Hillsborough. Police did doctor evidence in a bid to avoid blame.

[Darkesteyeswithflecksofgold]

A report in the Independent about the cover up. RIP to the people who lost their lives on 15th April 1989.
And condolences to the families who are still suffering.

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/exclusive-hillsborough--police-did-doctor-evidence-in-bid-to-avoid-blame-8126233.html

Sir Norman Bettison has issued a statement www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19583260

the current chief of SYP, David Crompton has never had anything to do with SYP prior to becoming the chief constable in April of this year.

I believe he has responded openly, and totally correctly to the report.

(and thanks bof)
i try.

I know Vicar, I said sorry, I got me Yorkshires mixed up.

I've just noticed that Boris Johnson is 'very, very sorry' for his comments made in 2004 blaming Liverpool fans for Hillsborough.

No doubt it was all a bit of a joke.

Luckily for him he's not interested in being Mayor of Liverpool.

I can't believe Bettison is still saying the behaviour of the Liverpool fans outside the ground was a contributory factor.

They had gone to an FA Cup semi final, been delayed on the way, and were doing what any supporter would be doing, trying to get into the game. The kick off should have been delayed. It would have stopped the panic outside.

These people weren't trying to cause trouble. They'd have spent a fortune getting to that game. It wouldn't have crossed their mind that there was a safety issue inside the ground. Why would it? There shouldn't have been. And it was the job of the Police to control the situation.

This is one police officers statement that should be changed.

BTW Vicar I'm not having a go at you. I still have faith in the police. I just think those involved should have all admitted that mistakes were made, and not tried to shift the blame. Its not up to you as a police officer to defend the actions of other police officers 23 years ago.

To the survivors, to their families, to the bereaved: I believe you.

I am appalled that I live in a country where when 'mistakes' are made, you can tamper with/ misdirect the investigation despite tens of thousands of eye witnesses. If you are in a position of power and influence.

Yesterdays news is only a step towards the truth. I sincerely hope that those who need a more honest account of how their loved ones sufferred are able to, at last, twenty three fucking years later, begin to get the truth. The why is happenned can only come after the how and then the justice.

I believe you.

I was listening to five live in the car earlier, i didnt hear anything i hadnt heard yesterday but it is just depressing me so much.

Like itsnotunusual i too am disgusted to live in a country, and to have lived in that era as a teenager, where this cover up could have been allowed to happen.

I keep seeing the image of that lone ambulance, i can see it vividly and am still willing those others to get through

Growlithe your brothers words are heartbreaking and touching. We were at the vigil yesterday, and when one of the family members told the survivors to stop blaming themselves, I looked at DP and he was sobbing next to me.

Still feel so angry and sad today.

I hope in some ways threads like this can educate those who didn't know the facts, or the reasons not to buy the Sun. I would have liked to have seen more coverage about it on MN, but hey, it's a start.

Sir Irvine Patnick, former MP for a Sheffield constituency, has just expressed his regret for any impression that people at the match were at fault for getting the life slowly squeezed out of them.

This is the man who's been belatedly caught for being one of the people providing so-called evidence that resulted in The Sun's abominable The Truth headline.

Apparently he didn't realise then or in the 23 intervening years. Sorry mate, the equally despicable Kelvin McKenzie got there first because he's a lot more fly than you.

People have said Patnick should be stripped on his knighthood. If he ever shows his face on Merseyside that won't be all he's stripped of.

I don't live anywhere near Liverpool and have never even been there but if I see him down my way I'm available to do the honours.

Well said Limited

limited, he was known locally as Irv the Perv. Can't remember why but let's just say he wasn't the most popular guy in town, even before making such a despicable attack on the dead.

The UK, however, has loads of cover-ups. Some happen even through court order.

Can we leave this thread for the Hillsborough families, please? If you want another one on your pet topic, you should really start your own. I think it is disrespectful to hijack this one.

SuperB0F, exactly what I was about to say.

I remember Hillsborough vaguely and for years I thought that although the Police didn't help the situation, it was the fans that were at fault. Then about ten years ago I heard more about it, read into it and realised that the subsequent cover up was a double tragedy for all the families involved. I'm so relieved that at last the truth has come out. I remember a thread on here just a few months ago where the majority of posters showed a complete lack of understanding of why LFC refuse to play a game on the anniversary of Hillsborough - perhaps now they understand that it wasn't wallowing in grief, it was showing solidarity with the families of the 96 and everyone else who was affected that day.

