Hillsborough Independent Panel findings and release of documents.

[bluestreak]

I keep trying to ignore you but I think you should delete your posts. A friend of mine died at Hillsborough and I'd like you to delete them.

if you like. i guess this isn't really the right time or place. my apologies.

 

[Favelado]

What a quote...

"While the tabloid screamed that "the truth" was fans pickpocketing victims and urinating on cops, the real truth was the police probing victims' criminal records and taking blood samples from dead children in the hope of establishing drunkenness."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/sep/12/hillsborough-report-contempt-coverup-editorial

 

[UrbaneFox]

Not read thread but heard via PM on R4 that 160 cops changed their notes. Surely this will lead to the biggest trial ever for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in a public office given these statements were used in evidence.

They can't all have retired on full pay and be too ill to give evidence / have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

 

[Hollis]

This is one of the few news stories that genuinly makes me angry. Today's a victory of sorts, but only where we should have been 23 years ago.. Is any copper ever going to be brought to account for their actions that day?

 

[temper_tantrum]

I agree with Red Cat.

RIP the 96. The truth is out at last. Let's hope everyone in the country will now back the continued fight for justice.

The families' dignity is very inspiring.

 

[DexterTCN]

The Telegraph website currently ranks it lower than the new iphone, an archaeolology story and some royal wants a baby.

 

[Pickman's model]

The Telegraph website currently ranks it lower than the new iphone, an archaeolology story and some royal wants a baby.

&?

 

[friedaweed]

Just got in from the Vigil at St Georges Hall.
Under the cloud of lies and attempts at turning the blame on the fans that so closely followed the disaster no former memorial has ever felt like a real one, for me anyway. For years i've attended the services at Anfield and whist we were always there to pay our respects to our fallen brothers and sisters there has always been a bitter taste in the back of your throat knowing that whilst you stood there a lot of people still believed the lies. People still questioned the families search for Justice. We didn't, we always knew the truth but we knew attempts had been made to write history in the form of bodged inquests, dishonest tabloid headlines, flawed Judicial enquiries, rumours of blame in those that had to live with surviving the event and doubt in the minds of a lot of the nation spun from the stereotyping of a whole city based upon the wrongdoings of a few. I've heard it all over the years. "Scousers were always forcing the gates open at grounds" "What about Heysel?" "Why don't you just let it go?" "There's been an Inquiry is that not enough now?" "It's like a blind man in a dark room looking for a cat that isn't there".

Tonight was very different. In some ways it felt like the first proper memorial because we all stood side by side in solidarity in the knowledge that the truth was finally out. I stood next to a man who was just as big as me, just as ugly and just as old as me, who like me was there with his kids. Looking into each others waterlogged eyes and smiling we shook hands. There was no need to speak. No need to exchange stories of how our own individual lives had been changed by the 15th of April 1989 you never have to explain that. Generally you know if you're there at such an occasion everyone has their story. People have asked me over the years "Did you know anyone who died at Hillsborough?" I've always given the same answer. Everyone I knew when I was 20 years old knew someone that had died at Hillsborough. I've always dealt with my grief quite privately. For ten years after the event I couldn't even bare going to the match let alone talk about the disaster. My best mate still can't stand/sit on a terrace at a football match and was even too upset today to attend tonight's Vigil.

To be the sibling, wife, husband, father, mother, grandparent, grandchild, cousin, friend, workmate of someone who either died or survived on that day has been a like having to live a life with a little ever constant niggle in your head. That niggle has always been that you know history's account of those events is wrong.

Today for many of us that niggle has been proven to be just and at last there's some vindication in your heart for not erasing that niggle from your mind and forcing yourself to live with it for 23 years.

I took my two youngest children tonight. I've never talked to them about my own personal experiences of Hillsborough. I don't really talk to anyone about that. I have though brought them up as reds (Much to my own bluenose families dislike ) and explained why we have the eternal flame on our crest and they have both been with me to the match and visited the memorial before the game. I've explained to them why we sing "Justice for the 96" on the Kop and why as a Red they are part of one big family of Liverpool fans.

I took them tonight though, not because I wanted them to experience the night as a fan but because I wanted them to learn that if something is wrong you should never give up on putting it right. As we were coming through the tunnel on the way home my 13 year old daughter made me choke when she said.

"It's a good job they never gave up Dad"

Job done.

As a fellow urbanite I ask you to look at the pictures of the 96 on the following link.
They weren't ticketless drunken fans. They weren't hubcap robbing scum. They weren't the people who forced their way into games, they weren't responsible for Heysel, they were 96 individuals that went to a football match to support a football team and never came home.
http://www.liverpoolfc.com/history/hillsborough

 

[Pickman's model]

As a fellow urbanite I ask you to look at the pictures of the 96 on the following link.
They weren't ticketless drunken fans. They weren't hubcap robbing scum. They weren't the people who forced their way into games, they weren't responsible for Heysel, they were 96 individuals that went to a football match to support a football team and never came home.
http://www.liverpoolfc.com/history/hillsborough

i've never given a flying fuck if they were hubcap robbing scum or alkies or the girl next door or responsible for heysel or whatnot. it doesn't matter to me whether they were hoolies or law-abiding librarians. what happened to them was wrong, end of. there isn't, to my mind, a hierarchy of the 96 or a hierarchy of those who died at bradford. and frankly it shouldn't matter a jot to anyone whether they were nice people or nasty people, whether they'd had a pint or whether they'd have a few shorts or anything.

rip all of them, and good luck to you, the other survivors and the families and friends of the dead in the quest for the next stage of justice.

