All Hillsborough media coverage - press, TV & radio

[Joe Le Taxi]

Who wrote that? Good article that although I will have to read it again tomorrow when I am not so tired.

[SpeedyG]

Phil good work. Is there somewhere we can get a transcript of all that Duckenfield said at the time.

 

BTW In your opinion have all of the institutions closed ranks sufficiently that we'll never right this wrong?

[halewood pete]

the insensitivity of some people is quite shocking.

[Lefti]

Fantastic post, very informative, great read... Thanks Phil.

[Stu_L]

Reading that just makes you so angry about the lies and the cover up!

 

Phil, thanks for posting that, I wish I could say how I feel about it, but as Scouse Missionary says, the anger just takes over!!

 

Great read by the way!!

[Mr.SB]

For those who have no idea about Hillsborough, please watch this, only a little under 10 mins, great little clip. JFT 96.

 

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Hillsborough: "Justice for the 96"

 

The first (out of 40) ambulance that got onto the pitch by disregarding the police. Leg.

[ToxtethTerror]

That was fantastic Dr Scraton.

 

I was very young when Hillsborough happened so at the time I didn't feel the real impact of what was going on. As a man with a child now every story I read is harrowing. Every judgement given a damning indictement of our justice system. I just don't see how these families are going to get closure until those responsible are held to account.

 

As I said I never understood the complex court cases, what "justice" we were after but it is because of the HJC and writers like yourself that every Liverpool fan knows what the real truth is.

 

Thank you very much.

[Guest Ulysses Everett McGill]

From todays Times

 

Returning to the nightmare of Hillsborough | Football - Times Online

 

Returning to the nightmare of Hillsborough

Tony Evans

 

The last time I was here, there was fear in the air. Looking down at the turnstiles from Leppings Lane, there was a tumult surrounding a tiny tunnel, a filthy, evil plughole sucking all life towards it and extinguishing the breath of all who were pulled into it. And it was dragging us towards it. We knew what was coming but could not break the crushing, malignant force. I’m here often, the last time about two weeks ago. In a nightmare.

 

Two decades ago, there were no bad dreams, just a sunny spring day and an optimism that was curiously out of kilter with the decade for Scousers. In 1989, with my mate – also called Tony – I came down the hill laughing and approached the crowd outside Hillsborough with confidence.

 

There were a lot of people eager to get into the game. Kick-off was looming and agitation was growing. But we worked the crowd, exploiting its pressing and ebbing, to gain yards. We had experience in this sort of thing – veterans in big crowds since junior school. We had been caught up in this sort of congestion countless times throughout the years, so we were soon at the turnstiles.

 

Then the first unusual thing happened. An exit gate suddenly opened and there we were, inside the ground, our tickets redundant. “See you later,” I said. “Tomorrow,” he replied. Then he walked down the tunnel.

 

His next words to me came some 36 hours later: “Have you ever felt someone’s ribs breaking under your feet?”

Why did you go down the tunnel? The question came last week, after an emotional visit to Hillsborough, this time in waking hours. “I think,” Tony said, “I caught a glimpse of the pitch. That was it. I knew it was the worst place in the ground. But I saw the pitch. You know what it’s like when you see the pitch.”

 

When gate C was opened on the orders of the chief superintendent, David Duckenfield, a man in charge of crowd control for the first time on FA Cup semi-final day, April 15, 1989, thousands of fans spilt into the stadium bemused and clutching tickets. The only entrance to the viewing areas visible as they surged in was the tunnel. It led to two pens that were already horribly overcrowded. Now they were about to become fatally so.

 

“As soon as I was in the tunnel, I knew there were problems,” Tony said. “There was no going back. Just too many people. I kept telling myself to be calm, not to panic. I knew that if my head went down under the level of the crowd, I wouldn’t come back up. But the pushing just carried on.

 

“Then I was out of the tunnel. I thought it was over, just for a second. Then I knew it was worse. Much worse.”

People were still trying to force their way through the underpass, believing, like Tony, that the sunlight and terraces meant safety. Instead, horror waited. “I’d been turned around, facing away from the pitch, so I didn’t know what was happening behind the goal. It was hard to breathe and stay upright, but it had gone past the point of struggling and moving. My elbow was jammed into a fella’s neck and he was pleading with me to move it. He kept saying: ‘I can’t breathe, I’m dying.’ But I couldn’t move it. Then he stopped talking. His head went under.”

 

While Tony was fighting for his life, I was watching from a seat in the stands, trying to comprehend the enormity of what was unfolding. Most people around seemed, at first – like the police – to assume it was a hooligan incident.

 

Then the sights became uglier. A young lad walked around the pitch, holding his arm up under his elbow. The forearm was broken at a neat right angle. Two fans were pumping at the chest of a big man wearing a red shirt. They gesticulated at police to help, but the officers stood by, seemingly paralysed. Then one of the would-be medics pulled up the red shirt, exposing a bare belly, and covered the man’s face. It sent a shock wave through the seats.

 

I had done some CPR training. As the boys on the pitch began to rip down advertising hoardings to create makeshift stretchers, I ran around to the tunnel again, hoping to help.

