To think that there should be prosecutions over Hillsborough

[DreamingofSummer]

Even after 23 years

hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/

YANBU!

What went on is a disgrace and the officers who changed statements and hand any hand in this shameful situation should be charged pronto.

And YY, Kelvin Mackenzie is awful

Those poor families . I hope this is the start of some closure for them.

Boney - the original coroner should certainly be held to account. He colluded in the cover up by making a bizarre and demonstrably untrue ruling that everyone was dead by 3.15 and therefore refusing to allow any evidence about what happened after 3.15. That allowed the police (the bosses, I mean, not necessarily ordinary PCs), the ambulance service chiefs and everyone else to evade scrutiny. He also treated the families with great cruelty.

Superintendant Duckenfield, the guy in charge of policing that day.

Everyone in the police service who doctored statements and ordered the doctoring of statements.

And that last is one of the most important points because it's still going on today. Look at Mark Duggan - the coppers involved in his killing were allowed to all get together and agree on their statements AND refuse to be interviewed by the IPCC. In what universe is that justice, is that fair, reasonable, or any way to arrive at the truth?

I'm really quite scared to ask this, but it is a genuine (uninformed, ignorant etc) question (and I'm sorry I haven't read the reports, but intend to).

I've also typed in a very Janet-and-John way to try and show my thinking clearly - not to try and provoke or offend. Ok here goes...

There were clearly more people in the space than we're able to fit in the space, is that because people were pushing to get in without a ticket? Thrrefore was the police cock-up based on them mishandling the people arriving who shouldn't be there, or was it about just letting too many people in at once? I don't understand how there came to be so many people in the area when there should only have been a set amount, and why the discussion doesn't focus on that.

No-one has mentioned the root cause of why there were just so many people in one place? Surely whoever got the sums wrong (or was there when they shouldn't be) needs to explain themselves?

There was one entrance which fed into several parts of the ground. There was room for everyone but not in the area behind the goal. Everyone wants to be behind the goal so, because they weren't stopped from going there, they went in there. A couple of police horses or a few stewards could have filtered people off to the sides but they weren't there. This is not the opinion of an expert but just what my understanding is. I heard and believe that the ground was not above capacity and that there were tickets for sale up to the day before so not oversubscribed.

There was also a surge because people were late into the ground, they were in a hurry to get in and then there was a goal, so everyone at the back wanted to see. Having big crowds on a slope with high fences at the bottom is insane and I cannot understand why people didn't think that.

There were 4 pens in the Leppungs Lane end of the terraces at the ground, Lushgreenfields. When Gate C was opened, the natural route for people to take was down the tunnel that led to pens 3&4. These pens were also naturally the first to fill - these were the pens behind the goal, and a good spot. The pens either side of 3&4 were considerably emptier.

It's not so much that there were too many in one place, or that there were ticketless fans. It's more that the lack of control over where people went once they were in the ground caused the overcrowding. They could have closed the tunnel that led to pens 3&4. They didn't. They could have ensured that the people entering the ground after Gate C was opened went to te pens either side of 3&4, where there was more space. They didn't.

This is why the Independent Panel has found, as the Taylor Inquiry did, that the reasons for the tragedy lay at the feet of those who did nothing to control and protect people at the ground.

Thank you mrsterry, that has made it a lot clearer for me

From wikipedia: (my bolding)

The disaster happened because most of the fans entering the terraces headed for the central pens 3 and 4 as directed by the large notice pointing them that way above the tunnel. Normally a police officer or steward would direct fans away from full pens, but on that day this did not happen. There were no stewards in that area at all. The official capacity of these pens was around 2,000, but the Health and Safety Executive later found that this should have been reduced to around 1,600 as the crush barriers did not conform to the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds 1986. It is estimated that more than 3,000 people were in these pens shortly after kick off at 3:00 pm. This overcrowding caused the fatal crush.[34][35]

And thank you Berris too, sorry to ask the ignorant questions but I really didn't know.

This is a good diagram.

I'm just on Chapter 5 of the report, which is talking about the flaws in the practice of letting fans 'find their own level'. Ths is what they were doing on the day - watching the crowd on the terraces and letting them find their own level. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work when you have pens. The crowd tried to find their own level, but were restricted in the pens.

And, Berris on a slope. Confined and naturally heading down to immovable barriers.

Flaws in 'find their own level'

2.3.62 As an assumed policy, 'find your own level' was flawed. According to John Stalker's Report for SWFC, it was 'hard to fully understand what many police officers meant when expecting the Leppings Lane terrace crowds to "find its own level". Crowds just don't do that without help or direction from officials'.[36]

2.3.63 In pursuing disciplinary action against Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) drafted charges which argued that 'even a cursory glance would have made it clear that such a policy ['find your own level'] was unworkable'.[37] John Stalker argued that, as a policy, it failed to consider that 'those who arrive early and obtain better positions will not move in order to accommodate the comfort of late comers'.[38] It assumed that if fans considered a pen was full and uncomfortable they could move to the side pens.

