Hillsborough: how stories of disaster police were altered

Twenty years on, the families of the 96 fans who died in the semi-final crush are still fighting to force police to acknowledge that changing officers' statements amounted to a cover-up

* David Conn

* The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009

 

In a dusty library at the far end of the Houses of Parliament, among 10 boxes of documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster which were made available by the South Yorkshire police following a government order some years ago, is a statement from a police constable on duty that day.

 

On the front page is a handwritten instruction from a more senior officer. "Last two pages require amending," it notes. "These are his own feelings. He also states that PCs were sat down crying when the fans were carrying the dead and injured. This shows they were organised and we were not. Have [the PC] rewrite the last two pages excluding points mentioned."

 

As they prepare to mark Wednesday's 20th anniversary of the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, the families of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough retain, with their enduring grief, a burning sense of injustice. The discovery that the police vetted junior officers' statements, and amended many to remove criticisms of the police's own operation, seemed to confirm the families' suspicions after Hillsborough: that the police tried to cover up their own culpability for the disaster. The families are still outraged that after Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry, a lengthy inquest, high court appeals and a judicial "scrutiny", no one has ever been held accountable, and unanswered questions remain.

 

In his report, Taylor concluded firmly that police mismanagement of the crowd had caused the disaster. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, commanding his first big football match, had agreed to relieve a crush outside the ground by opening an exit gate to allow a crowd of supporters to enter together, rather than singly through the turnstiles. The central pens of the Leppings Lane terrace were full, but no officers were ordered to block the tunnel leading to those pens and direct supporters to the sides, where there was still room. "Failure to give that order," Taylor wrote, "was a blunder of the first magnitude." Taylor criticised South Yorkshire police for refusing to accept that truth. Duckenfield even said originally that supporters forced open the gate; that was condemned as a "disgraceful lie" by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith in his 1998 judicial scrutiny of new Hillsborough evidence. "It is a matter of regret," Taylor wrote, "that ... the South Yorkshire police were not prepared to concede that they were in any respect at fault. The police case was to blame the fans for being late and drunk ... It would have been more seemly and encouraging ... if responsibility had been faced."

 

Yet at the inquest that followed, prominence was given again to police accounts of supporters being drunk and without tickets. The families were appalled by the eventual verdict of accidental death rather than unlawful killing, and felt that the police force principally responsible for so many deaths had behaved, from the day of the disaster, without humanity. It emerged that two police CCTV videos went missing from the locked control room on the night of the disaster - one showing the police opening the gate survived - and that deepened suspicion.

 

It was amid that legacy of betrayal that evidence emerged, nine years later, that senior South Yorkshire police officers had vetted and amended their junior officers' statements, in consultation with the force's solicitors, before presenting them to Taylor and the inquest. Criticisms that senior officers failed to provide leadership on the day, and radio communication was poor, were removed from several statements. Accounts of drunken or misbehaving fans, on the other hand, were almost all left in. The junior justice minister, Maria Eagle, MP for Liverpool Garston, said questions still remained about who was involved with that process and how far it went, and she urged the force to "come clean" and make a genuine apology. "The institutional behaviour of South Yorkshire police was appalling," she said. "I stand by the comments I made in the House of Commons at the time. This was a black propaganda unit, engaged in a conspiracy to cover up."

 

Police documents

 

Eagle complains the documents were "dumped" in the parliamentary library after South Yorkshire police were ordered to disclose them, and she doubts if it is a comprehensive collection. The 10 boxes are in no discernible order; there is no index or explanatory letter, and it is difficult to believe it can be complete: there are no memos between senior officers, or between the police and their solicitors.

 

Many statements have apparently not been amended, or the originals are not there. On the ones which have, there are handwritten notes on the front, setting out sections to be changed. There is a list headed Amended Reports, with 163 officers' names on it, and another, with 248 names on it, with a column noting when the statements were vetted.

 

The police argue they were trying only to cut emotion and opinion out of the officers' raw statements. Stuart-Smith concluded there was no cover-up, because the changes mostly involved removing comment and hearsay, although he did criticise some deletions of fact.

