BBC2 on now! Hillsborough Anybody watching?

[SoleBizzz]

Nothing was being done.

Was just going to say something similar Chace. It isn't just justice for the 96. It's also justice for all the other Liverpool supporters there that day who've been blamed for all these years. Like the man who said he'll never be asked again to admit he was drunk and broke the gate.

I was following the comments on twitter as the film went out last night. Remarkable how many were saying "Now I get it!", including many who were adults at that time but believed to some extent the lies propagated by the police and sections of the media. Such an excellent film. A very difficult watch but it is necessary, I think, to bear witness for the sake of the 96.

I was a student in Sheffield at the time. I didn't really follow football but for some reason I put the radio on to hear the score at about 3.40 and heard about the horror unfolding just a couple of miles away. Three Sheffield students died, two were due to graduate that summer like me, and whilst I didn't know any of them, I had friends who knew all three. It felt very close and very real at the time and there's something about hearing the families and witnesses speak in the present that is equally, if not more, affecting.

The truth about Hillsborough bears repeating over and over. This is a story important for so many reasons, not least that no one is above the law. What happened on that day and for 27 years afterwards can teach us so much.

Incredible, powerful and moving documentary. The families went through two horrific crimes IMHO the death of their loved ones on that day and then 27 years of fighting to get at the truth in the face of injustice from the establishment. It beggars belief the depth of the cover up, the altered police statements, the attempt to blame and tarnish the dead. A salutary warning and reminder about how far those in power will go to protect themselves.

I watched this last night, i have followed this case for the last 27 years. I was 16 when it happened and the daughter of some hard nosed tories, who took in all the lies of the scum and Patnick. Thankfully i could see through it and found the lies the scum printed too far removed from reality.

Who was the Police Chief in the programme last night? Not the one who put Duckinfield in the job, the other one. I didnt get his name, he was the one in 1996 who was being so fucking patronising about the families saying 'well what more do they want? it says a lot about the families and you can all draw your own conclusions etc etc' basically calling them scum and telling us all to think likewise - he was involved in the inquests and had a spitting image style face..... anyway - whoever he is i hope he has been brought to task too.

I have never been a fan of Thatcher but never hated her as such, now i cannot look at footage of her without my heckles rising and wanting to kick the tv screen.

Powerful and harrowing programme. The whole thing is traumatic, but I think the worst part is how the families were treated in the immediate aftermath, a mother being told she can't touch her son because he was property of the coroner. People having to look through photographs. People being questioned about how much they'd had to drink. I'm not sure how I'd react to that - but this sort of injustice does, and has, driven people into early graves.

My utmost respect for the families who fought so long for justice. I want to see people prosecuted over this now - it's never too late, why should they get away with it?

Watched this twice today (this morning then again with DH this evening). It really was amazingly well done and I would encourage everyone to watch it if possible.

It is an incredibly well crafted programme which allows the people to tell the story themselves - in such a powerful and moving way.

I have learnt so much, and have so much respect for everyone on the programme. I especially loved the professor - he is so articulate and clear and brilliant.

I am so delighted that justice was finally done for the 96 (and all the many others). Police corruption was horrendous and the coverup almost unbelievable. I hope that the next phase will be some sort of reprisal for all those involved in that.

Like a previous poster quoted from the programme though, 'justice delayed is justice denied'.

Anyone thinking of watching it - please do. It's not an easy 2 hours, but it is important.

Thanks to all the comments here from people who have added to our understanding of this hideous event. RosieSW , to you in particular.
Gin, your link to the Duckenfield interview just leads to today's Guardian, but I'll search for it.

Prof Phil Scraton -I'll remember him.

I'm not clear if there are any plans to prosecute Duckenfield ?

They are going after them all I think. The FA, the police, the ambulance service, stadium designers, stadium management.

Prof Scraton is a hero, and so eloquent on the programme. It made me want to cry (again) when he talked about how the wonderful families had been vilified and denied justice for so many years. It was so deliberate, and so calculated that it defies belief. And all the time 41 people could have been saved if they had implemented the proper emergency plan. Of course 96 people could have been saved if they'd managed and directed the crowd properly on the day.

If this is the same documentary that was posted on the Hillsborough thread via YouTube a couple of weeks ago, then I completely agree that it's compelling viewing.

Rosie - very much agree re the enlightening back story regarding Brian Mole, and the subsequent chain of events.

The altered police statements. Incredible. So frightening to think of how much power is wielded and outright lies are fielded in an 'open' and 'transparent' and 'non-corrupt' country.

It really does make you wonder.

And I have to say, Margaret Thatcher really was a force for malevolence. She is linked to so much that is bad from that time. If you consider all the changes she wrought, the political alliances she chose to foster, the wars she waged, the cover-ups she turned a blind eye to - you have to wonder what drove her.

That was one of the most powerful documentaries I have ever seen. The testimonies are heartbreaking. I can't imagine how utterly awful it must have been - not being allowed to touch your dead child, being blamed for your own father's death, your child's death, your brother or friend's death. A harrowing but really necessary watch.

