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

There had been incidents of violence by "casuals" (a sort of culture based around gangs, fashion etc, a bit like skinheads sort of thing) which involved young blokes attached to particular teams meeting for fights, which had largely been dealt with after the early eighties. I think that the police generalised their approach from these experiences, and ended up showing contempt and mistrust for all football fans and working-class crowds generally. That's my opinion on it, anyway, and I suppose we are getting into conjecture now, but what cannot be disputed about Hillsborough is that it was NOT connected to hooliganism or crowd violence, and that the police were well aware of this from very early on. They wanted to keep the focus off their own catalogue of errors, and blaming the fans was the way they did it.

Huge sympathy to all those here who lost someone or had someone personally affected.

By that, I don't mean that violence didn't take place, nor that the consequences didn't have the potential to be horrific if it did. I meant more that it seemed to be a given that it would happen at every match - which was just not true -and that it was all that fans wanted - which wasn't true either, for the vast majority of us.
And therefore, people were quick to blame fans, and it was easy to do so, because the prevailing idea was one of crowd violence. If some perspective on the actual versus the imagined scale of hooliganism had been kept, generally, in the press, then maybe it wouldn't have been quite so easy to blame fans at Hillsborough.

I'm just stunned that it has taken so long to get to this point. It really makes me question my faith in "the system".

So very sad for anyone involved.

babybythesea - some of the violence from football hooliganism WAS indeed very bad at times. I have spoken to one such man - he was a particularly unpleasant man in his days as a football hooligan from what I could gather, and from his accounts he was still on the outside of it all, not right int he centre. His friends were all involved. It was small pockets of people who got together with a lot of intent to cause violence. And trouble they did indeed cause and a lot of violence - people being stabbed, punched, beaten up...and deliberately. I should add that I never knew this man at the time, only knew him due to circumstances afterwards, have seen videos that back up his stories. He is now no longer alive. He was also from Sheffield.

All irrelevant to this particular event however. And in no way to blame for what happened that day.

Babybythesea

Without altering anythingll that I have said previously..

There was a hideous legacy football hooliganism through the 70s and 80s which was the backdrop which allowed otherwise rational and ompasionate people to question, in those early days, whether some of the fans were a contributing factor.

I was 27 in 1989. I had experienced many episodes of football violence including a group of young men banging on my door, covered in blood, and hiding from a mob of fans chasing them. I have ever been more terrified as they piled through a residential area throwing bottles and missiles at our homes. I had two boys from my school imprisoned for gbh as they used to plan attacks on opposing fans. It was an awful time for the sport I grew up loving.

So you are absolutely right that people wondered about the fans. And itwas completely wrongly. But many of them were not ignorant and anti-football. There was a recent history that gave this incident a context that the police and the sun ruthlessly and shamelessly exploited.

Thanks Hulababy and Babybythesea for clarifying

Not to suggest that hooliganism was to blame for the Hillsborough tragedy but football hooliganism was rife at the time. It was in fact the reason why the stands were penned in the first place.

Just watching Trevor Hicks now. What a man.

And thanks to pag too, cross posted sorry.

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

The report says that this is not true, that is wasn't normal procedure and that there was no justification for it. The Prime Minister said the same in his statement and apologised for it. Stop making excuses for liars.

My FIL was a serving police officer at Hillsborough - now retired. He maintains it was all the fault of the Liverpool fans and that their behaviour was less than honourable. His accounts of the day are quite shocking and I would not post them on here as they are his and I can't verify

Amazing. Just amazing.

What will it take to convince some people of the fans' innocence? An independent panel studying 400,000 documents? An apology from the PM? Oh no. Because your FIL says it was all the fault of the Liverpool fans.

All their fault.

You, and your FIL, disgust me.

I really can't believe that there are posters on this thread still trying to excuse the behaviour of officials who have now been proven to be in the wrong. Unfuckingbelievable.

Sammy the intention there might be to turn it into a "bunfight" so the thread gets pulled. So im trying not to rise to it for that reason even though i agree with you.

I don't mean to say that violence did not occur - it did. Nor that it wasn't a serious issue - it was.
But I don't think it occurred on the scale that people seemed to imagine.

As I said, my Mum attended matches through the whole of the seventies and eighties. She regularly heard reports of violence at matches that she had attended, where none had been evident and certainly not of the magnitude that the press would gleefully report.

I had people ask me whether I was frightened to attend matches due to all the fighting - it's that kind of image I think did the damage - the idea that violence was prevalent at every game. It's just not accurate. And that is why i think it was easy, for so long, to get away with blaming the fans - because the over-riding assumption, especially of non-footie fans, was that matches were an excuse for people who loved fighting. Obviously, the stereotype had to start somewhere - it didn't just spring out of nothing -but it was allowed to get out of hand and become the prevailing idea of what a football fan attending a match was like.

There is bad behaviour at 99% of football games every Saturday and Sunday. Does that mean people deserve to die and be blamed for it,? Does it bollocks!

I was thinking the same sammy.

Every investigation should be investigated on it's merits and this goes t show how not only was it the MET that had big problems. Turns out that the police are as bent as 1970's dramas would have you believe except it was not the plod on the beat it was their bosses.

Sammy the intention there might be to turn it into a "bunfight" so the thread gets pulled. So im trying not to rise to it for that reason even though i agree with you.

You're probably right and are doing a better job than me. I'd better walk away before I implode.

But what do you mean by bad behaviour, KenDoddsDad?
Do you mean swearing, which certainly happens, or full on violence, which I've never seen inside a stadium despite 25 years or so of attending matches?

Dominic Mohan current Sun editor is blaming the police their story. Obviously nothing to do with MacKenzie or his bent journos then?

Sammy, if you've read the report, and it says that blood tests weren't part of the standard autopsy package, then I believe you.

My friend who was only 15 held up a grown woman who had seen her husband crushed to death. He saw things that day that have left a mark on him and people like randomfemale should not be posting on a thread like this since she was not there.

RIP all those who lost their lives.

OrangeKipper David Cameron said this today:

The Coroner took blood alcohol levels from all of the deceased including children.

The Panel finds no rationale whatsoever for what it regards as an "exceptional" decision.

Nobodies suggested any such thing KenDodds, but those of us who were around at the time know that football hooliganism was a massive problem at the time. We were the scourge of European football, no one wanted the English teams to visit because of the violence that accompanied the fans. Police attitudes were also much less "politically correct" at the time too. Haven't you ever watched The Sweeney? So, expectation of trouble, pens and no communication anything like we have now. A recipe for disaster compounded a thousand times by the appalling cover up.

I hope the comments about trying to start a bunfight aren't directed at me because I wasn't. The atmosphere at the time of the event regarding attitudes to football fans is relevant to the discussion.