 

The exit gates were all open at the Leppings Lane, but a line of policemen stood still, on a diagonal, as if to stop anyone leaving. Near the tunnel, under the stairs to the upper section, people lay on the floor. For some reason I thought they were sunbathing. Then I realised they were dead.

 

How long did it last, I asked Tony. “It seemed ages. Hours,” he said. “Probably minutes. Then the crush eased off and I was pushed back towards the tunnel. There were three fellas there. Looked like they were in their 50s. We used to call big fellas Dockers. You’d say, ‘The size of him. He’s a Docker.’ Well these were Dockers. That’s the only way I can explain it. They were grabbing people, giving them a leg up and throwing them up to the stands, where people were pulling them up. One did it for me. Then I was looking down at the chaos.”

 

Outside, trying to stay calm, I asked a policeman a simple question. “How many?” His only reply was a huge, racking sob. Unable to control myself, I ran away up the hill crying. Almost 20 years on, I’m in the same spot. Still crying. Looking at that tunnel. It’s taken almost that time to stop running.

 

Inside the ground, Tony was making the transition from victim to rescuer without a second thought. “I started pulling up people; dragging them out. It went on for a while and then there didn’t seem any more need to be there. I walked out, saw some buses and got on one. There was only me and an old woman on it. Then I got the train back to London, where I was living. Everyone around was normal.”

 

But Tony was not normal. Some weeks later, he began to lose weight in a drastic manner. He saw his doctor, an ancient Irishman, who could find nothing wrong. The doctor asked his usual question: any serious traumas lately?

 

Tony could not think of any. At home, he mentioned the exchange to his girlfriend, now his wife. After a moment or two of disbelief, she suggested that Sheffield may have fit the category. He was genuinely shocked. Hillsborough happened to the dead, injured and their families. He was just there. The doctor explained in blunt terms. “He said 'We call it the weeping willows'," Tony recalls. “You can’t cry, so that’s how it comes out. You’re weeping through your a***.”

 

So how do you let it out? How do you let it go when the lies persist, the fingers still point, 20 years on, against every shred of evidence? Despite the Taylor report. When, increasingly, opposing supporters sing: “You killed your own fans,” and otherwise sensible people repeat the accusations that ring across two decades with the hollow resonance of a great lie. When the coroner ruled that all of the dead were gone by 3.15pm, but Anne Williams has evidence that her 15-year-old son, Kevin, asked for his mum almost an hour later. When Andrew Devine, deprived of oxygen in the crush, remains in a vegetative coma, being cared for by ageing parents whose life was destroyed at the same time as their son’s.

 

You don’t. You go back to Hillsborough, like I did last week, and cry for the dead, the crippled and their families. But you also weep for the fools who believe “The Truth”, those who think that my friend and I were wilful killers.

 

And hope that justice will one day be done. That no one else has to live through something like this at a football match again. Because even us lucky ones have to dream.

[ManxRed]

JFT 96

YNWA

[Melchett]

That is a truly moving piece of journalism

[Paul]

I've merged nine separate threads together to make one central place for all the excellent coverage Hillsborough is getting in the media for the twentieth anniversary. Please put all new stuff in this thread which I've stuck to the top of the forum. Cheers.

[Paul]

Some fantastic coverage by David Conn in todays's Guardian, including this filmed interview with Meredydd Hughes, the current chief constable of South Yorkshire police,

 

Video: Investigating Hillsborough - 20 years on | Football | guardian.co.uk

 

a front page news item on it,

 

Hillsborough police guilty of cover-up, says minister Maria Eagle

 

• Digg it
  

• David Conn
  
• The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009
  
• Article history
  

Hoardings are piled up at Hillsborough in 1989. Photograph: PA

 

The junior justice minister, Maria Eagle, has said that South Yorkshire police should "come clean" about what she described as a "conspiracy to cover up" the force's culpability for the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool supporters died at an FA Cup semi-final, 20 years ago this week.

 

Eagle, MP for Liverpool Garston, where three of the bereaved families lived, accused South Yorkshire police in parliament in 1998 of having operated "a black propaganda campaign", to deflect blame for the disaster away from the force and lay it on Liverpool supporters instead.

 

She based that accusation on the discovery that dozens of statements made by junior police officers about the circumstances of the disaster had been amended after being vetted by more senior officers.

She described this as "a systematic attempt to change police statements to emphasise the slant on the defence that the police wanted to develop".

 

Eagle named six senior South Yorkshire police officers of the time whose role, she said, was to "orchestrate that campaign".

 

One of the officers named was Norman Bettison, who, when he was subsequently appointed chief constable of Merseyside police, denied any role in any such campaign. He said instead that after Hillsborough he worked in a unit whose functions included "making some sense of what happened on the day for the chief constable and his team".

 

Bettison said that the unit had no responsibility for processing police statements. Bettison, now chief constable of West Yorkshire police, said there was "another unit headed by a detective chief inspector" which was "logging in and logging out the statements".

 

Eagle asked publicly who was in that unit and what it was doing, but says she has never received an answer to that question, or to any of those she asked in parliament.

 

"I said there was a black propaganda campaign, involved in a conspiracy to cover up, and I do not retreat from those words at all," she told the Guardian. "Lord Justice Taylor saw through it and in his official report he pinned the blame for the disaster firmly on the police. But at the inquest, the police presented that view again, blaming anybody but themselves, and the families felt that it worked.