 

Yet the handwritten note on the front of that PC's statement - "This shows they were organised and we were not" - appears to show there was a more sinister agenda, to undermine the fans and exonerate the police.

 

Meredydd Hughes, the current South Yorkshire police chief constable, said the force fully accepted Taylor's findings, including the criticism that the police failed to take responsibility and sought to blame the disaster on supporters. He did not, however, accept that the amending of statements was part of that campaign. "It was not a systematic attempt to hide the truth," he said. Hughes said he would find out whether there were further documents which have not been publicly disclosed, make available any not covered by legal privilege, and issue an apology if appropriate.

 

"We are not about trying to hide things," he said. "We are not the same force that was here in 1989. We exist to protect the public, learn lessons from Hillsborough and put them into practice."

 

Prof Phil Scraton, author of Hillsborough: The Truth, was the first to discover the changing of statements, and he maintains it was a cover-up. "The statements were transformed after a team of officers, from the force under investigation, reviewed and altered them. If cover-up means anything, this was it."

 

The emergence of the changed statements is not the worst lingering injustice the families feel. Many are still profoundly scarred by the inquest process, and crucial decisions made by the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper. He held "mini-inquests" while the director of public prosecutions was considering criminal charges against the police officers in command - no charges were ultimately brought.

 

At the mini-inquests, West Midlands police officers read out summaries of evidence about where and when victims died. Witnesses were not called, let alone cross-examined. Popper then limited the main inquest, which began in Sheffield on 19 November 1990, to events up to 3.15pm on the day of the disaster. He ruled that by then, all the victims had received injuries in the Leppings Lane crush which rapidly caused irreversible brain damage.

 

That line of reasoning was upheld when the families challenged it by judicial review in the high court in 1993. Yet the "mini-inquests," followed by the 3.15 cut-off, meant two huge areas have been closed from full investigation: the response to the disaster by the police, ambulances, fire service and local hospitals, and the individual circumstances of how each victim died.

 

A number of witnesses, never called to the inquest, have since bitterly criticised the emergency response. Anthony Edwards, a paramedic in one of only three ambulances that made it on to the pitch out of 42 called to the ground, described the operation as "chaotic". He said that paramedics could not reach the crush, and the "basic technique" of inserting airways into casualties' mouths was barely administered. Another leading ambulanceman, John Flack, said it was "bedlam".

 

Hillsborough was a scene of horror. Supporters were mostly laid on their backs, rather than in the recovery position, some with clothes covering their faces, even though no qualified person had determined they were dead. There were literally piles of bodies at the Leppings Lane end, and bodies left lying around elsewhere. Only 14 of those who died were taken to hospital, a fact Ann Adlington, solicitor for the Hillsborough Family Support Group, describes as "shocking".

 

In August 2006, Anne Williams, whose 15-year-old son Kevin was killed at Hillsborough, applied to the European court of human rights, arguing that the inquest into her son's death was "insufficient" due to the 3.15 cut-off.

 

Over years of tireless campaigning, Williams tracked down people who had helped Kevin, including Derek Bruder, an off-duty police officer, and a woman special police constable. They had testified that Kevin had signs of life up to 4pm; Bruder felt a pulse, and the SPC said Kevin had opened his eyes and said "Mum".

 

Their statements were changed after visits from the West Midlands police, to suggest there were no signs of life. Both have since emphatically stood by their original statements. Bruder has since complained that his evidence "was not presented in its entirety or in a professional manner" at the mini-inquest, to which he was not called to give evidence in person, and he has emphatically maintained he did feel a pulse. The SPC has also stood by her original statement. Williams sought the opinions of three eminent pathologists, who all disagreed with the diagnosis by the consultant, Dr David Slater, who examined Kevin. Dr Iain West, consultant forensic pathologist at London's Guy's hospital, contested Slater's finding, which had been upheld in the high court, that Kevin had died from traumatic asphyxia. That and crush asphyxia were the causes of death ascribed to all who died at Hillsborough. West said he believed Kevin died from severe neck injuries, and could have been saved had he been treated early enough. There may have been other victims who were recoverable, he said, after 3.15.