2.3.64 Yet 'it was impossible to move sideways beyond the limits of the radial fences and outside help was essential in redistribution of supporters from one pen to another'. Police Constable Peter Smith described how in his experience fans 'find their own level' by climbing over the lateral fences between pens.[39] The system also failed to consider the rate of evacuation in an emergency.

Just nowhere to go in that situation, is there MrsTerrysChocolateOrange?

A crowd of people is very much a living, fluid thing, with the way it moves. There was just nowhere for the people in pens 3&4 to go.

Too true Berris How scared those people must have been. I'm having a real problem with the Hillsborough news at the moment. I can try to have a rational discussion about Policing and the Press and what happened and then I find myself thinking about the 10 year old that died, scared and in that mass of people. It's unbearable.

I've been in many a mosh pit at gigs and festivals. I've felt panicked and crushed at times. But I've also known that if it becomes too much, I can get out. I cannot imagine the fear and panic of that crush growing and not being able to get out of it.

Some people criticise Liverpool for not "dropping it now", but how could they? With what the Independent Panel have uncovered, do people now understand that it could be "dropped"? What has shocked me the most is that I knew that there had been a cover up (the CCTV tapes going "missing" the night of the disaster), but I really had not realised the extent if it. That has really shaken me.

I have colleagues who knew people who died. I have friends and colleagues from both the Red and Blue sides of the city, but we all come together on this. It's not about football. It's about a tragedy, a sickening cover up, a city slurred with lies of the authorities, and there should be prosecutions. There were people who knew the truth, and they sat on it or 23 years. They let the families and this city suffer that injustice. The fight for justice goes on.

It's taken 23 years to find the truth and now they should drop it?
I think the opposite, prosecute everybody that was complicit in the cover up.

I don't think they should ever drop it. I've seen that criticism many times though. And agree - persecutions need to follow, otherwise there is no justice.

Prosecutions are not just for the families. We have a better Police Force now because they were taken to task for the institutional racism, for the treatment of rape victims, for the stuff that they did because they thought they would never be prosecuted.

Prosecutions send the message that if you do something unconscionable, you will be punished even if it takes 25 years. So, a young Police Officer or journalist or whatever, knows that the choices they make will stay with them, forever. We might end up with a better system because of it. If we do, I say it's thanks to the families who won't give up. After all, we have a better Court system thanks to Stephen Lawrence.

I've been caught out there by the cursed auto correct. For persecutions, please read prosecutions!

I don't know... the families felt pretty persecuted.

Good point re Stephan Lawrence MrsTerry.

YANBU. This was the worst of a series of 1980s events that were dreadfully misrepresented by lying b#stards press and police. Worst because people died, I mean. Some day perhaps the general public will realise they were fed similar lies about other events too... The Poll Tax 'riots' for instance, were in fact (according to my own eyes and a dozen friends of mine who were actually there) crowds of legal demonstrators defending themselves and others against actual attack by police on horseback and in vehicles. But I'll shut up about that now, because I don't want to hijack. Today is about Hillsborough. Now we know some of the truth, I hope justice follows.

guineapig I am appalled. Crowds generally can be a bit scary. I don't like them and I've been at concerts, in London for the millennium and so on. I understand if you were waiting about in the midst of it it might have been a bit intimidating. But you can't ban them from having a drink at an event.

How does having a drink make them responsible I am actually sickened that you were there, saw the affect on the families and are still trying to place responsibility - and you actually used that word - on the football fans for the death of the 96.

I understand you went through something horrible yourself, but if you read the reports you would see the whole thing was mismanaged. A few football fans having a drink and being eager to get to the game is absolutely normal.

It should be dealt with via crowd control, not with blindly directing them all into one pen.

As for the person above trying to slag off the entire city of Liverpool, I have no words. I am from Merseyside, and although most people who know me would either not guess that, or my relatives probably think I've moved on and don't care any more, the city is very much still in my heart. I was there when Liverpool was celebrating winning the Treble in 2001 I think, and the community feeling was amazing. It's a city that knows joy, and it also knows how to fight for justice when tragedy happens.

If you don't like it, get over yourself and move on. Don't rubbish people grieving for a tragedy.

As we walk from the pub to watch Sunderland play Liverpool tomorrow , I will be thankful that : we are not going through a giant gate, we are not in a crushed standing stand and we are not caged in like animals. I hope my home city does all the Liverpool fans proud.

Just to say, I have been a football fan for over 40 years, I have had season tickets and stood on terraces and have been to have the odd pint in the pub on many occasions before a match. This was not a bit intimidating, it was bloody petrifying. -When I mentioned responsibility, it was to show that this was a combination of the wrong things, bad crowd control, archaic stands, overcrowding, lack of control etc etc but also the bald fact that when you combine alcohol and crowds, the effect can be devestating, which on this occasion, it tragically was. Are we saying that pissed up crowds have NO responsibility for their actions? What would have happened if the police HAD denied them all access to the ground after 3pm when many( and not just Liverpool supporters) were clearly over the top- probably a riot?

Ive never had the guts to go back to a match after this, and I still love football - I went to many memorial services and helped many of those directly and indirectly affected - it was a terrible, terrible time and I really hope the families get the justice for their loved ones which they so deserve.