 

"It is still an anguish to the families to know that this process went on, and even now the police should come clean, tell us who was in the unit which vetted the statements, what was the unit headed by the DCI doing, who changed the statements, and who supervised the process. If that were accompanied by a genuine apology and a human approach, it could go some way to healing the wounds borne by the families."

 

The police statements, including those which had been amended, were placed by South Yorkshire police in the House of Commons library after the 1997 judicial scrutiny by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. He concluded the changing of statements was not a cover-up, although he criticised the deletion of officers' comments in a small number of statements. Eagle also complains that the documents were "dumped in the library, with no covering letter and no evidence that everything was there".

 

Margaret Aspinall, of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said this was still "a big issue" for the families. "It is quite obvious the police wanted to cover up and accuse everybody else. If they gave us the whole truth now, and are accountable for what they did, it might alleviate some of the pain and hurt we have gone through for 20 years."

 

Meredydd Hughes, the current South Yorkshire chief constable, said the force fully accepted the findings of the Taylor report, that the police were primarily responsible for the disaster, and Taylor's criticism that they failed to accept responsibility at the time. He said he is marking the forthcoming 20th anniversary by re-emphasising the need to learn from the mistakes at Hillsborough, and stressing the progress the police have made since in managing major events. He agreed to investigate whether there are other documents relating to Hillsborough which have not been publicly disclosed.

 

"I will ask if we have material that we have not released, and if we can release it, we will. We are not about hiding things."

 

Hughes argued, however, that the changing of statements at the time had only been a way of putting into structured form the raw accounts of officers who served on the day. He stood by the finding that there was no conspiracy. "My belief, from my review of the papers, and that of Lord Justice Stuart-Smith from his much closer examination, is that it was not a systematic attempt to hide the truth."

Edited April 13, 2009 by Paul

[Paul]

and this double page spread inside:

 

Hillsborough: how stories of disaster police were altered

 

 

Twenty years on, the families of the 96 fans who died in the semi-final crush are still fighting to force police to acknowledge that changing officers' statements amounted to a cover-up

• Digg it
  

• David Conn
  
• The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009
  
• Article history
  

 

David Conn speaks to Meredydd Hughes, the current South Yorkshire police chief constable, about the lessons learned from Hillsborough. Link to this video In a dusty library at the far end of the Houses of Parliament, among 10 boxes of documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster which were made available by the South Yorkshire police following a government order some years ago, is a statement from a police constable on duty that day.

 

On the front page is a handwritten instruction from a more senior officer. "Last two pages require amending," it notes. "These are his own feelings. He also states that PCs were sat down crying when the fans were carrying the dead and injured. This shows they were organised and we were not. Have [the PC] rewrite the last two pages excluding points mentioned."

 

As they prepare to mark Wednesday's 20th anniversary of the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, the families of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough retain, with their enduring grief, a burning sense of injustice. The discovery that the police vetted junior officers' statements, and amended many to remove criticisms of the police's own operation, seemed to confirm the families' suspicions after Hillsborough: that the police tried to cover up their own culpability for the disaster. The families are still outraged that after Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry, a lengthy inquest, high court appeals and a judicial "scrutiny", no one has ever been held accountable, and unanswered questions remain.

 

In his report, Taylor concluded firmly that police mismanagement of the crowd had caused the disaster. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, commanding his first big football match, had agreed to relieve a crush outside the ground by opening an exit gate to allow a crowd of supporters to enter together, rather than singly through the turnstiles. The central pens of the Leppings Lane terrace were full, but no officers were ordered to block the tunnel leading to those pens and direct supporters to the sides, where there was still room. "Failure to give that order," Taylor wrote, "was a blunder of the first magnitude." Taylor criticised South Yorkshire police for refusing to accept that truth. Duckenfield even said originally that supporters forced open the gate; that was condemned as a "disgraceful lie" by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith in his 1998 judicial scrutiny of new Hillsborough evidence. "It is a matter of regret," Taylor wrote, "that ... the South Yorkshire police were not prepared to concede that they were in any respect at fault. The police case was to blame the fans for being late and drunk ... It would have been more seemly and encouraging ... if responsibility had been faced."

 

Yet at the inquest that followed, prominence was given again to police accounts of supporters being drunk and without tickets. The families were appalled by the eventual verdict of accidental death rather than unlawful killing, and felt that the police force principally responsible for so many deaths had behaved, from the day of the disaster, without humanity. It emerged that two police CCTV videos went missing from the locked control room on the night of the disaster - one showing the police opening the gate survived - and that deepened suspicion.

 

It was amid that legacy of betrayal that evidence emerged, nine years later, that senior South Yorkshire police officers had vetted and amended their junior officers' statements, in consultation with the force's solicitors, before presenting them to Taylor and the inquest. Criticisms that senior officers failed to provide leadership on the day, and radio communication was poor, were removed from several statements. Accounts of drunken or misbehaving fans, on the other hand, were almost all left in. The junior justice minister, Maria Eagle, MP for Liverpool Garston, said questions still remained about who was involved with that process and how far it went, and she urged the force to "come clean" and make a genuine apology. "The institutional behaviour of South Yorkshire police was appalling," she said. "I stand by the comments I made in the House of Commons at the time. This was a black propaganda unit, engaged in a conspiracy to cover up."