 

Applications to the European court have to be made within six months of exhausting the last possible domestic legal means of redress. The judges took that to be Stuart-Smith's "scrutiny", which upheld the coroner's findings in the case of Kevin Williams and rejected all requests to reopen the inquests. On 17 February this year, the ECHR dismissed Williams's case as out of time. Sitting in her home in Chester, surrounded by files and documents, Williams said: "I won't give up, not until the record is put straight. You can't grieve properly, you can't lay your children to rest, until you have established what really happened."

 

Meredydd Hughes acknowledged that the police response to the unfolding disaster was "a picture of terrible confusion, a lack of leadership at critical times". Asked whether he could understand the families' frustration with the 3.15 cut-off, he said: "I understand it, but it is not for the police service to comment on."

 

Margaret Aspinall, vice-chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18-year-old son James died at Hillsborough, said the 3.15 cut-off was "the biggest issue" for the families. "There are huge, unanswered questions. How many could have survived if they had had proper care, and oxygen? Even now, we want reopened inquests beyond 3.15."

 

The families want answers, too, about the role of a West Midlands police officer, Detective Superintendent Stanley Beechey, whom Popper described as "the second most senior officer at the time of the main inquest".

 

In June and July 1990, Beechey had been in a monitoring room when Duckenfield and other senior officers were interviewed about their roles at Hillsborough. Beechey was given the sealed audio tapes of the interviews and was responsible for presenting them to the inquest. The coroner said publicly that Beechey had "an awful lot to do" with preparing the evidence summaries for the mini-inquests.

 

Beechey was a former head of West Midlands serious crime squad, which was disbanded in August 1989 after a string of collapsed cases, and amid allegations of police malpractice. A complaint about Beechey was made to the then Police Complaints Authority by George Tomkins, who alleged he had been "fitted up" by West Midlands police for an armed robbery he did not commit. Tomkins spent 17 months on remand in Birmingham's Winson Green prison before he was acquitted.

 

The West Midlands chief constable, Geoffrey Dear, moved named West Midlands SCS officers to "non-operational duties". Beechey's transfer was to "studying technical aspects of Hillsborough". Dear said he believed this involved working on fuzzy video footage to enhance its quality. When told Beechey became involved at a senior level, Dear said: "It definitely was not what I had in mind when I transferred him. If I had been told, I would have taken him off the investigation. I wouldn't have had Beechey working on that or any other inquiry. Not because he might necessarily be doing anything wrong, but because it was not appropriate." On 20 June 1990, Beechey was formally interviewed, under caution, about Tomkins's allegations. So, at the same time Beechey had been present at the interviews of senior officers responsible at Hillsborough, he was himself under formal investigation.

 

Detective's involvement

 

Beechey was not disciplined following the PCA inquiry, and returned to operational duties on 30 November 1990. His period on "non-operational duties" had taken in the Hillsborough mini-inquests, the criminal inquiry for the DPP, and the first 11 days of the main inquest.

 

In April 1993, Tomkins took out a private prosecution against Beechey, three other police officers and a DPP lawyer, accusing them of perverting the course of justice. The police officers' cases were committed to the crown court. In 1995 the DPP discontinued the prosecutions. Tomkins took out a civil claim, suing the West Midlands police for malicious prosecution. On 18 March 1996, the force agreed, without admitting any wrongdoing by any officer, to pay Tomkins £40,000 compensation, and £70,000 for his legal costs.

 

Although there is no evidence that Beechey did anything improper in the Hillsborough investigation, Aspinall feels Beechey's involvement is another area of unease. "We want it cleared up," she argues. "What was this police officer doing on the Hillsborough investigation, what position did he occupy, and why, if he was on 'non-operational duties?'"

 

A spokesman for West Midlands police provided a statement: "Det Supt Beechey was a later addition to the team of officers who liaised with the Hillsborough coroner, and his role was of a limited, overseeing nature. There has never been any suggestion that he carried out the support work into Hillsborough in anything other than a rigorous, thorough and professional manner. An unconnected civil action brought against DS Beechey was settled in a separate legal process, the basis of which means we cannot comment further."

