Hillsborough files released: LIVE coverage

reply to post by Freeborn


Ever since the Taylor report and the inquests I have been reading as much about and learning as much about not only the circumstances of the day, but also Police procedures and the duty of care that is core to the concept of being Policed by Consent.

The families of the victims have a lot of good to say about many officers actions that day, once they understood the severity of the situation.

It is without doubt the slowness to understand the severity of the situation by both junior and senior officers that lead to more deaths.

reply to post by Extralien


My respects to those lost and their families and the fans that helped all they could, and I'm glad things are coming out n the open. I never new about this!

Justice for the 96!

The Rat.

reply to post by mirageman
I for one do remember when it happened but with the media we have here in the U.S basically re wrote was was written over there.In fact it if I remember correctly was portrayed as a drunkin brawl,like fans gone wild.

It seems that the police failed in many ways,first of all there was not enough there to handle the crowd,opening the gates and no one to re-direct the fans away from the overcrowded area.Not to mention not letting the ambulances in to take care of the injured.
It was incompetence all around and too many died because of it,I feel for the families because nothing they can do now will bring their loved ones back.Not all the apologies in the world can make up for what these people went through.The release is a huge victory in clearing the names of the victims and families and hopefully will give them some peace as well as letting the world know how badly they(police,media) [SNIP]

maybe in twenty years we(the families) will be celebrating in much the same way over 911.

God bless the families

Mod Edit: Profanity/Circumvention Of Censors – Please Review This Link.

Originally posted by Freeborn
reply to post by AngryAlien

 

It was not their job to assess whether this was a riot, fight, or crush. It WAS the leaderships decision, but the average officer had little they could do in the absence of orders.

Sorry, but a police officers primary duty on such an occassion is indeed to ensure public safety - sitting back and watching people be crushed to death is not ensuring public safety!

Police officers are trained to assess each individual situation and to use their own discretion.

Notts Forest fans from the opposite end tried to offer assisstance to those being crushed as it was so obvious what was going on but police officers stopped them from doing so and even forced some fans back onto the terraces - that's not just negligence but at least manslaughter possibly murder in my book.

Like I keep saying, the police are in a lose lose here. What if the few officers that were there, all abandoned what they were doing, and focused all of their attention on this one part of the stadium, leaving the rest of the stadium unguarded/protected/watched. They had some obligation to assist, but it's not the average officers call in the end, it's the supervisors.

Soccer fans are known for their crushes, that's a fact, it happens more (all over the world) than in any other sporting event. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that the people were sealed into the gated area. Couldn't the people at the end of the crush walk out the way they came?

reply to post by AngryAlien


No, they couldn't just go back out the way they came in. Once they came through the exit gate the police had opened they went straight down a narrow tunnel into a pen which has steel fences at the front with, I think 8 foot fences on either side seperating the other terrace pens.

Because of the crowd coming from behind, they were just pushed further forward. the only chance they had were the gates at the front that led onto the pitch, which police officers refused to open.

A few were pulled onto the area above by fans who could see what was happening below them.

I was only 6 at the time so only have a vague memory of the event.

Have done my research about what happened and today im so shocked

And sickend

I cant believe they took blood from the dead to check for alcohol to shift

The blame from police to people who died threw no fault of their own

I hope the people responsible are punished!

Originally posted by cahlmac
reply to post by AngryAlien

 

Once they came through the exit gate the police had opened they went straight down a narrow tunnel into a pen which has steel fences at the front with, I think 8 foot fences on either side seperating the other terrace pens.

Yes, but the gate was never locked behind them, right?. I'm trying to say that the people still rushing in, could have backed out. This happened because they were all trying to cram in, so they wouldn't miss the match. If people were a little more organized on their own, and showed some discretion, things may have been different. I find it irresponsible for humans in general to stampede into a place and show disregard for the people thay are crushing. Do you really need a cop to tell you to stop?

Look at this list (scroll down to sporting events):

en.wikipedia.org...