 

Police documents

 

Eagle complains the documents were "dumped" in the parliamentary library after South Yorkshire police were ordered to disclose them, and she doubts if it is a comprehensive collection. The 10 boxes are in no discernible order; there is no index or explanatory letter, and it is difficult to believe it can be complete: there are no memos between senior officers, or between the police and their solicitors.

 

Many statements have apparently not been amended, or the originals are not there. On the ones which have, there are handwritten notes on the front, setting out sections to be changed. There is a list headed Amended Reports, with 163 officers' names on it, and another, with 248 names on it, with a column noting when the statements were vetted.

 

The police argue they were trying only to cut emotion and opinion out of the officers' raw statements. Stuart-Smith concluded there was no cover-up, because the changes mostly involved removing comment and hearsay, although he did criticise some deletions of fact.

 

Yet the handwritten note on the front of that PC's statement - "This shows they were organised and we were not" - appears to show there was a more sinister agenda, to undermine the fans and exonerate the police.

Meredydd Hughes, the current South Yorkshire police chief constable, said the force fully accepted Taylor's findings, including the criticism that the police failed to take responsibility and sought to blame the disaster on supporters. He did not, however, accept that the amending of statements was part of that campaign. "It was not a systematic attempt to hide the truth," he said. Hughes said he would find out whether there were further documents which have not been publicly disclosed, make available any not covered by legal privilege, and issue an apology if appropriate.

 

"We are not about trying to hide things," he said. "We are not the same force that was here in 1989. We exist to protect the public, learn lessons from Hillsborough and put them into practice."

 

Prof Phil Scraton, author of Hillsborough: The Truth, was the first to discover the changing of statements, and he maintains it was a cover-up. "The statements were transformed after a team of officers, from the force under investigation, reviewed and altered them. If cover-up means anything, this was it."

 

The emergence of the changed statements is not the worst lingering injustice the families feel. Many are still profoundly scarred by the inquest process, and crucial decisions made by the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper. He held "mini-inquests" while the director of public prosecutions was considering criminal charges against the police officers in command - no charges were ultimately brought.

 

At the mini-inquests, West Midlands police officers read out summaries of evidence about where and when victims died. Witnesses were not called, let alone cross-examined. Popper then limited the main inquest, which began in Sheffield on 19 November 1990, to events up to 3.15pm on the day of the disaster. He ruled that by then, all the victims had received injuries in the Leppings Lane crush which rapidly caused irreversible brain damage.

 

That line of reasoning was upheld when the families challenged it by judicial review in the high court in 1993. Yet the "mini-inquests," followed by the 3.15 cut-off, meant two huge areas have been closed from full investigation: the response to the disaster by the police, ambulances, fire service and local hospitals, and the individual circumstances of how each victim died.

 

A number of witnesses, never called to the inquest, have since bitterly criticised the emergency response. Anthony Edwards, a paramedic in one of only three ambulances that made it on to the pitch out of 42 called to the ground, described the operation as "chaotic". He said that paramedics could not reach the crush, and the "basic technique" of inserting airways into casualties' mouths was barely administered. Another leading ambulanceman, John Flack, said it was "bedlam".

 

Hillsborough was a scene of horror. Supporters were mostly laid on their backs, rather than in the recovery position, some with clothes covering their faces, even though no qualified person had determined they were dead. There were literally piles of bodies at the Leppings Lane end, and bodies left lying around elsewhere. Only 14 of those who died were taken to hospital, a fact Ann Adlington, solicitor for the Hillsborough Family Support Group, describes as "shocking".

 

In August 2006, Anne Williams, whose 15-year-old son Kevin was killed at Hillsborough, applied to the European court of human rights, arguing that the inquest into her son's death was "insufficient" due to the 3.15 cut-off.

Over years of tireless campaigning, Williams tracked down people who had helped Kevin, including Derek Bruder, an off-duty police officer, and a woman special police constable. They had testified that Kevin had signs of life up to 4pm; Bruder felt a pulse, and the SPC said Kevin had opened his eyes and said "Mum".

 

Their statements were changed after visits from the West Midlands police, to suggest there were no signs of life. Both have since emphatically stood by their original statements. Bruder has since complained that his evidence "was not presented in its entirety or in a professional manner" at the mini-inquest, to which he was not called to give evidence in person, and he has emphatically maintained he did feel a pulse. The SPC has also stood by her original statement. Williams sought the opinions of three eminent pathologists, who all disagreed with the diagnosis by the consultant, Dr David Slater, who examined Kevin. Dr Iain West, consultant forensic pathologist at London's Guy's hospital, contested Slater's finding, which had been upheld in the high court, that Kevin had died from traumatic asphyxia. That and crush asphyxia were the causes of death ascribed to all who died at Hillsborough. West said he believed Kevin died from severe neck injuries, and could have been saved had he been treated early enough. There may have been other victims who were recoverable, he said, after 3.15.