 

Hillsborough seems an age away now, a disaster caused by police mismanagement at an unsafe football ground, where the Football Association commissioned a semi-final despite the ground's safety certificate being a decade out of date. In the 20 years since, football grounds have been rebuilt, helped initially by public grants, and the top clubs have made fortunes.

 

Yet for the families of the mostly young people who died, there has been unending grief, and a traumatic legal ordeal leaving them with questions still unanswered.

 

"I don't like to use the word justice," says Aspinall. "I prefer to say that we want the full truth, and accountability. Even now, it would make a difference, alleviate some of the hurt and betrayal we have suffered for 20 years."

Unanswered questions

 

The cause of the Hillsborough disaster - police mismanagement of the crowd - was established by Lord Justice Taylor in his report published just four months afterwards, in August 1989. Yet 20 years on, key questions remain unanswered about the disaster's aftermath.

 

1 What, in detail, happened after 3:15pm on the day of the disaster?

 

2 Could more people have been saved if the response to the disaster had been better co-ordinated?

 

3 Who removed two CCTV video tapes from the locked control room at Hillsborough on the night of the disaster?

 

4 Why was nobody identified to have removed them, and what investigation was mounted?

 

5 Which South Yorkshire police officers worked in the unit that vetted police statements before they went to Taylor and the inquest?

 

6 Who gave the orders for them to do so and what was the stated intention of those orders?

 

7 Are the documents lodged by order of the government in the House of Lords library a complete archive of South Yorkshire police's Hillsborough documents?

 

8 What was Det Supt Stanley Beechey, a former head of the West Midlands serious crime squad, doing on the Hillsborough investigation while he had been placed on "non-operational duties"?

 

Hillsborough police guilty of cover-up, says minister Maria Eagle

* David Conn

* The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009

 

The junior justice minister, Maria Eagle, has said that South Yorkshire police should "come clean" about what she described as a "conspiracy to cover up" the force's culpability for the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool supporters died at an FA Cup semi-final, 20 years ago this week.

 

Eagle, MP for Liverpool Garston, where three of the bereaved families lived, accused South Yorkshire police in parliament in 1998 of having operated "a black propaganda campaign", to deflect blame for the disaster away from the force and lay it on Liverpool supporters instead.

 

She based that accusation on the discovery that dozens of statements made by junior police officers about the circumstances of the disaster had been amended after being vetted by more senior officers.

 

She described this as "a systematic attempt to change police statements to emphasise the slant on the defence that the police wanted to develop".

 

Eagle named six senior South Yorkshire police officers of the time whose role, she said, was to "orchestrate that campaign".

 

One of the officers named was Norman Bettison, who, when he was subsequently appointed chief constable of Merseyside police, denied any role in any such campaign. He said instead that after Hillsborough he worked in a unit whose functions included "making some sense of what happened on the day for the chief constable and his team".

 

Bettison said that the unit had no responsibility for processing police statements. Bettison, now chief constable of West Yorkshire police, said there was "another unit headed by a detective chief inspector" which was "logging in and logging out the statements".

 

Eagle asked publicly who was in that unit and what it was doing, but says she has never received an answer to that question, or to any of those she asked in parliament.

 

"I said there was a black propaganda campaign, involved in a conspiracy to cover up, and I do not retreat from those words at all," she told the Guardian. "Lord Justice Taylor saw through it and in his official report he pinned the blame for the disaster firmly on the police. But at the inquest, the police presented that view again, blaming anybody but themselves, and the families felt that it worked.

 

"It is still an anguish to the families to know that this process went on, and even now the police should come clean, tell us who was in the unit which vetted the statements, what was the unit headed by the DCI doing, who changed the statements, and who supervised the process. If that were accompanied by a genuine apology and a human approach, it could go some way to healing the wounds borne by the families."

 

The police statements, including those which had been amended, were placed by South Yorkshire police in the House of Commons library after the 1997 judicial scrutiny by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. He concluded the changing of statements was not a cover-up, although he criticised the deletion of officers' comments in a small number of statements. Eagle also complains that the documents were "dumped in the library, with no covering letter and no evidence that everything was there".