We can do a trend analysis here and show that crushes at football games happen more frequently than in any other sporting event. I still think that fans craze for the sport of soccer contributed to the tragedy.

reply to post by Extralien


so what exactly caused them to be crushed?

reply to post by tzdub

I read they were being pushed in by mounted police, Oh gosh i read so many links, ill have to go over everything again and try and find it for you.

Here is some of it, ill have to re read the whole pdf again to see if that's where i read the statement about how they were being pushed my mounted police. PDF Main report

1.78 As kick-off time approached, the crush worsened, and men, women, children and police officers struggled to breathe. Mounted police officers were trapped in the crowd. In later testimonies police officers stated that the crowd grew ‘unruly’, ‘nasty’ and ‘violent’, but people caught in the crush gave a contrasting account. They felt there had been no attempt to manage the crowd, no filtering and no queuing.

Love and harmony
Whateva

Hi everyone

After a long-time reading these boards I now feel compelled to register as I think some facts need to be clarified regarding the seriousness of this report.

First off, since the disaster occurred 23 years ago, safety has improved to a level now whereby the stadiums of professional football clubs are all-seated and heavily supervised. With that in mind I think any discussion on the type of supervision at the game is irrelevant as games are generally well policed these days.

The main source of outrage regarding the fallout from the disaster related to a) the incompetency of the South Yorkshire Police, b) the corruption evidenced between the police and the media (particularly the Sun), and c) the 23 year cover-up, which kept the truth from emerging and has now shown that the fans were completely innocent. It's these reasons why the Prime Minister and Kelvin McKensie have offered full-blown apologies, whilst the current Super-intendent of the South-Yorkshire police has admitted he is 'shocked and ashamed'. The now apparent facts are, that systematic failures and almost non-existent communication within the police on the day were the contributing factors to the disaster, alongside inadequate safety procedures and a culture of crowd control rather than crowd safety.

These mistakes/decisions did not just occur on the day however. One important, and yet unanswered decision, was the sacking of the experienced Superintendent Bone under 'highly controversial circumstances', which in all the 400,000 pages of documents no rationale was provided. Bone had dealt with the crushing incident of 1981 semi-final efficiently, but replacing him was a superintendent who had no previous experience dealing with challenging crowds. It was later stated that he had 'froze up' in the face of a crisis and made countless errors of judgement.

The report details a disturbing amount of unforgivable mistakes committed over the decade, including not acting on previous crushing incidents at the same ground (eg. 1981 semi-final), and not improving the safety of the Lepping's Lane terrace to meet the minimum standards of safety. Even more disturbing, in 1988 a similar incident occurred in which a crush began to become apparent, but in this case the police used their initiative and allowed fans onto the pitch, avoiding fatalities. Strangely, not only was this viewed as the wrong thing to do by those higher up (as they feared the effect that pitch invasions had on the reputation of football), but the FA were told in the next year that this match went by without any issue, and so no safety recommendations were made. Coupled with this, the police were told in the next year not to allow people on the pitch under any circumstances except medical emergency, effectively removing the ability to use their initiative. This no doubt lead to the fatal delay in police action and reports of police 'seeming unaware'.

The fact is that the police on the day were not only guilty of criminal negligence, but the idea of the evils of 'hooliganism' was so entrenched in their minds (hooliganism was a massive issue in the 1980's) that they didn't see it as abnormal to create shocking lies in an attempt to blame the liverpool fans. The Coroner appeared to attempt to compile evidence to support this right from the start, ordering alcohol tests be conducted on all fans. Nevertheless, no evidence was found relating a significant levels of intoxication, which provided further evidence against the police testimony regarding fan behaviour.

Many people are saying justice has been served, but in any democracy having access to a truthful account of an incident should be standard procedure, justice won't be served until criminal accountibility has been processed.