 

Applications to the European court have to be made within six months of exhausting the last possible domestic legal means of redress. The judges took that to be Stuart-Smith's "scrutiny", which upheld the coroner's findings in the case of Kevin Williams and rejected all requests to reopen the inquests. On 17 February this year, the ECHR dismissed Williams's case as out of time. Sitting in her home in Chester, surrounded by files and documents, Williams said: "I won't give up, not until the record is put straight. You can't grieve properly, you can't lay your children to rest, until you have established what really happened."

 

Meredydd Hughes acknowledged that the police response to the unfolding disaster was "a picture of terrible confusion, a lack of leadership at critical times". Asked whether he could understand the families' frustration with the 3.15 cut-off, he said: "I understand it, but it is not for the police service to comment on."

 

Margaret Aspinall, vice-chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18-year-old son James died at Hillsborough, said the 3.15 cut-off was "the biggest issue" for the families. "There are huge, unanswered questions. How many could have survived if they had had proper care, and oxygen? Even now, we want reopened inquests beyond 3.15."

 

The families want answers, too, about the role of a West Midlands police officer, Detective Superintendent Stanley Beechey, whom Popper described as "the second most senior officer at the time of the main inquest".

In June and July 1990, Beechey had been in a monitoring room when Duckenfield and other senior officers were interviewed about their roles at Hillsborough. Beechey was given the sealed audio tapes of the interviews and was responsible for presenting them to the inquest. The coroner said publicly that Beechey had "an awful lot to do" with preparing the evidence summaries for the mini-inquests.

 

Beechey was a former head of West Midlands serious crime squad, which was disbanded in August 1989 after a string of collapsed cases, and amid allegations of police malpractice. A complaint about Beechey was made to the then Police Complaints Authority by George Tomkins, who alleged he had been "fitted up" by West Midlands police for an armed robbery he did not commit. Tomkins spent 17 months on remand in Birmingham's Winson Green prison before he was acquitted.

 

The West Midlands chief constable, Geoffrey Dear, moved named West Midlands SCS officers to "non-operational duties". Beechey's transfer was to "studying technical aspects of Hillsborough". Dear said he believed this involved working on fuzzy video footage to enhance its quality. When told Beechey became involved at a senior level, Dear said: "It definitely was not what I had in mind when I transferred him. If I had been told, I would have taken him off the investigation. I wouldn't have had Beechey working on that or any other inquiry. Not because he might necessarily be doing anything wrong, but because it was not appropriate." On 20 June 1990, Beechey was formally interviewed, under caution, about Tomkins's allegations. So, at the same time Beechey had been present at the interviews of senior officers responsible at Hillsborough, he was himself under formal investigation.

 

Detective's involvement

 

Beechey was not disciplined following the PCA inquiry, and returned to operational duties on 30 November 1990. His period on "non-operational duties" had taken in the Hillsborough mini-inquests, the criminal inquiry for the DPP, and the first 11 days of the main inquest.

 

In April 1993, Tomkins took out a private prosecution against Beechey, three other police officers and a DPP lawyer, accusing them of perverting the course of justice. The police officers' cases were committed to the crown court. In 1995 the DPP discontinued the prosecutions. Tomkins took out a civil claim, suing the West Midlands police for malicious prosecution. On 18 March 1996, the force agreed, without admitting any wrongdoing by any officer, to pay Tomkins £40,000 compensation, and £70,000 for his legal costs.

 

Although there is no evidence that Beechey did anything improper in the Hillsborough investigation, Aspinall feels Beechey's involvement is another area of unease. "We want it cleared up," she argues. "What was this police officer doing on the Hillsborough investigation, what position did he occupy, and why, if he was on 'non-operational duties?'"

 

A spokesman for West Midlands police provided a statement: "Det Supt Beechey was a later addition to the team of officers who liaised with the Hillsborough coroner, and his role was of a limited, overseeing nature. There has never been any suggestion that he carried out the support work into Hillsborough in anything other than a rigorous, thorough and professional manner. An unconnected civil action brought against DS Beechey was settled in a separate legal process, the basis of which means we cannot comment further."

 

Hillsborough seems an age away now, a disaster caused by police mismanagement at an unsafe football ground, where the Football Association commissioned a semi-final despite the ground's safety certificate being a decade out of date. In the 20 years since, football grounds have been rebuilt, helped initially by public grants, and the top clubs have made fortunes.

 

Yet for the families of the mostly young people who died, there has been unending grief, and a traumatic legal ordeal leaving them with questions still unanswered.

 

"I don't like to use the word justice," says Aspinall. "I prefer to say that we want the full truth, and accountability. Even now, it would make a difference, alleviate some of the hurt and betrayal we have suffered for 20 years."

 

Unanswered questions

 

The cause of the Hillsborough disaster - police mismanagement of the crowd - was established by Lord Justice Taylor in his report published just four months afterwards, in August 1989. Yet 20 years on, key questions remain unanswered about the disaster's aftermath.

 

1 What, in detail, happened after 3:15pm on the day of the disaster?

2 Could more people have been saved if the response to the disaster had been better co-ordinated?

3 Who removed two CCTV video tapes from the locked control room at Hillsborough on the night of the disaster?

4 Why was nobody identified to have removed them, and what investigation was mounted?

5 Which South Yorkshire police officers worked in the unit that vetted police statements before they went to Taylor and the inquest?