Kenny Dalglish attended every funeral and every inquest of the 96. When Rafa Benitez left LFC he donated £96,000 to the Hillsborough support group and visited them in person to say goodbye. They got it. Now perhaps everyone else does too.

A very, very good editorial from June 1989.

www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1152-september-2012/8991-post-hillsborough-disaster-editorial

Written from the fans point of view it shows how football fans were viewed and treated at the time, and draws a lot of conclusions that the establishment are only accepting now.

A genuine question- if it was nothing to do with there being too many fans (I.e. more there than tickets sold) then how was it there was enough people to cause a crush?

I mean, if a room holds 20 people, and 20 turn up, then its fine. But if 100 turn up, desperate to get in, with those at the back not knowing what's happening at the front, then the crush will happen.

I'm not placing blame, I'm too young to remember Hillsborough, I've just been reading this to try understand. And I'm stuck on that. Surely there must have been more there, than was supposed to have been?

To the famillies the survivors and the bereaved. I believe you and i always have.
I went into town today. I live in a small town in Essex. Im nowhere near Liverpool but i was heartened slightly by the fact that piles and piles of the Sun were left untouched in our local supermarkets.
However i did buy the Mirror and the Independent today and i found out a couple of things i didnt know.
One young man lived for 4 years in a persistent vegetative state after being at Hillsborough until his feeding tube was removed in 1993.
By the time of the tenth anniversary 3 of the survivors had commited suicide and one had been in a psychiatric unit for 8 years.
Justice must be swift now. The families have waited and endured ENOUGH.

My DP is a season ticket holder, his family are all massive football fans, so I'm definitely not placing any blame or casting aspersions.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-19543964

The diagrams at the bottom of this bbc report (and I've read elsewhere) suggest that the fans were not directed into the empty pens.

The Establishment must be rotten from the core.

Police getting MPs to mislead the press so that their reputation remains intact. Coroner shuts down a whole line of enquiry by creating a notional time of death.

I cannot put into words how much I admire the dignity of the families for fighting the Establishment for so long to get to the truth.

As a British Citizen I am ashamed to think that such a cover-up could happen in this country. There needs to be justice. Those who conspired to denigrate the dead and to hide the truth should be held to account.

Those who altered witness statements and those who went along with false evidence under oath should face perverting the course of justice charges. Those who were rewarded by the Establishment with honours/knighthoods should have them removed because they have dishonoured everything that British people value - truth, honesty, decency.

Final salary pensions for the senior officers who failed in their public duty should be withdrawn. How dare this level of corruption be permitted and rewarded.

I am very very angry. I saw Kirsty Wark question the current Chief Constable on Newsnight yesterday and she asked him exactly what I wanted to know, which is how could take 23 years for the truth to come out. How could so many police officers sit on the knowledge that their statements/evidence had be altered so as to protect the police's reputation. How can this happen in a democratic society?

I am furious.

From wikipedia

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]

Reading Wikipedia it seems like police were afraid of a crush outside, so opened a gate, and people rushed in?

And I've been doing some YouTube digging watching reports- there are videos of fans hitting the police horses, so the idea they were all gentle souls isn't true.

The whole cover up/changing statements is appalling, I'm not denying that.

Scheherezade, the FA, the football club, the police and everyone else knew the stadium was dangerous. There had been crush injuries at a previous high-profile match - fortunately for those involved, that time it was broken bones rather than multiple deaths. Tragically the authorities couldn't give a toss and allowed it to happen all over again.

Sadly there are regular stories about people being crushed to death, such as that nightclub in Northampton a few months ago. Every year it seems there are stories about pilgrims being killed at religious events. Anywhere you have crowds, you have to guide them and to have escape routes that allow people to disperse. At Hillsborough, there wasn't anywhere for people to go - they were forced up against the fences and crushed.

this is the official report that has just been released. Please read it before you make any statements that blame the dead and the injured. The independent panel has had access to all the evidence and has gone through it painstakingly. They are very clear that the fans were not to blame.