 

Margaret Aspinall, of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said this was still "a big issue" for the families. "It is quite obvious the police wanted to cover up and accuse everybody else. If they gave us the whole truth now, and are accountable for what they did, it might alleviate some of the pain and hurt we have gone through for 20 years."

 

Meredydd Hughes, the current South Yorkshire chief constable, said the force fully accepted the findings of the Taylor report, that the police were primarily responsible for the disaster, and Taylor's criticism that they failed to accept responsibility at the time. He said he is marking the forthcoming 20th anniversary by re-emphasising the need to learn from the mistakes at Hillsborough, and stressing the progress the police have made since in managing major events. He agreed to investigate whether there are other documents relating to Hillsborough which have not been publicly disclosed.

 

"I will ask if we have material that we have not released, and if we can release it, we will. We are not about hiding things."

 

Hughes argued, however, that the changing of statements at the time had only been a way of putting into structured form the raw accounts of officers who served on the day. He stood by the finding that there was no conspiracy. "My belief, from my review of the papers, and that of Lord Justice Stuart-Smith from his much closer examination, is that it was not a systematic attempt to hide the truth."

 

Anyone who still believes Hillsbrough was Liverpool fans' fault is seriously blind. It was mainly the incompetence of the police that caused it, and you still have got to wonder just why no-one has been prosecuted. If the police held their hands up and said they'd made a mistake then the familes of the 96 would be in a lot more comfort, but the fact so many lies have been printed and so many things covered up is just not right.

 

Of course questions always have to be asked about Sheffield Wednesday too. Just why the bigger club with a bigger following got the smaller stands was just an absolute joke in itself.

Of course questions always have to be asked about Sheffield Wednesday too. Just why the bigger club with a bigger following got the smaller stands was just an absolute joke in itself.

 

As a Forest fan this is is one argument I've never really understood. What you say is correct but even the smaller club with a smaller following managed to fill the bigger end so would've filled the Leppings Lane end. Therefore the tragedy would still likely have happened. So what argument is there for Forest fans to have been there? Afterall a lot of Forest fans would likely have died instead. Are lives of Forest fans less valuable than lives of Liverpool fans? Would Forest fans in some way have been 'better behaved' or more orderly and managed to stop the disaster happening? I'm not suggesting that you think these things but it's one thing I just do not see any argument for. The Hillsbrough disaster would've happened almost regardless, if not with Liverpool fans then with Forest fans, if not with Forest fans then with another team the year after. Afterall people who went in 1988 have said they felt it was unsafe and weren't really surprised at what happened the following year.

Edited April 13, 200916 yr by RabbitFurCoat

As a Forest fan this is is one argument I've never really understood. What you say is correct but even the smaller club with a smaller following managed to fill the bigger end so would've filled the Leppings Lane end. Therefore the tragedy would still likely have happened. So what argument is there for Forest fans to have been there? Afterall a lot of Forest fans would likely have died instead. Are lives of Forest fans less valuable than lives of Liverpool fans? Would Forest fans in some way have been 'better behaved' or more orderly and managed to stop the disaster happening? I'm not suggesting that you think these things but it's one thing I just do not see any argument for. The Hillsbrough disaster would've happened almost regardless, if not with Liverpool fans then with Forest fans, if not with Forest fans then with another team the year after. Afterall people who went in 1988 have said they felt it was unsafe and weren't really surprised at what happened the following year.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but i'm sure Liverpool had a higher ticket allocation. Like you say it probably was inevitable that something like this would have happened one way or another. Its all ifs and buts but we don't know what might have happened. But still surely the bigger club with the bigger following should have been allocated the biggest end in the stadium? Its just logic.

 

A lots been learned from Hillsbrorough, but at great cost. But more than anything it was certainly the fault of the police. They caused it.

I think the choice of ends was made by the police.

 

Yes, the police got things horribly wrong on the day and the relatives of the victims deserve to have their questions answered. However, I would argue that they were not wholly to blame.

 

Why were the fences there in the first place? Because of the hooliganism of the seventies and eighties. Many of us thought that it would lead to a disaster like Hillsborough but up they went.