6 Who gave the orders for them to do so and what was the stated intention of those orders?

7 Are the documents lodged by order of the government in the House of Lords library a complete archive of South Yorkshire police's Hillsborough documents?

8 What was Det Supt Stanley Beechey, a former head of the West Midlands serious crime squad, doing on the Hillsborough investigation while he had been placed on "non-operational duties"?

Edited April 13, 2009 by Paul

[Jennings]

A difficult read but a very powerful piece of writing, for me.

 

"...you also weep for the fools who believe “The Truth” "

[Kevin D]

The Aldo and Jocky bit is fantastic. That was me Aldo mentions at 5.35 in. Came out of my coma when Kenny was talking to me. 20 years, unbelievable. Horrendous. Trying very hard to keep it togther at the moment. Dad died two years ago and brings up a lot of stuff about him. He was waiting in the car for me to come back and didn't find me till ten o'clock that night. Never really recovered, took me my first game in '74 and took me that day, always blamed himself.

Always remember him holding the door shut so Neil Kinnock couldn't come into my room and telling him to piss off. Brilliant.

 

Jesus.

[JohnnyH]

This is fantastic. The covereage of Hillsborough on this anniversary has been utterly brilliant. I sat in the pub last night with a bunch of old school mates who I would meet up with once every few months for a night out. They all like there football but wouldn't really follow a team. To a man they all had comments about Hillsborough and tons of questions. To sit there with 10 people who just listened intently as I talked about it was great. They have never shown an interest before but now they have read about the cover up and the Sun lies and they were all horrified and wanted to know as much as possible. One of the lads was truly horrified at the mistruths that had been spread by the police.

 

This week a number of papers have done (probably unwittingly) a massive job is exposing the lies of the Sun and SYP to a much greater public then we could have ever hoped. It's been a great week for the memories of the 96.

[chris71]

Fair play to Les Lawson just now on LFC.tv News. At the end when they showed the PM Gordon Browns piece Les called for him to actually do something about the fight for justice and not just sit there saying the victims and families are in our minds.

[23_Carra_Gold]

Rafa said a few words today...

 

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez wants "everyone in football" to be made aware of the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.

 

Wednesday marks the 20th anniversary of the day when 96 supporters lost their lives at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

 

"It's important, not just for the players at my club, but everyone in football to remember," said Benitez.

 

"The families have been amazing and have been coping. Liverpool will always be there to support them."

 

A special memorial service will be held at Anfield on Wednesday where Benitez and councillor Steve Rotheram will lay a scarf on the pitch and release 96 red balloons.

 

There will also be a two-minute silence held in Liverpool, Nottingham and Sheffield at 1506 BST which will end when all civic, cathedral and church bells are rung 96 times.

 

"I was in Spain at the time and I didn't realise how serious the actual situation was - I then heard the news and soon realised," added Benitez, who was appointed manager of the club in the summer of 2004.

 

"Since I've been at Liverpool I've learned a lot more. I've learned what Hillsborough means to people."

[23_Carra_Gold]

I read an old interview with Kenny where he said his son asked him "Why did it happen to us?".

 

It shouldn't have happened to anybody but I feel if you were looking for a group of people to come together and mourn as a family and fight for what is lawfully correct with dignity and respect then you couldn't find a better group of people then those in Liverpool city and those who are a part of this football club. In a way the values that this club were built upon prepared us for days like that and also the weeks that followed. As Steven Gerrard said so poignantly at the weekend "We're all one on and off the pitch. We stick together in times of adversity". Its harrowing watching the scenes of that day again and reading accounts of what happened but it comforts me knowing that the 96 who lost their lives will always be remembered with great emotion and passion and their families will always be treated with the upmost respect by not only this football club but the extended community who sympathise with this horrible disaster.

[theghost]

LFC TV will mark the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster with a day of specially-commissioned programming that supporters all over the world will be able to watch on TV or online completely free.

 

On April 15, LFC TV, the club’s official channel - normally only available to supporters who subscribe to the Setanta Sports package – will be free to everyone who has either Sky Digital or Virgin Media in their homes.

 

For those supporters who don’t have either satellite or cable won’t be at home on the day or live abroad, we will be making all of the TV content available to watch live on the official website completely free.

 

For the first time ever, the Memorial Service at Anfield will be available to watch live and interrupted on TV and for the Hillsborough families who no longer live in this country and fellow supporters from all over the world, the entire service will be shown live on the web as part of the day’s LFC TV content.

 

For the families and fans who will actually be attending the service at Anfield and those who can’t make it due to work commitments, the entire event will aldo be repeated on LFC TV later in the night.

 

Here is the full schedule for LFC TV’s Free Day on April 15

 

10:00: What Hillsborough Means to Me - Part 1

 

Members of the LFC family – current and former players and fans and family members - open up about what the Hillsborough disaster means to them personally.

 

10:15: A Song for Hillsborough

 

LFC TV goes behind the scenes at Elevator Studios in Liverpool for the recording of a new specially-commissioned version of ‘Fields of Anfield Road’. Peter Hooton, Bruce Grobbelaar and John Power all speak in studio about why they’re proud to be involved in the project

 

10:45: What Hillsborough Means to Me - Part 2

 

More members of the LFC family – current and former players and fans and family members - open up about what the Hillsborough disaster means to them personally.

