Hillsborough Disaster:The truth at last

Shankly

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After 23 years of fighting for the truth, the families of the Hillsborough victims have finally been vindicated in the report published by an independant enquiry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/...h-disaster-police-coverup-revealed?intcmp=239


Throughout a momentous day at Liverpool's Anglican cathedral for the families of the 96 people who died so needlessly at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough football ground, one phrase dominated above all else: the truth. These were the words most infamously abused by that headline in the Sun, above stories we now know, in extraordinarily shocking detail, were fed by the South Yorkshire police to deflect their own culpability for the disaster on to the innocent victims.

Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, then 18, died at what should have been a joyful day out, an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in spring sunshine, said the families had been forced to fight, for 23 years, for just that: the truth. Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said that although the families' loss would never fade, she was "delighted" at the unequivocal, "profound" apology given for Hillsborough's savage failings by David Cameron.

...

And there was that word again. After so many years, so much pain, so long and terrible a battle waged by families who would not give up for their loved ones, it has been finally reclaimed. The truth.

Edited by LashL: 
Snipped for compliance with Rule 4. Please do not copy and paste lengthy tracts or text from elsewhere. Instead, cite a short quote and a link to the source.
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The full report can be found here http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc05/0581/0581.pdf
 
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I'm currently on page 95. Shocking, and yet in a way I'm not even slightly surprised. Bloody Sunday, the Birmingham Six, Harry Stanley, Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson. The police have repeatedly shown themselves to be primarily concerned with covering their own backsides, and willing to lie and distort the truth to do that.

Hey - shouldn't this be under "conspiracy theories"? ;)

Rolfe
 
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For me one of the most pressing things is to find out exactly who it was that removed any negative comments about the performance of the police that day from the reports filed by officers on duty. That is evidence tampering and the guilty parties should be tried and jailed. Absolutely disgusting behaviour.

I get the feeling this is going to run and run. Hopefully the pressure will be kept up to get to the bottom of this whole disgusting, fraudulent cover-up.

Justice for the 96
 
The Channel 4 news report that covered that issue included a snippet referring to Lockerbie, and asking whether that was another one still to come out. In my view it is. That investigation was run by a Scottish police force, not an English one, but as the man says, it's a British phenomenon and I see nothing in the Lockerbie documents to indicate that the Scottish police are in any way exempt.

I've been consistently banished to the Conspiracy Theories forum for discussing this subject, but see my most recent post on this matter, dated ten days ago.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8591935

Rolfe.
 
Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (tampering with witness statements) and manslaughter by gross negligence are a couple of charges I am glad not to be facing. Some people are looking at serious jail time. If there were an offence of dishonest, unprofessional, complacent, cowardly, establishment-friendly, so-called journalism we could put the repulsive Kelvin Mackenzie in the dock too.
 
Rolfe said:
.... That investigation was run by a Scottish police force, not an English one, but as the man says, it's a British phenomenon ....
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Just a question here: How are British police forces structured? Are they centralized under a national authority, or does each city or town have its own independent force? In the U.S., there are thousands of independent city and county police departments and plenty of examples of police misconduct, but there are multiple levels of responsibility, so allegations about a city department might be investigated by state or federal authorities, and allegations against a state police department might be investigated by other state authorities and the feds. There are also Freedom of Information laws that make many official records accessible to reporters and other independent investigators. If a citizen has a problem with the police in Britain, who does he complain to, and who investigates?
 
Each country in the UK has a number of regional police forces, who pool resources and assist each other for major incidents. There is currently a proposal to incorporate all the Scottish police within a single Scottish police force, for reasons of economy of scale. This proposal is controversial.

Rolfe.
 
Bob001 said:
Just a question here: How are British police forces structured? Are they centralized under a national authority, or does each city or town have its own independent force? In the U.S., there are thousands of independent city and county police departments and plenty of examples of police misconduct, but there are multiple levels of responsibility, so allegations about a city department might be investigated by state or federal authorities, and allegations against a state police department might be investigated by other state authorities and the feds. There are also Freedom of Information laws that make many official records accessible to reporters and other independent investigators. If a citizen has a problem with the police in Britain, who does he complain to, and who investigates?
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They are divided regionally. In this case, we are talking about the South Yorkshire Police. There is an Independent Police Complaints Authority and probably internal complaints handling systems also. Can't say I am an expert. And while we have a Freedom of Information Act and while this may be a sweeping generalisation, those in authority seem to be constitutionally disposed to subvert it. The woman who got to the bottom of the MPs expenses scandal started out merely trying to get her local authority to fix the lights in an underground subway and encountered unbelievable levels of obstruction.
 
This is the reason why there is so much "unnecessary" (according to the government) paperwork for the police. Unless they are tightly controlled and monitored and everything is documented we see time and time again the police forces will abuse their power and even when we have such oversight they will actively work to subvert it. (Of course this is not unique to the police, it's just a part of human behaviour but the results can be devastating when it is an organisation with the power of the police.)

What I couldn't believe over the last few days were people saying "oh things have changed, couldn't happen today". Well unless the changes happened on Tuesday we know it does still happen, from the like of the "phone tapping" investigations to the travesty of the investigation into the entirely unnecessary death of Ian Tomlinson.
 
