JF96 YNWA

[Bearlyknitted]

27 years. Justice at last.

Not a Liverpool person as I support Arsenal but I am so very pleased with this and think the family persistence for all these years has been fantastic.

This is a really really important judgement in the public interest imo. It is about the good name of those who died, it is about safety of stadium/theatre buildings, it is about safe policing of large crowds, it is about not letting the police pass the blame onto the victims. It is about not letting the police get away with standing by and watching people die.

Large crowds gather even these days and are heavily policed. Large numbers of demonstrators can be 'kettled' in small spaces by police with a danger of crushing people.

It is so important that deaths never occur again and this judgement makes everyone's lives a little safer as long as the police take heed and change their practice.

JFT96 never been prouder to be from Liverpool.

I think it will now be about a bit more than that, funny person . I think we now know we have, in perhaps more areas than we think, a morally bankrupt Police Service. The Rotherham sex abuse scandal was also in South Yorkshire. We have had a police force continuing, for 2 years at the inquest, to defend the indefensible. Their former officers and current leadership continued to peddle the lies of the past. The SY Police Commissioner is up for election next month. SY needs someone who can cleanse this Police Force. They are worse than any of us deserve and we need to know what has gone wrong with a service that is supposed to stand for truth and justice. The lies started immediately this tragedy happened. The higher ranking police officers served themselves and not the people. This must be addressed if anyone is to have faith in the police again.

It was SY Police who fabricated the stories and the lies and briefed a Sheffield News Agency. It was these briefings upon which the Sun and other papers based their awful stories. It was done to deflect attention away from SY Police, and deliberately blame the fans and the Sun was stupid enough not to check the stories out by carrying out their own journalism. Whilst the Sun was the worst newspaper in the way it printed the story, the lies emanated from Police briefings! This is very clear now and has been exposed. I think the blame for the lies is firmly with the Police. Sadly, the public were also ready to believe such stories only a few years after the tragic deaths in Belgium. It was a very different era.

I saw something on twitter that KH is going to do a piece on this Hope this is not bloody true but if she does i dread to think what it will say.

It's online Helena and is surprisingly sympathetic.

It's here for those who don't mind DM links.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3562077/The-families-Hillsborough-96-comfort-week-inquest-verdict-tragedy-isn-t-enough.html

@HanYOLO,
I have tears streaming down my cheeks after reading your post.

Its sympathetic

Had a quick skim through. As expected she cant see the link to class hatred. Still better than her usual fare.

I was very surprised to see Katie Hopkins post . I do believe she's part of a giant act most of the time and this is quite well written. Still a twat though.

From HanYOLO's NewStatesman link:
'The city was the softest target of a decade which had been set up to create and pick off soft targets. The dehumanisation happened and was allowed to happen to a city because those undertaking it knew so many nationwide would allow it to go on. To go on and on. This isn't just about a right wing government and a corrupt police force back then. The past isn't another country, let's not kid ourselves. The targets remain soft in this country – they are just less visible.'

I think this is worth thinking about.

In the 80s the government identified enemies and then would bring the police into conflict with the enemies with people being harmed in the resultant battles.

No one is forced to join the police. No one is forced to stay in the police. No one is forced to stay in one particular force, transfers are available, although some chief constables refuse all transfers from certain police forces.

I was 13. We watched it on TV because my uncle was there but as a Forest fan. He said from the other end of the ground it did look like crowd trouble but it didn't take long to realise it was a tragedy unfolding.. He had no idea what caused it but he did say that reports of hooliganism on the pitch were just wrong. He doesn't really tal about it, says sitting in a stand able to see people dying and do nothing was the worst experience of his life. He felt powerless.
My grandad had been to Hillsborough for a big game with Spurs a couple of years earlier. There had been a very similar problem, but in this case stewards had opened the gates and many Spurs fans watched the game sitting round the touch line. He came back from that and said that it was an accident waiting to happen. As this all unfolded he was horrified, kept saying "They didn't learn the lesson." As soon as reports of crowd trouble surfaced he said "It's not. It's what I said would happen. They're lying."
Justice hasn't happened yet, but hopefully its on the way now.
I hope those who fought so long and hard, but who are not here to see this day, know, wherever they are, what they achieved, and that they are resting a bit easier now.

Yes it really could have happened to Spurs fans in 1981 and there was even a foreshadowing the year before when some Liverpool fans were injured in a crush. I don't know if it would have been handled differently - it would have been before Heysel so maybe.

There were several reasons this was able to happen.

1. Football fans considered to be the lowest of the low especially those in the stands. They were bullied by police. Some of them were hooligans. I wonder if some behaved the way they did because of the way they were treated. Chicken and egg. That said, there were National Front elements who had nothing to do with football.