 

Why did the police initially respond as if it was a another act of hooliganism? Because of their past experience. They made the wrong decision. They should definitely have realised they made the wrong decision a lot earlier than they did rather than trying to push people back on to the terraces.

 

But all the people involved in football hooliganism throughout the seventies and eighties should accept their part in the ghastly events of that day.

I think the choice of ends was made by the police.

 

Yes, the police got things horribly wrong on the day and the relatives of the victims deserve to have their questions answered. However, I would argue that they were not wholly to blame.

 

Why were the fences there in the first place? Because of the hooliganism of the seventies and eighties. Many of us thought that it would lead to a disaster like Hillsborough but up they went.

 

Why did the police initially respond as if it was a another act of hooliganism? Because of their past experience. They made the wrong decision. They should definitely have realised they made the wrong decision a lot earlier than they did rather than trying to push people back on to the terraces.

 

But all the people involved in football hooliganism throughout the seventies and eighties should accept their part in the ghastly events of that day.

 

 

I agree with all of this.

 

But what sticks in the throat is how the Conservative Government along with the South Yorkshire Mass Murderers Police Force & Rupert Murdoch Inc

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

newspapers covered this up to blame the supporters for it. That is what has caused a lot of the distress that is still around today.

 

Hillsborough was undoubtedly a tragic incident and one which I 100% blame the police for but while this is not belittling what happened at Hillsborough I do not understand why tragedies like Ibrox, Heysel and Bradford have long since been forgotten about and no anniversarys are marked like Hillsborough is

Hillsborough was undoubtedly a tragic incident and one which I 100% blame the police for but while this is not belittling what happened at Hillsborough I do not understand why tragedies like Ibrox, Heysel and Bradford have long since been forgotten about and no anniversarys are marked like Hillsborough is

 

They are all still remembered, but Hillsborough is the biggest British football tradgedy to date. No-one should feel threatened at a football game, and I think it makes it even worse than children as young as 10 were killed. To the people of Liverpool its very tragic, most people had family/friends etc. at the game and those who didn't die feared for their lives massively. Hillsborough changed English football. The only reason there's been so much coverage by the BBC etc. this year is because its the 20th anniversary. But seriously Alan Hansen's comments on MOTD the other night were, well... heartbreaking. I think every person inside that ground that day got scarred for life with the events that happened.

I agree with all of this.

 

But what sticks in the throat is how the Conservative Government along with the South Yorkshire Mass Murderers Police Force & Rupert Murdoch Inc

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

newspapers covered this up to blame the supporters for it. That is what has caused a lot of the distress that is still around today.

That Sun headline remains one of the most despicable I've ever seen. That squalid rag still sells tens of thousands fewer copies in Liverpool than would be expected because of the number of people who have stood by their pledge never to buy it again.

The population of Liverpool is 435,000; yet The Sun & it's sister News Of The World newspaper sells just over 13,800 copies a day in Liverpool.

 

That is just over 3% of the population.

 

Whilst its readership is 7.9 million within the UK.

 

So taking the UK population of 60 million that is just over 13% of the national population.

 

 

The population of Liverpool is 435,000; yet The Sun & it's sister News Of The World newspaper sells just over 13,800 copies a day in Liverpool.

 

That is just over 3% of the population.

 

Whilst its readership is 7.9 million within the UK.

 

So taking the UK population of 60 million that is just over 13% of the national population.

You're not comparing like with like there - readership against sales. But it still demonstrates how the Sun under-performs in the city. The Sun sells approx 3m copies in the UK, around 5% of the population.

Don't forget the News of The World (Sunday Sun) also hired a Liverpool Echo sports reporter in order to increase readership in Liverpool (he was a really poor jounalist) and it worked. :manson:

 

But The Sun's headline they ran was absolutely awful. Discusting tbh. How that fat, sleazy man can still go around swaning around on TV protesting that he was right to print what he did i'll never know.

No matter who you support it's disgusting that we STILL need answers to what happened :angry:

No matter who you support it's disgusting that we STILL need answers to what happened :angry:

Absolutely right. It's just so typical of the British establishment at work trying to cover up its mistakes. The fact that two tapes of CCTV evidence can "go missing " without any apparent attempt to find them or establish who removed them just sums it up. That disappearance may have been a cock-up (though I doubt it) but it's scandalous that no attempt has been made to investigate the matter.

you still have got to wonder just why no-one has been prosecuted.

