Justice For The 96

[Anfield Kopite]

Whilst measures should have been put in place at the stadium to avoid the crush outside the ground - there were still Liverpool fans pushing and shoving fellow fans to get into the Leppings Lane end for kick off. This pushing and shoving certainly didn't help stewards and police. There also would have been a number of fans trying to 'jib' in. Liverpool fans have a history of that, prior to Hillsborough and unbelievably after Hillsborough. (You would have thought they would learn their lesson). These fans will not come forward and say "I didn't have a ticket that day and was trying to get in without one' or 'I was pushing and shoving fellow fans in front of me as I was being too impatient. Will they eck.....So IMO - 'some' Liverpool fans didn't help matters that day.

So by that reckoning, if Liverpool fans are totally blameless, as many on here say 'that's what crowds do' - then the idiot Leeds fan who pushed Kirkland in the face is blameless and it's the stewards/police's fault for not putting measures in place to prevent that happening. After all, that's what hooligans do.[/quote]
The footage outside the turnstyles does not show Liverpool fans behaving badly, it shows 100s of people that have been ushered into a small area were the low number of entry turnstyles couldnt cope with the amount of people all turning up in the 25 minutes or so before kick off. The police used these late arrivals as an excuse to point the finger but there were very genuine reasons why a lot of fans turned up at that time. There are 2 main routes from Liverpool to Sheffield, The Snakepass and the M62. The coaches of fans (and there were about 100) were advised by Police to use the M62. Now on that fateful day there were a lot of roadworks on the motorway and a rather bad accident that slowed progress. However, the coach company had done their homework regarding the roadworks and had left in good time and most coaches from Liverpool arrived in Sheffield before 2.30 which was a little late but not really a problem. Then just before they let the fans off, the police were ridiculously stopping and searching the coaches delaying them all further and meaning that a majority of fans turned up with little time before kick off. The day that the panel released its findings last month, 'Sir' Norman Bettison, who is accused of being a ringleader in the Black Propaganda campaign of The South Yorkshire Police apologised because the police got it wrong, but also claimed that the behaviour of Liverpool fans didnt help. After taking some stick over his statement he backtracked and finally admitted that the fans had done nothing wrong. If he had evidence of this bad behaviour he wouldnt have backtracked he would have stood by his statement. So to compare Liverpool fans that day, to that idiot who ran onto the pitch and attacked Kirkland is out of order.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

So by that reckoning, if Liverpool fans are totally blameless, as many on here say 'that's what crowds do' - then the idiot Leeds fan who pushed Kirkland in the face is blameless and it's the stewards/police's fault for not putting measures in place to prevent that happening. After all, that's what hooligans do.

I'll bite, even though it's such blatant fishing.

Which is why the stewarding at the Leeds match has serious questions to answer. Why did they fail to spot a hooligan with banning orders in the ground, fail to spot him going over the wall, fail to stop him getting on the pitch, fail to stop him getting to Kirkland and let him get back into the crowd. Major, major failures there.

Because clubs and safety authorities have a statutory duty to understand crowd behaviour, to anticipate things that might happen, and to put systems in place to prevent them happening.

At Hillsborough in 89 they failed on all these counts - despite having previous notice of potential problems at the same ground in similar circumstances.

[No Fixed Abode]

So by that reckoning, if Liverpool fans are totally blameless, as many on here say 'that's what crowds do' - then the idiot Leeds fan who pushed Kirkland in the face is blameless and it's the stewards/police's fault for not putting measures in place to prevent that happening. After all, that's what hooligans do.

Because clubs and safety authorities have a statutory duty to understand crowd behaviour, to anticipate things that might happen, and to put systems in place to prevent them happening.

.

I agree with you. But then I also think people (and crowds) have a social responsibility to act in an appropriate manner and be more aware/courteous to those around you. If I'm in a busy bar and it's taking ages to get served, I don't push my way from the back to try and get to the front. I either wait patiently, or I leave to go elsewhere. Sadly you do get those who do push. Just like driving - the vast majority will wait patiently and get in line, but there are some who will be selfish, go in the wrong lane then try and push in, sometimes causing an accident. Is that then the authorities fault for not putting measures in place, or the selfish driver doing all he can to get one or two cars ahead, only thinking of himself - never mind that he might cause and accident and kill someone. After all - that's how 'some' drivers behave.

So to summarise, yes, authorities at Hillsborough should have done more, that's not in question. It's people's behaviour in general I'm questioning. It is a social problem, not only related to football.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

So by that reckoning, if Liverpool fans are totally blameless, as many on here say 'that's what crowds do' - then the idiot Leeds fan who pushed Kirkland in the face is blameless and it's the stewards/police's fault for not putting measures in place to prevent that happening. After all, that's what hooligans do.

Because clubs and safety authorities have a statutory duty to understand crowd behaviour, to anticipate things that might happen, and to put systems in place to prevent them happening.