I watched Hillsborough unfolding as I was in a news gallery and we had the Rte feed (I think it was them). I will never ever forget it. The images of people being helped up from
The seats above, the horrendous crush at the front - all seared into my mind. At one point I had to type up the names of the dead and their ages - it may have been the next day or some days later, I can't remember but I recall noting how young so many victims were.

It's hard to believe that northerners were so vilified by thatcher's government but they were. Anywhere staunchly labour / poor was fair game. I'm from Scotland and they implemented the poll tax there a year before England. It felt like a punishment for voting against her. It was the time of yuppies and banker bonuses in London while there was deep recession in so many northern towns and cities. I lived and worked in London and my grandparents still lived in Scotland - the unemployment was so high in my home town that hundreds and hundreds would apply for every tiny job. You could really feel the huge economic gap between north and south.

I'm so glad that there is justice at last.but the level of cover up and institutional deception is still deeply shocking, despite living through and being aware of it at that time.

Those families deserve medals and I really hope they go after each and every culpable person /organisation. Some of the comments from so called experts on the news from the time are so deeply insulting. You hope they are now ashamed of themselves. But like Kelvin Mackenzie, the current sun editor, Bernard Ingham, Boris Johnson and numerous others who insulted Liverpool fans (and residents) and have never really properly apologised, I doubt they care.

Just watching it now. I was 12 when it happened. I have read so much about it over the years, seen snippets of videotape on the news. But nothing like this. Those poor poor people :( I have no words right now

I think the FA should bear some responsibility. Choosing to host such a big game in a sub-standard ground where people had been hospitalised for crush injuries only a few years before.
Yes, Duckenfield was inexperienced (and arrogant? and a Mason?) but there was other factors at play too.

marthasharbour he was the spokesperson for the police federation - channel 4 new was doorstepping him tonight - but I didn't catch his name.

Paul Middup is the police federation spokesman, Hopefully he and his mates will get what's coming to them.

Thank you cora and Arkwright He got my back up more than Duckinfield and Thatcher did!

I will check out Ch4 news again tomorrow on catch up. I also want to brain bleach some of the comments I read on the Sheffield Star FB page yesterday. Some people still blame the fans and refer to 'so called lies' I had to step away from the thread as I was boiling over

Bereaved parent : "My son didn't drink. He didn't smoke either".
Police investigator/ interrogator : " You'll be telling me he was a virgin next ".

Footle - yes. I mentioned this on the other Hillsborough thread. That somebody, anybody, a policeman could say this to a bereaved parent is so utterly crass and heartless, it actually shakes your faith in humanity.

I finished this on IPlayer last night. I remember the tragedy unfolding - I was 14 and a Liverpool fan. I remember not really understanding how it had happened and the whisperings that it was the fans fault.

An amazing programme. Amazing courage that the victims' families showed. I cried lots of time during this programme - and couldn't believe the arrogance of that person Labour put in to oversee a second report and then that crass comment he made about Liverpool fans always being late "No, I was in my place 1 hour before." That man wondering if he had been to blame because he had had a couple of pints before. The blame attached to the later fans - pushing through "but there were 3 of us that went through that tunnel and I survived" that poor lady said.

The eloquence and dignity of all contributors to that programme. Wow! It should be compulsory watching so we all understand how power corrupts and how lies are spread. (I had never seen The Sun's headline until then - it is amazing that so many people believed it when, as that man said "if you stopped and thought about it, you knew it couldn't be true. Would someone really urinate on someone helping save someone's life."

First class documentary. Well done BBC. Thank you to all the families that helped tell The Truth.

I have read some of the 2012 report. Paul Middup seems to have been the one who told the news agency about the behaviour of the fans. The stealing from the dead, urinating on officers, sexually abusing victims, being a drunken mob killing their own. He had the blessing of senior officers.

I have to ask, as somebody from the other side of the world, exactly how bad was the hooliganism of the 1980s? I was a young teenager then - not an avid news-watcher, and as I say, on the other side of the world - yet news of hooligan behaviour even trickled down our way and into my consciousness, so it must have been pretty extreme.

It seems to me that it was that that enabled the lies to be fed, and then believed.

As one of the survivors said on the programme - 'would you urinate on somebody helping a dying person? Them WTF would you believe that I did?!'

And yet so many people did believe exactly that.

It seems incredible to someone like me, who really only heard about Hillsborough quite recently, and who on watching the footage, can see quite clearly that there was no drunken, rowdy behaviour. Cheering and high spirits (initially), but that was it.

How - and why - were so many so quick to believe the lies?

My feeling is that the hooligans of that era have blood on their hands, as well.

Undoubtedly, there was an issue with hooliganism in the 80s but most football fans were, as now, ordinary, law abiding, hard working people who shared a love of the game. This was certainly the image of the crowds heading into Hillsborough that day. No hint of bad behaviour. Previous high profile incidents of hooliganism were merely manipulated by the police to malign ordinary fans in a bid to cover up their own stunning incompetence.

The Ibrox disaster happened a mere 18 years before Hillsborough. Just how crowd safety could have been such an alien concept to the police and FA is fucking breathtaking.