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

[Growlithe]

Salt the terrace was divided into pens, for crowd control purposes. The middle pens were accessed by a tunnel. They were already almost to capacity when the decision was made to open the gate to relieve pressure on the road outside. The tunnel should have been closed off at that point, to disperse the crowd to the side pens. It wasn't, and the weight of the crowd behind pushed people into the tunnel. Massive human error.

[Narked]

Sorry Birds. I wasn't trying to get into the details of what happened before or after, just trying to explain how people came to be crushed IYSWIM.

[MrsPinotGrigio]

As a proud scouser (although a blue one) I am shocked & disgusted that there are still those (randomfemales FIL) who seek to perpetuate the myth that the fans were responsible for the tragedy that day. I just hope that now the papers have been published that kind of remark becomes a thing of the past.

I have 2 friends who are survivors of Leppings Lane & although they were not physically injured the memories of that day will live with them forever. Let's just hope a new inquest is granted & the original accidental death verdicts overturned to reflect what really happened.

And don't even get me started on MacKenzie & the scumbag Sun.

JFT96 YNWA

[Narked]

It was a totally preventable tragedy, and once it had happened, the police set about blaming the fans for causing it and lying about their behaviour to cover up that fact.

[babybythesea]

When you look back there were so many signposts to a tragedy.
My grandad went to Hillsborough to watch Spurs play a couple of years before.

He came back and said "I'm never going there again - it's a disaster waiting to happen". There had been some similar issues of overcrowding but the response was different - they got people out of the pens and sat them on the ground round the edge of the pitch. He said then, why on earth doesn't someone do something? And was staggered that they continued to use the ground for these big matches.


My uncle went to the '89 game as a Forest fan. He said it looked like crowd trouble for all of five minutes - and he didn't have a good view. After that, it was clear it was a tragedy happening. He has always said the police, at least those sitting in the viewing boxes above, must have known, right from the outset, if he, sitting a way away with dodgy eyesight, knew.

My sister and I are a few years younger than the two Hicks girls, Sarah and Victoria, who died. We also grew up attending football matches (not Liverpool though!). The first few years of matches I attended were when it was standing room only on the terraces by the pitch, so the story of the Hick's girls could so easily have been ours. I first came across their story when I was about 15 - the same age as the younger girl when she died. Since then, I have never attended a match without thinking of them - two girls, who set off so excited, just like we did every other week, but who never came home.
I heard their Dad being interviewed a few years ago - he found both girls, side by side on the pitch, the ambulance came and he went in it with his younger daughter, believing another would be along for his older girl. It never came as no more ambulances were allowed on to the pitch. I hope he finally gets some justice, along with the other families.

[Pagwatch]

I am struggling to decide what part of today's conclusions are the more shocking tbh.

The fact that 146 policemen altered their statements is pretty high. The extraordinary speed with which the authorities moved to blame the fans is too.
I think checking the blood alcohol of a 10 year old is the hardest to process. People thought this was valid.

[BitOutOfPractice]

And I am struggling to believe that a MNer here today is still trying to blame the fans. Shame on you random

JFT96

[Abra1d]

These days mobiles and iPhones would establish immediately what was happening and allow the fans to bypass the police and call for help, sending photos and film.

We take this technology for granted, don't we?

[Greythorne]

McKenzie is a foul individual. I think it is truly pathetic that even when apologising, he blames the local news agency (Whites) and a police press release. What it shows, actually, is his complete bias. He got some very weird, implausible and shocking "info" about Liverpool supporters and rather than say, "hang on, let's get this corroborated, this is extraordinary" he just leapt to print "The Truth" as a headline. It shows his utter contemot for ordinary people, his bias against Liverpool fans and his fucking pigheadedness to stick by his decision for so many years. I would like to call him spineless but that would be too polite.

[babybythesea]

Ah but you see he was a football fan Pagwatch. That tells you all you need to know, doesn't it?

[Greythorne]

I would love to know if McKenzie has any supporters.

[KenDoddsDadsDog]

I watched it unfold on TV as a 16 year old, then went to both Uni and lived in Liverpool where the grief was and still is palpable. I'm a Sunderland fan , but stood on the Kop quite a few times one of which was when Tony Bland died.
I'm quite choked up today - JFT96.