.

I agree with you. But then I also think people (and crowds) have a social responsibility to act in an appropriate manner and be more aware/courteous to those around you. If I'm in a busy bar and it's taking ages to get served, I don't push my way from the back to try and get to the front. I either wait patiently, or I leave to go elsewhere. Sadly you do get those who do push. Just like driving - the vast majority will wait patiently and get in line, but there are some who will be selfish, go in the wrong lane then try and push in, sometimes causing an accident. Is that then the authorities fault for not putting measures in place, or the selfish driver doing all he can to get one or two cars ahead, only thinking of himself - never mind that he might cause and accident and kill someone. After all - that's how 'some' drivers behave.

So to summarise, yes, authorities at Hillsborough should have done more, that's not in question. It's people's behaviour in general I'm questioning. It is a social problem, not only related to football.

It's a social problem, and it's a social problem that's unlikely to change. That's why pubs have bouncers outside them so that people likely to cause so much trouble as to be a danger to others will be ejected.

The key point (which you know but refuse to acknowledge because you know you'll have nothing left to hang futile arguments onto) is that the behaviour of Liverpool supporters that day in Sheffield was no different to the behaviour that could be expected of any football crowd of comparable size in similar circumstances that day. It really is as simple as that.

[Anfield Kopite]

Ive just re-read pretty much the whole of this thread. There are certain people who keep saying the same old tired arguement over and over. Like when a 10 year old starts off believing they are right but there arguements keep getting shot down but pride or whatever wont allow them to admit they were wrong. For example, saying police opened up that gate because the fans were 'pushing and shoving each other in order to get into the ground'. Jesus Christ, i was there!! The fans were already getting crushed outside because circumstances conspired that many hundreds had turned up at the same time and the turnstyles couldnt cope. Any pushing and shoving was because people were getting scared. Gate gets opened to relieve the pressure. Once through the gate a tunnel with a sign saying Leppings Lane Terrace over it and people en masse go through to already overfull pens. They had no idea they were overfull and had no reason to believe that there were other half empty pens either side. Once in they had no exit due to those behind still coming in their direction. If the authorities now admit this then certain people on these boards should. Or are they just trolls like some have accused them of being. Anyway, thanks very much to all the decent people (vast majority) on hobnob. I genuinely only popped in here last week for a bit of pre match banter. Hope i didnt outstay my welcome.

[Royalclapper]

Football was never the same again after that day.

I have clear memories of that day as a friend of mine who was a good footballer was playing for Telford Utd v Hyde Utd in the FA Trophy semi-final. We hired a minibus and went to the Bucks Head to watch the game. There was a bloke with a radio standing behind the goal by us who announced that something very, very serious was happening in Sheffield. As events unfolded a terrible atmosphere developed whereby most in the ground had heard the news and were in a shocked trance. The game ended and we got back home to watch the news, nobody spoke much on the way home as the realisation dawned on all of us football supporters that this event could of happened to any club, and any set of fans.

It's not an overstatement to say that the Hillsborough disaster was probably, and most likely will continue to be, the defining and most haunting memory of my generation. The 1980's nearly saw an end to football as a national institution, many, many clubs were only saved by the skin of their teeth from extinction, ours included. It doesn't seem reasonable to think now that at that time you could only really talk openly about football to other football supporters such was the stigma attached to it by the general population. Anybody who attended matches around that time knows that terraces were often overfilled and many fans would get into a game one way or another.

So, in the late 80's and much of the early 90's the 'chemical generation' was born which meant hooliganism was slightly edged out by a more chilled out and ambient group of football spectators. The unforgettable image and screening of Luciano Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma during the opening concert of Italia '90 in Rome did more to bring some respectability to the game as a whole to a non-football audience, than did any of the work being undertaken by the authorities. This still held true, even following the incidents of later trouble with England fans.

Football was saved, but also, importantly, it was taken away from some genuine supporters who now struggle to afford the overall improvements that were made, better facilities = higher prices.

Football and many of It's supporters have more than paid the price, and have also adapted to the changes made to the game. Now, at long last, the responsible authorities are currently having to be forced from their comfy, blameless and protected lives and into the cold harsh reality of the life and death situations they were supposed to be responsible for.

Good luck to all those families, and one would hope some fair and satisfactory conclusions are eventually heard.

[exileinleeds]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20067716

Wonder what happens to his guilt-edged pension...and the complaints made to the IPCC...do they now go away?

[Anfield Kopite]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20067716

Wonder what happens to his guilt-edged pension...and the complaints made to the IPCC...do they now go away?

No because this oxf*rd was one of the perpetrators of the lies that people believed/relyed on to to argue against us Liverpool fans who always knew the truth. A lot of people have said over the years that we should let it go. Well we wont stop our campaigns till the likes of this 'person' is in jail.