 

11:00: Hillsborough: The Documentary

 

20 years on from the disaster that cost 96 Liverpool fans their lives, LFC TV remembers the saddest day in the club’s history with an updated version our hard-hitting Hillsborough documentary.

 

12:00: Cup Kings 1989

 

Ronnie Whelan (club captain in 1989), John Aldridge and radio commentator Graham Beecroft reflect on the road to Wembley for the most emotional cup final ever, including Hillsborough and the aftermath of the disaster back home on Merseyside.

 

14:30: Live: Hillsborough Memorial Service

 

Live and uninterrupted coverage from Anfield of the Hillsborough Memorial Service. The service will feature two choirs - the Choir of St Anne Stanley and the Liverpool Singing Choir - readings from Kenny Dalglish and Margaret Aspinall, Vice Chairperson of the Hillsborough Families Support Group and addresses from both the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Councillor Steve Rotherham and Trevor Hicks, President of the HFSG. The service will conclude with Gerry Marsden and Neal McHale singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

 

15:45: Poems for the 96

 

Out of the tragedy that was Hillsborough, some incredibly emotive poetry emerged. Liverpool poet Roger McGough, Dave Kirby, Nicky Allt and others recite some of the most moving poems you’ll hear this year.

 

16:00: Kop Talkin: Hillsborough Special

 

Three supporters describe their own experiences on the day of the disaster; reflect on how they coped in the day and weeks that followed the tragedy and debate why the fight for justice is still so strong 20 years on.

 

17:00: What Hillsborough Means to Me - Part Three

 

More members of the LFC family – current and former players and fans and family members - open up about what the Hillsborough disaster means to them personally.

 

17:15: What Hillsborough Means to Me - Part 1

 

Another chance to watch our earlier edition of the show where members of the LFC family open up about what the Hillsborough disaster means to them personally.

 

17:30: A Song for Hillsborough

 

LFC TV goes behind the scenes at Elevator Studios in Liverpool for the recording of a new specially-commissioned version of ‘Fields of Anfield Road’. The Lord Mayor, Councillor Steve Rotherham, Kenny Dalglish and Phil Thompson all speak in studio about why they’re proud to be involved in the project

 

18:00: Hillsborough Memorial Service

 

Another chance to watch the Hillsborough Memorial Service from earlier in the day at Anfield.

 

19:00: Ray Houghton’s Class of 88-89

 

Former Liverpool star Ray Houghton reflects on the group of players who made the fateful trip to Hillsborough on April 15 and looks back on their season up to and after that fateful day.

 

20:00: Hillsborough: The Documentary

 

Another chance to watch the LFC TV’s hard-hitting Hillsborough documentary with contributions from the likes of Sheila Coleman, Phil Hammond, Neil Fitzmaurice, Peter Carney, Rogan Taylor, John Barnes and John Aldridge amongst others.

 

21:00: Parkhead 89: The Fans Story

 

Three fans – two supporting Liverpool, one supporting Celtic - recall the first match to take place after the Hillsborough disaster on an emotionally charged night in Glasgow.

 

22:00: Kop Talkin: Hillsborough Special

 

A repeat showing of this studio discussion for supporters who missed it earlier in the day due to attending the Memorial Service or work commitments.

 

23:00: Hillsborough Memorial Service

 

LFC TV’s free day of broadcasting ends with the service to remember the 96 supporters who never came home from a game of football.

 

LFC will be available to watch FREE online on this website, on Sky Channel 434 and Virgin Media Channel 544 on April 15.[/Quote]

 

If somebody could record what is on LFC.tv somehow and put it together in a torrent, I would be eternally grateful. I would really like to see this, but unfortunately the glut of it will be on overnight in the States.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

If somebody could record what is on LFC.tv somehow and put it together in a torrent, I would be eternally grateful. I would really like to see this, but unfortunately the glut of it will be on overnight in the States.

 

Good call, I'm down under and have a similar problem, kudos to anyone who can help with this.

 

Footy focus and match of the day are up on theboxdotbz for anyone outside the iplayer range

[Cath]

Can I just raise a glass to Kelly Dalglish? She's been an absolute rock during the current media circus. Well in girl. Definitely a chip of the old block.

[Randy Marsh]

Gordon Brown has failed Hillsborough families with snub

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has dashed the hopes of the Liverpool families campaigning for justice for their loved ones who perished at Hillsborough.

 

 

By Henry Winter, Football Correspondent

Last Updated: 8:36AM BST 14 Apr 2009

 

 

While voicing sympathy for their cause and admiration for their dignity, Brown refused Liverpool's request for him to call on South Yorkshire Police to issue some form of apology for the catastrophic errors made by Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield and his officers.

 

Twenty years on, the two debating points still stirred by Hillsborough remain the lack of justice for the 96 and, on a far less significant level, the still-controversial issue of whether some form of standing should be reintroduced to improve atmospheres.

 

Justice first. Within football circles, Brown is seen as a genuine fan with a passion for Raith Rovers, but it is impossible to escape the feeling that he has now failed Liverpool.