 

[shaman75]

Fuck 'em all.

Bunch of lying, cheating thieving bastards, throughout government, the press and the police.

I remember that day and going to Anfield as a child and seeing all those flowers and scarves. Still upsets me to this day. Was welling up just watching a documentary the other night.

And people still buy The Sun...

 

[audiotech]

Sheila Coleman interview on todays findings.

Powerful.

 

[Wilf]

Powerful.

Agreed (though just for once you'd hope the fuckin' moneygrabbing guardian could leave the advert off the front of that clip).

 

[N_igma]

Is any copper ever going to be brought to account for their actions that day?

Not likely when you look at precedents like Bloody Sunday.

 

[DotCommunist]

I just hope the AG opens another inquiry and has some of these liars held to account- I am no follower of football and it was before my time but has always struck me as an astonishing injustice and a whitewash.

aside from the finally admitted truth- which must mean so much to those who were involved and those who have been mugged off for so long- we have bona fide evidence of a total police coverup.No more hedging, no more questioning. They actively sought to lie and were aided by the right wing press. This has been exposed finally. It has wider implications, Ihope. This utterly routine police/tabloid love in may finally get the scrutiny it deserves- just as with a new inquest the families might finally see some of the arse-covering iars brought to justice.

 

[Voley]

Great post, frieda.

 

[Wilf]

So what are the likely routes now then? New inquest as the first priority - followed by potential prosecutions if there's an unlawful killing verdict - and then private prosecustions for damages when that doesn't get anywhere? Going to be another long haul.

 

[sleaterkinney]

On Newsnight now

 

[agricola]

So what are the likely routes now then? New inquest as the first priority - followed by potential prosecutions if there's an unlawful killing verdict - and then private prosecustions for damages when that doesn't get anywhere? Going to be another long haul.

An inquest almost certainly, though there would be no need to wait until afterwards (or for an unlawful killing verdict) for at least some prosecutions to take place, given the allegations of tampering with evidence, fibs to the various public inquiries etc etc. Indeed given the difficulty of securing convictions in this case for manslaughter by gross negligence its more likely the cover up will result in a better chance of convictions than the act itself.

 

[Gingerman]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/hillsborough-documents-released-brian-reade-1318730
Powerfull moving stuff

 

[DotCommunist]

An inquest almost certainly, though there would be no need to wait until afterwards (or for an unlawful killing verdict) for at least some prosecutions to take place, given the allegations of tampering with evidence, fibs to the various public inquiries etc etc. Indeed given the difficulty of securing convictions in this case for manslaughter by gross negligence its more likely the cover up will result in a better chance of convictions than the act itself.

would you opine that perverting the course prosecutions are viable?

 

[Pickman's model]

would you opine that perverting the course prosecutions are viable?

i think that's what he's saying

 

[DotCommunist]

all good if so. Courts do tend to get really shirty about people lying to them, high orlow.

 

[Wilf]

On Newsnight now

The current Chief Constable apparently had no idea till today that any of his officers changed statements. Must be a truly stupid, incompetent fuckwit who needs sacking then. Unless he's lying.

 

[agricola]

would you opine that perverting the course prosecutions are viable?

I was thinking more along the lines of misconduct in a public office, which on the reported facts at least would appear to be appropriate in terms of the cover-up. The deliberate editing of some witness statements given to the various inquests and inquiries might lead to other offences as well though.

 

[where to]

Hillsborough and its aftermath was the vilest act of class warfare committed in the 80s. the aftermath smearing was just another level of their divide and rule tactics. the tragedy is that they pulled it off, so many all too happy to believe the lies.

Cameron took one for the team today, just as Thatcher did for her boys in 89/90. he has kept her out of today's new, suddenly accepted narrative, but hopefully not for too long: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19574492

there is no way this doesn't go all the way to the very top.

 

[Pickman's model]

I was thinking more along the lines of misconduct in a public office, which on the reported facts at least would appear to be appropriate in terms of the cover-up. The deliberate editing of some witness statements given to the various inquests and inquiries might lead to other offences as well though.

"conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" perhaps

 

[agricola]

"conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" perhaps

Perhaps, though the question is whether or not a public inquiry is counted as part of the "course of justice" for the offence. Perhaps someone with more of a legal mind than I knows?

 

[Hollis]

Good to see Kirsty Wark putting the boot into that South Yorkshire Chief Constable, its an interesting point about the lack of police whistleblowers. I wonder just how common knowledge this was in South Yorkshire police, and the culture that prevented a single whistleblower emerging.

 

[where to]

 

[DotCommunist]

Good to see Kirsty Wark putting the boot into that South Yorkshire Chief Constable, its an interesting point about the lack of police whistleblowers. I wonder just how common knowledge this was in South Yorkshire police, and the culture that prevented a single whistleblower emerging.

whistle blowing on your own colleagues is the the sure fire way to ensure you never get promotion and are cardsmarked in the org