I would also add, regarding organisation of the British Police, that it is quite common for officers of Chief rank (Chief Constable & Assistant Chief Constable for extra-London Forces, Commander, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner and Commissioner for the London Metropolitan force) to be appointed from outside the force the serve in.
 
The Police absolutely should not get a free pass on this but I'd just like to point out that they behave the same way as most homogeneous groups with a strong bond. Yes you'll get the occasional whistle-blower but generally "they" will close ranks to protect their own.

The Police have a lot more scope but closing ranks to suppress the truth is an allegation I've seen made against doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, editors, members of the armed forces and many other groups.


edited to add......

I have re-read my post and I came across as a Police apologist. I want to make it entirely clear that the Police (both individually and collectively) behaved disgracefully and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The point I wanted to make is that it's not just the Police that behave in this way to cover up misdeeds.
 
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Darat said:
This is the reason why there is so much "unnecessary" (according to the government) paperwork for the police. Unless they are tightly controlled and monitored and everything is documented we see time and time again the police forces will abuse their power and even when we have such oversight they will actively work to subvert it. (Of course this is not unique to the police, it's just a part of human behaviour but the results can be devastating when it is an organisation with the power of the police.)

What I couldn't believe over the last few days were people saying "oh things have changed, couldn't happen today". Well unless the changes happened on Tuesday we know it does still happen, from the like of the "phone tapping" investigations to the travesty of the investigation into the entirely unnecessary death of Ian Tomlinson.
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I couldn't agree more with this post. I would add, however, that institutional culture has a lot of influence. A firm institutional culture which makes it absolutely clear that this behaviour will not be tolerated and will be subject to disciplinary action if identified can do a lot to mitigate "human behaviour". The problem with the police however is that the culture has been (and clearly still is) doing the opposite. It's not just rank-and-file personnel covering their own individual backsides, it's senior management doing it on an industrial scale, and even ordering junior personnel to lie to that end.

And of course it's happening today. The Tomlinson affair demonstrated that absolutely clearly. The police requested a pathologist they knew to be incompetent to perform the PM, although he was under disciplinary investigation at that time. They covered up on an industrial scale. The de Menezes affair isn't that long ago either, and that was absolutely shocking. The degree of "blame the victim" that went on, although the poor man had simply been shot in the head while he was sitting on a train reading a newspaper, is astounding.

[As an aside, Darat, and obviously not to be pursued in this thread, in this context I don't understand why you are so adamant that exactly the same thing didn't happen in the Lockerbie fiasco.]

Rolfe.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Who won the game?
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Oddly enough, once they started pulling dead fans out of the stands they lost interest in the game.

Edit: A senior copper who had been in charge of a past tribunal has been saying that fans made it "harder than it needed to be". Which as an exercise in tactless behaviour very nearly beats Scrut's comment, but not quite.

Another edit:

There's an article here that was written a couple of months after the disaster, and makes interesting reading:

The police see us as a mass entity, fuelled by drink and a single-minded resolve to wreak havoc by destroying property and attacking one another with murderous intent. Containment and damage limitation is at the core of the police strategy. Fans are treated with the utmost disrespect. We are herded, cajoled, pushed, and corralled into cramped spaces, and expected to submit passively to every new indignity.
The implication is that “normal” people need to be protected from the football fan. But we are normal people.
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richardm said:
Oddly enough, once they started pulling dead fans out of the stands they lost interest in the game.
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I was startled to realise how late it was before they abandoned the game. After 3.30, apparently. When according to the original coroner's report, all the fatalities occurred before 3.15.

richardm said:
Edit: A senior copper who had been in charge of a past tribunal has been saying that fans made it "harder than it needed to be". Which as an exercise in tactless behaviour very nearly beats Scrut's comment, but not quite.
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There was some creep on TV last night still trying to blame the fans even after the publication of the report. Is that who you mean?

Rolfe.
 
richardm said:
Oddly enough, once they started pulling dead fans out of the stands they lost interest in the game.

Edit: A senior copper who had been in charge of a past tribunal has been saying that fans made it "harder than it needed to be". Which as an exercise in tactless behaviour very nearly beats Scrut's comment, but not quite.

Another edit:

There's an article here that was written a couple of months after the disaster, and makes interesting reading:
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There are two sides to this, of course. The preoccupation of the cops and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club was with order rather than safety. The fans themselves had brought that about with decades of violent behaviour. I am not excusing the cops. There is no excuse for doctoring statements and smearing the dead but you need a short memory not to recall the excesses of the English football hooligan, now displaced who knows where by higher prices, seating and CCTV. Actually, I know where - until comparatively recently the worst of them followed the national team.

Another major issue seems to have been the last-minute replacement of Mole with Duckenfield. It seems handling the particular problems of the Leppings Lane entrance required experience which Duckenfield lacked.

It needed courage and integrity to face what happened, or firm and disinterested external review, which British society seems not always to have on offer. The establishment, whatever it is, seems to resist and resist and then suddenly turn upon some hapless individual, offering them as a sacrifice to appease the baying mob, before reverting to type.
 
Darat said:
What I couldn't believe over the last few days were people saying "oh things have changed, couldn't happen today". Well unless the changes happened on Tuesday we know it does still happen, from the like of the "phone tapping" investigations to the travesty of the investigation into the entirely unnecessary death of Ian Tomlinson.
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The science of crowd control has advanced massively since 1989. So its every unlikely that such an event could happen at something as well organised as a modern british football match.
 
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