob said: "We could see the car Jacob was travelling in under a yellow tarpaulin. What was powerful about it was that we were able to contextualise, not rationalise it, but contextualise it. "It brings it home to you and by that time, I think we were certain we were going to do everything we could to see everything we could, to kind of bear witness to it. From our point of view, it was a completely earth shattering event. It completely destroyed our family, along with many other families." Caroline said: "It was important for us to see the scene. What really touched me was that at the end of each day, after the forensic team had been doing all this painstaking collecting, that they then formed a corridor as the vehicles drove off to the mortuary. They paid their respects as the vehicles left. It was incredible, because no families were there to watch it, they did it becauyse that's how they felt about it." And Denise Morriss, the sister of victim Mark Reeves, 53, said: "I think it was on the Tuesday after the [crash] we were all taken to observe the scene. You could see where every vehicle was, every - It was as it was. "Obviously that made it very real. But they still couldn't say they'd identified Mark's body. You are left in a moment of limbo. You can’t have a scenario like this happen and not want to know everything they’re capable of finding out. "I just wanted to know that Mark Died instantly. I wanted to know that he wouldn't have wouldn't have seen it coming. Wouldn't have had fear, wouldn't have known anything." Over the next seven years, after their loved ones were finally identified, the Shoreham families faced a desperate search for answers as watchdogs, police and the coroner carried out their own investigations. In its final report on the disaster, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) listed a series of failings including poor risk assessments. The AAIB criticised risk assessments which did not adequately protect people in areas "outside the control of the organisers". And the report said the risk assessment "was not suitable and sufficient to manage the risks to the public". It also said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was not required to see or approve risk assessments before issuing a permission to hold a flying display. The AAIB made 31 safety recommendations for the CAA and one for the government. In 2022, a coroner ruled all 11 who died were unlawfully killed and blamed Mr Hill's poor flying. But he was cleared of 11 counts of gross negligence manslaughter charges during a trial at the Old Bailey. The jury acquitted him of 11 counts of manslaughter after hearing he was cognitively impaired during the flight. It emerged that the year before the disaster, Mr Hill flouted CAA rules banning pilots from flying over Lancing College as he performed at Shoreham. During a practice run at Duxford in 2014, he flew just 200ft over the M11 - 300ft below the minimum level. And in the same year at the Southport airshow, Mr Hill was given a rare "stop" call from air traffic control for flying just 75ft above spectators. He was interviewed by the CAA and put on a "watch list". Mr Hill blamed the error on cloud and "goldfish bowl" conditions. It meant Mr Hill retained his flying licence and was free to pilot the Hawker Hunter jet when it slammed into the A27 a decade ago. Denise said: "As a relative of someone, you've just lost someone because of their actions, you want blame, you want someone to take responsibility for what's happened." She added: "Your life goes on and you try to dwell more on all your happy memories and all the lovely things and all the things that I loved about Mark." But despite the devastation, the families now have a shared bond. Anthony Mallinson, who lost his father, retired engineer James Graham Mallinson, 72, in the disaster, said: "Us 11 families, we've now become a collaborative group of families that look after one another and can support one another in good times and bad times." The Shoreham air disaster claimed the lives of Anthony Brightwell, 53, from Hove; Daniele Polito, 23, from Goring-by-Sea; Dylan Archer, 42, from Brighton; Jacob Schilt, 23, from Brighton; James Mallinson, 72, from Newick; Mark Reeves, 53, from Seaford; Mark Trussler, 54, from Worthing; Matthew Grimstone, 23, from Brighton; Matthew Jones, 24, from Littlehampton; Maurice Abrahams, 76, from Brighton; and Richard Smith, 26, from Hove. Cause of Death is on Wednesday October 28 at 9pm - Watch or stream on 5.