 

The police in this country are NEVER properly held accountable for their "mistakes" and their cover ups.... Hillsborough, the Guildford 4, the Birmingham 6, the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the deaths of over 1000 people in police custody since the 1970s, the Miners' strike, the violence shown towards ravers and New Age travellers in the late 80s, the coppers in "charge" of the Stephen Lawrence case who let the guilty parties slip through their fingers due to their racism and incompetence.... God, I could be here all fukkin' day just making lists of the Police and their crimes against the public... Not one single copper has ever stood trial or been held legally accountable for any of this sh"t..... They all just seem to quietly get "pensioned off", or "retire".... When the genuinely good coppers such as John Stalker do start to look into the murky underbelly of police corruption, they get discredited and smeared, and end up having to quit the force....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stalker

 

The membership of "top cops" in secret societies such as the Freemasons is also something that we have to take into account... I dont think that people such as police officers, judges or MPs should be allowed to be members of such organisations.. Strange how cops are stopped from being members of the BNP (which I agree with by the way), but members of shadowy, secretive, totally unaccountable "clubs" such as Freemasons, or the Orange Lodge in Ulster, Glasgow, etc, seems perfectly acceptable....

 

We deserve a better standard of policing in this country than the one we presently have....

That Sun headline remains one of the most despicable I've ever seen. That squalid rag still sells tens of thousands fewer copies in Liverpool than would be expected because of the number of people who have stood by their pledge never to buy it again.

 

i agree.... we occasionally bought the sun (on saturdays) back in the 80's for the tv stuff (certainly not the news) which was pretty much against our ethics at the time anyway. but that was the last time we bought it. (i was married in them days).

 

was the choice of ends summut to do with the nearest train stations? they didnt want fans clashing outside so the nearest station got the nearest stadium placings?

 

i thought it was the polices mistakes that caused the disaster... not sure why it isnt widely known now.

I agree with all of this.

 

But what sticks in the throat is how the Conservative Government along with the South Yorkshire Mass Murderers Police Force & Rupert Murdoch Inc

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

newspapers covered this up to blame the supporters for it. That is what has caused a lot of the distress that is still around today.

 

I vividly remember a "Cracker" story in which Robert Carlyle played a traumatised Liverpool fan who sent a bomb to a tabloid newspaper office... Frankly, I was really hoping for life to imitate art and someone had sent a bomb to Kelvin MacKenzie or put a device under that c/unt's car.... <_< Up until that point I'd actually had an ambition to be a journalist, but after reading that sickening "article", I just went off the idea... I've never really trusted the media in this country since Hillsborough if I'm being totally honest, the way they lied about the fans and covering up for the Police was something I found disgusting, retrospectively of course, they lied just as shamelessly about Scargill and the Miners as well, but I was too young to really appereciate that, only realising that later....

 

Primarily, it was probably because of Hillsborough that I lost faith in the media and the Police....

 

not sure why it isnt widely known now.

Oh, it's certainly pretty widely known... I doubt there's a single football fan in the country who doesn't hold the police responsible for what went down at Hillsborough, it's probably the one thing that all fans, regardless of which team they support, agree on....

 

What it is, is basically the establishment has done a stand-up job of actually limiting the damage and the fall-out and totally obfuscating the facts to the extent that no one can actually be held accountable for it.... Same thing happened with the De Menezes shooting, the Guildford 4, Birmingham 6, Stephen Lawrence, etc.... They'll say that "mistakes were made", but dont offer up anyone as being actually accountable for those mistakes.... Everything is done with a nod, a wink, a funny handshake and a serious covering of arses..... <_<

I am so glad the Minister for Sports (or whatever his title is), got the 'Justice for the 96' chant at the memorial service. I don't believe it was done at him personally, but he said the wrong things imo. I know Brown couldn't have been there because of the Helicopter crash memorial instead, but Liverpool FC just want there to be an enquiry into the whole disaster again, not to be fed the same old crap from the goverment.