I've tried to condense this but there is a multitude of further details of incompetency, corruption, and negligence detailed in the report. I hope this serves as a decent introduction though.

reply to post by tzdub


to many people being packed into a stand that was already full, people went in and were struggling for space but couldn't just turn around and walk out because there were people coming in behind them until it go so packed the people at the front were being crushed against the fence etc.

people were scrambling to get out by climbing up to the higher tier or climbing over people to get over the fence and onto the pitch. football grounds in england were changed as a result and fencing banned plus seating requirements instead of standing.

I tried to figure out why someone else was at fault? Seems like if there is a giant crowd of people in a certain area common sense would say, that looks too crowded to go in to. Please help me understand how this is a conspiracy? I am not trying to be inconsiderate.

the post above me cleared this up.

all of that could have been prevented by not having those immense iron cages that surround the pitch.

if they weren't there, the people could have run onto the field and be alive today.

but apparently, the safety of 22 professional athletes is worth more than the safety and lives of 60,000 useless eaters.

We should also consider the actions of the west midlands police, who were called in to investigate the yorkshire police. They ended the investigation by giving the south yorks police a complete pass and put no blame onto them for this disaster. So this coruption is more wide spread than every one had thought. A case of one cop looking after another and to hell with upholding the law of the land. I am not surprised about all this. Have we forgotten about the paper vendor on his way home after work. Who passed a protest and was attacked and murdered by the police.

I hadn't heard of this until now.

I can't even fathom this.

reply to post by gandhi


Thank you for joining us in this thread. I am glad and pleased that you have learnt something today.
This story is one of the most harrowing in football history, even sporting history. Add to that the corruption, lies and deceit created by the police and the media (the Sun in particular) and you've got a rather nasty mess..

Criminal proceedings seem to be gathering pace. There is now a call for legal action to go forwards and get those who are to blame.. I hope they get all of them.. every single one.

The loss of life is bad enough, but for the police to cover it up..well.. stinks to high heaven..

An extreme example needs to be made..

Hillsborough victims' families say they are to press for criminal action after a damning report on the disaster.

Trevor Hicks, whose two daughters died in the 1989 stadium crush, said the state should now put right the wrongs.

South Yorkshire Chief Constable David Crompton said if officers had broken the law, they should be prosecuted.

Mr Hicks said if the state did not start legal proceedings, the families would do it themselves.

www.bbc.co.uk...

I am yet to fully read todays report on this, I've just grabbed a few lines from the top of the page.

Leave no stone unturned!!!

Did anyone watch newsnight?

If not you should, Kirsty Wark really went for the SYP robot.

Was a decent effort for sure.


You can watch Newsnight in the link below, the Hillsborough piece is up first

www.bbc.co.uk...

Named and shamed

Sorry for the Daily Mail link. They earn kudos though for naming and shaming the 5 key people involved. Hopefully they are being spat at in the street today.

Originally posted by AngryCymraeg
reply to post by illuminnaughty

 

Absolutely. I was horrified when I heard Cameron's statement this afternoon (I hate the smug git but he and Millibean got it exactly right today)....

Don't be fooled by them. The families have had to keep pushing for 23 YEARS to get to this point.

Every government in those 23 years have refused to help them.

Why do you think that is?

Because they all knew the truth and didn't want it coming out, especially not while they were in power and would have to deal with the backlash.

They're all as bad as the original lot who covered it up in the beginning.

Apologising now that they have no choice but to confront it means nothing.

reply to post by blupblup


So many little twists and turns here that have caused so much pain.

Thanks for posting that.

One little thing the Sun did not do.. their job.. They did not go about reporting the story in a professional journalistic manor.. they just used what they were given and printed it.

Stunned by body number 50 being labeled as such before death had occured .
Incredible..

Am glad that the newsnight have mentioned that not one single police officer has co0me forward and stated that the entire story was fabricated.. It's believed that many officers are still serving..

The BIGGEST known police cover up in the history of the UK ... it has to be corrected.

vindication seems to be the word of the moment.