[babybythesea]

Hope the irony comes through in my last post.
I still come across people who say things like 'I wouldn't go to a football match - too dangerous - all those fans who cause trouble.'
I've attended football matches for just over 25 years and have only seen 'trouble' once - and that turned out to be nothing, but it was dark and we couldn't see what was happening so thought there was an incident.
It was just the conclusion that the press, especially, loved to reach. My mum tells of going to matches, getting in the car to drive home, and hearing reports of violence at the match and thinking "Where? We didn't see it and we were there the whole time." So it was easy to blame the fans because that was the prevailing idea at the time - that fans were all there for trouble.

[Growlithe]

Abra I've been thinking about that today. Our family wouldn't have had to wait hours to hear my brother was ok, after the kind people of Sheffield started letting people into their homes to phone home.

Also, pictures would be all over FB and Twitter. The world is a more transparent place these days.

[SammySquirrel]

And why did the police carry out CRB checks on all the victims?

[MrsVamos]

JFT96

YNWA

[QuickLookBusy]

Not amongst anyone I know Greythorne but he seems to have a few amongst tv producers, as he seems to regularly appear sharing his vile views.

I really hope people stop employing him now.

[Darkesteyeswithflecksofgold]

McKenzie has a massive contempt for the working classes which has always been shown in his attitude.

[VintageEbonyGold]

JFT96

I saw it on the news as a child and the sheer horror will stay with me. As a child it was obviously not football violence. Shame on those who didn't help and those who covered it up.

Deepest sympathy to those who were/are affected by this.

[TheHeirOfSlytherin]

Was there not a huge and vast increase in hooliganism in the 70s and 80s though? I would imagine the atmosphere would be one of anticipation - the police perhaps were waiting for something to kick off and when it seemingly did they were heavy handed thinking they were just responding to hooliganism, once they realised what was really happening then their earlier actions had already caused too much damage - hence the lies to try and save themselves.

I grew up being told of hillsborough as my mum is a football fan and from Liverpool, she said that it was inevitable though, she remembers being crushed by crowds at other matches (like sometimes happens at music concerts) and her dad having to hold the crowds off them both.

I hope everyone gets the answers they are looking for after so long

[Hulababy]

TheHeir - there was indeed a huge amount of football hooliganism in this era. Not at this match and it was definitely not the cause of the tragic events, but sadly football at this time was still very much overshadowed by the significant majority who were intent on violence and hooliganism.

[babybythesea]

Heir - there were issues with hooliganism, yes.
However, the stories were also good value as news and vastly overblown - I wrote this just above:

I still come across people who say things like 'I wouldn't go to a football match - too dangerous - all those fans who cause trouble.'
I've attended football matches for just over 25 years and have only seen 'trouble' once - and that turned out to be nothing, but it was dark and we couldn't see what was happening so thought there was an incident.
It was just the conclusion that the press, especially, loved to reach. My mum tells of going to matches, getting in the car to drive home, and hearing reports of violence at the match and thinking "Where? We didn't see it and we were there the whole time." So it was easy to blame the fans because that was the prevailing idea at the time - that fans were all there for trouble.


The press are culpable for painting all football vans as violent thugs. There was hooliganism, but it was nowhere near as bad as people would have you believe.

[spoonsspoonsspoons]

Liverpool in particular were marked because of what happened at Heysel.

Of course, the fact that violence happened at other times does not condone what happened at Hillsborough.

[OrangeKipper]

At the risk of getting snapped at again, I have heard the explanation for the blood alcohol tests on children.

Again I'm only putting this in because people seem distressed by this specific point. Take it how you like.

A few years ago I saw an interview of the supervising pathologist(?) who had ordered this test, who was upset that he had upset people.

IIRC, he was called in from another part of the country to be an outsider unconnected with the local police. Because he was aware it was a major incident, before he even packed his bags to get there he issued instructions for the dead to be treated with the respect given to murder victims and be given a full standard autopsy package, not some skimped measure.

The full standard autopsy package included blood tests for chemicals and alcohol.

He was not even aware at that stage that there were children among the dead.

When he realised the true situation and that he'd increased the distress of bereaved parents, he was mortified.

The unspeakable actions of those police, politicians and press who tried hard to portray the dead as "drunk fans" then gave a horrific spin to what was originally an attempt to ensure justice was done to the dead.

I hope I've remembered that right. I'll willingly stand corrected if not.

[NovackNGood]

And if you check out The Suns online page no mention of the fact that it was The Sun that did the lions share of the blaming the fans.