 

Brown's snubbing of the families' crusade follows Jack Straw's rejection of their plea for an inquest while Home Secretary in 1998. (Straw, incidentally, is now Secretary of State for Justice).

 

So apart from Lord Chief Justice Taylor and the Anfield board, just about everyone in authority has now let down the Hillsborough families. They will never give up the fight, alleging the police were guilty of a cover-up as well as gross negligence on the day.

 

At Anfield on Saturday, supporters' cries of "justice'' filled the air. "Justice for the 96'' read the banner among the Everton fans at Villa Park on Sunday. "Justice'' will be the chant in the away section of Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night when Liverpool visit in the Champions League. Wednesday brings the Hillsborough memorial service on the Kop, when the talk will again be of a desire for justice.

 

"One day maybe we will have closure,'' said Pat Joynes, who lost her son Nick at Hillsborough. "When a senior policeman stands up and says 'we made a terrible mistake' it might give us some piece of mind.''

 

Liverpool asked Brown whether there was any legal route which the Hillsborough families could pursue in search of justice. In an interview screened on the Liverpool website on Monday night, the club also sought Brown's counsel on whether any apology would be forthcoming from the police.

 

The PM refused to respond to either request, dodging the "justice'' issue by answering: "I feel that the best thing we can do is say that the memories of these fans who died will always be in our minds, that the country understands the difficulties that people have gone through and that there is huge public support and affection for the families that have had to suffer so much.

 

"Let's never forget the fans that cruelly lost their lives on a day when we know the people of Liverpool were trying, if they were in that ground, to help each other and that's the spirit of Liverpool.

 

"I think that the families, in trying to cope with this disaster, have had the support of all decent-minded people across the country. I think that's probably what matters most: that people understood that the behaviour of Liverpool fans in helping each other was, as I think the judge said: 'magnificent'.''

 

What matters most? What matters to the Hillsborough families is an acknowledgement that mistakes were made. So far only Taylor has criticised South Yorkshire Police, describing Duckenfield's decision to open a gate that allowed 2,000 fans to pour down a tunnel into the crowded central pens of the Leppings Lane End as "a blunder of the first magnitude''.

 

In his lauded report, Taylor recommended the introduction of all-seat stadiums, an inevitable move in the wake of Hillsborough but one that has undoubtedly affected atmosphere levels.

 

"There is a feeling among people who went to games pre-Taylor Report that atmospheres are flatter and more sterile and current stadia probably do contribute to this,'' said a spokesman for the Football Supporters' Federation.

 

"It's more natural to sing if you're standing up; even now crowds stand when they sing.'' The FSF does add, however, that "post-Taylor Report there's no doubt that top-level football is a safer, more welcoming environment''.

 

All-seat does not automatically mean all quiet. Ibrox and Celtic Park remain cauldrons of noise. Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, a marvellous example of architects understanding that the noisiest arenas are essentially ravines, is exceptional when full.

 

English grounds like Goodison Park, Fratton Park, the Britannia, the KC Stadium and the Hawthorns, among others, reverberate with noise. Anfield is special on big European nights.

 

The Emirates has turned up the volume slightly with the introduction of a special singing area but few in football would dispute that atmospheres are not what they used to be.

 

Wembley at times resembles a cathedral with its hush. Old Trafford has a problem with atmosphere, as even Sir Alex Ferguson has highlighted.

 

Fans increasingly wait to be entertained before chanting, ticketing means that those wanting to sing cannot gravitate across a terrace towards each other, but the Premier League stresses that the diminution of atmosphere is a small price to pay for safety.

 

"Some people argue it's not as tribal, as feisty as in the Seventies and Eighties, but football and society have moved on,'' said a Premier League spokesman.

 

"Flowing from Taylor has been a different crowd dynamic: more women, more children and more people from ethnic minorities. There's a more inclusive atmosphere.

 

"Clubs are always looking at ways to strike a balance between those who want to go to the match to drink in the atmosphere and those who want to go and create an atmosphere. Newcastle has an area for the 'Geordie Ultras'.

 

"A lot depends on the dynamic of the game; something can happen in a game to create and atmosphere to compare with Celtic Park in full voice or 'the good old days'.''

 

Standing will not return. "I wouldn't take the risks,'' commented the Football Association chairman, Lord Triesman. Good. Now all that remains is for the Hillsborough families to have their justice. Sadly, Brown's stance makes that unlikely

[RMG10]

These last few days have been so overwhelming.

To read, watch and listen to the hundreds of stories is unbelievably humbling.

But it's also an ideal time to turn up the heat again on the powers that be, to let them know that if they want to revel in the occasion and offer platitudes, then they should also do what's in their power to make a difference.

 

The 'media' were all present on that day but allowed things to be said unchallenged. They gave oxygen to the intial conspiracy and then forgot it when it was convenient.

Now they rush to condemn the Sun as if it's the first time they're aware of the story they ran, but say nothing about McKenzie's regular involvement on tv, radio and in print.

If the families get nothing else, it should at least be the knowledge that, that man never works again.

 

So I salute David Conn for his work, but call on others to ask the questions they didn't all those years ago.

[Woo]

Brian Reade's pullout in todays Mirror is brilliant.