1. It was Liverpool FC. I've mentioned Heysel above and in this post. Liverpool fans caused the death of 31 (?) Juventus fans (some people were also prosecuted for health and safety failings because if the wall hadn't collapsed, nobody would have died) and it was the final straw that led to English clubs being banned from European football. So people were only too happy to believe the fans were to blame.

1. To state the obvious, Liverpool FC is in Liverpool. Not exactly a Tory stronghold. Thatcher hated the place. So there was no sympathy from the higher echelons of government. Not many large football clubs are in Tory strongholds but if it had say happened to Chelsea supporters the outcome might have been different. The police might have even done more on the day and maybe 50% of those who died might have survived because help would have been sought much sooner. Maybe. But see no 1 above.

As someone mentioned above, what worries me is that the police haven't necessarily learnt from this when it comes to crowd control. Kettling is really worrying. I've only been to a few football matches including at Wembley and the police presence there was good natured and helpful but it's not always the case.

This has just come up on my desktop.

The source is Ryan Wilkinson, Press Association:

"A group of retired South Yorkshire Police officers who served in the 1980s have reportedly been told they "did a good job" as the force faces criticism in the wake of the Hillsborough inquests.

The former officers were told they had tried to act with dignity while "bile and hatred" had been directed towards the force, which faced "immense challenges" in the 1980s, it is understood.

It comes after South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable David Crompton was suspended on Wednesday amid an outcry over the handling of the inquest and the police's response.

The message from Rick Naylor, secretary of the South Yorkshire National Association of Retired Police Officers, appeared on the organisation's website although it was not intended to be made public, according to the BBC.

Mr Naylor's message, entitled: 'It was a bad day' said: 'we put out a statement yesterday and tried to remain dignified amongst all the bile and hatred directed towards SYP and those of us who served in the 1980's'.
'We are proud of the manner in which our members have volunteered to assist with the process. Many are now elderly and in failing health, without their co-operation the proceedings would not have been possible'.

They STILL DON'T 'GET IT' DO THEY?

SWP lied and lied and lied again. For 27 years. So did the Govt.

As a number of us have pointed out on this thread, it is not just a case of a right wing Govt and a corrupt area of the Police Force, 30 years back. This is still happening in other ways today. The soft targets are still there. Parts of various cities, vulnerable groups in society. Most of us are so busy scrabbling to survive or snatching a rare bit of R&R that we cannot give much time and attention to it, but it is certainly happening.

It is very very rare for it to be so clearly exposed to so many as it has been with this verdict.
The verdict was hugely important in itself, but also for this reason above too.

I've just watched the programme Hillsborough, which is mentioned above. It's harrowing but excellent.

Watch the drama Line of Duty. It is a drama, but senior police officers and Government officials are still covering up child abuse. I agree that Hillsborough is just one example.

I can't decide whether Andy Burnham is an extremely canny political operator who never puts a foot wrong, or a thoroughly decent human being who never puts a foot wrong, well, because he is genuinely a decent human being.

And that's awful isn't it? That we have had so many untrustworthy politicians for years that we are cynical when a seemingly decent one seems to come along.

Andy Burnham was still at St Georges Hall at gone 9pm last night, talking with people there. He has begun to regain a little of my respect after his volte-face on welfare reform vote. I thought he was utterly spineless about that.

I believe that when it comes to Hillsborough Andy Burnham is 100% sincere. He started off toeing the goverment line but had a very public epiphany at the 20 year anniversary memorial. Watch his face as reality hits him, it's very moving:

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hillsborough+memorial+andy+burnham

"I can't decide whether Andy Burnham is ...."
Probably a fair bit of both I think Tinkly. You can't take the politician out of a politician, but equally it sounds like he thought he could do some good staying and talking with relatives and friends in the aftermath of the historic verdict which may help bring some peace to many. And I'm sure he was right about that.

Controversial, but I would say that not all the blame lays at the door of the police.

If I was going to be in charge of policing a major sporting event I would at the least tour the stadium before hand, take advice from the people who had policed it in previous years and asked them what, if any, problems there had been and what they had done to alleviate those problems.

Knowing thousands of people are travelling to that event and that they are likely to be arriving in a fairly short period of time I might consider having more people on the roads leading to that event.

Failing to do any of that is at the very least negligent.

The circumstances were a creation of both police and fan behaviour.

WTF?

Some people went to a football match, they never came home. The same thing happened at Bradford, people went to a football match and didn't come home.

Only one of those incidents is EVER blamed on the fans - you might want to think about that.