[creative_username_1]

Fully agree that people can be jailed for the cover up but not the events of the day. That's a collective responsibility

[Anfield Kopite]

Fully agree that people can be jailed for the cover up but not the events of the day. That's a collective responsibility

If by collective resposability you include the fans then you are wrong mate. Its the likes of Bettison, who has been named in parliament as a ringleader of the 'Black Propaganda campaign' i.e. doctoring coppers statements that showed the police in a bad light, that has clouded so many peoples judgement. Even he doesnt deny that this black propaganda campaign occured. He just denys that he personally changed statements. The fact is that even he has finally admitted that Liverpool Fans did not behave badly on the day and have no responsability for what happened. Such a shame it took 23 long years for him to do it and has meant that the likes of yourself believe we contributed to the tragedy. We didnt. Prison really is to good for him because of the pain he and others have caused us.

[creative_username_1]

I'm talking in a more general context. Football fans in general, football hooligans (in context of how it affects policing), roadworks and a ton of other random factors.
General human behaviour which results in turning up to the ground in large group rather than being distributed. Piss poor policing. Hugely dynamical system.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Fully agree that people can be jailed for the cover up but not the events of the day. That's a collective responsibility

It's not, though. there were key people in key positions of responsibility who oxf*rd up so badly, then tried to cover their tracks and reapportion blame. It's too late to jail them, but only because of criminal conspiracy after the event by others.

[Anfield Kopite]

Fully agree that people can be jailed for the cover up but not the events of the day. That's a collective responsibility

It's not, though. there were key people in key positions of responsibility who oxf*rd up so badly, then tried to cover their tracks and reapportion blame. It's too late to jail them, but only because of criminal conspiracy after the event by others.

So good to read a post from someone who understands. I dont think it is too late to jail them. If it was your average working class person who committed crimes a couple of decades ago they would still face prison. So why not the hierarchy of the police. Some failed in their duty of care on the day (a duty of care they were well payed for) and then slipped off on ill health retirement with a massive pension (Chief Inspector Duckenfield). Others like Bettison, who allegedly haha, doctored witness statements and concocted stories to blame us fans. That is at the least forgery and perversing the course of justice. If i knew someone had unlawfully killed someone and then orchestrated a campaign to blame someone else, i would expect to be jailed if caught.

[Anfield Kopite]

Tokyo Sex Whale, you have your 20 pager

[Platypuss]

I haven't commented on the thread much as don't know enough about the subject to make an informed opinion.

Eh? This is HNA. It's de rigueur.

[creative_username_1]

I'm also reluctant to comment as it's a very emotional subject which resulted in the deaths of a lot of innocent people.

Have the measures put in place since Hillsborough increased safety or caused more threat to life. The impossibility of possessing all relevant information coupled with small unknown variations in the data having a huge impact make it difficult to assess. Had the measures been put in place before Hillsborough would Taylor
(or whoever implemented them) be considered a hero for saving lives or an idiot for radically changing the game, increasing costs driving working class people from the game by making it too expensive. I don't know

AK, i'll readily admit to ignorance on the specifics of what happened at Hillsborough just trying to illustrate that it's hard to be so dogmatic about causation in what is a hugely dynamical system. I've spent a large portion of my adult life considering these types of rare events (a rather dull PhD thesis on extracting structure from data, trading career etc) and whilst i can blind you with the mathematics i am as bad as you are at predicting future events.

Also not implying that Lfc fans behaved badly but behaved exactly like you'd expect any generic football crowd to behave

My other key areas of ignorance are what exactly is the Justice being sought? Is it for the cover up or for what happened (or both)? Also i don't know too much about duty of care and what it implies (it's an artificial legal concept i.e. implies 'should')

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Have the measures put in place since Hillsborough increased safety or caused more threat to life. The impossibility of possessing all relevant information coupled with small unknown variations in the data having a huge impact make it difficult to assess. Had the measures been put in place before Hillsborough would Taylor
(or whoever implemented them) be considered a hero for saving lives or an idiot for radically changing the game, increasing costs driving working class people from the game by making it too expensive. I don't know

To take this in isolation, it's not as simple as either/or. In some areas he was foresighted and definitely made a difference - for instance making it compulsory to automatically count and control the numbers entering each enclosure - it seems like common sense now but amazingly it either wasn't done or was open to abuse.

On other matters he had his heart in the right place but wasn't prescriptive enough - for instance what he said about ticket prices was right but universally ignored, and there are several other things that would have made the game better but which didn't happen.

I think the thing he can be praised most for is that he forced health and safety awareness into the game, which previously didn't give a tinker's cuss about it and just saw it as a cost with no benefit to them.

I think the thing that he can be most criticised for is that his recommendations weren't prescriptive enough - by an accident of timing, they came along just as the same time as forces inside and outside the game wanted it to change or their own financial and other reasons, and his recommendations were easily subverted into a justification to start the process of changes that would take the the game away from its traditional audience and more into becoming a premium entertainment business aimed at a middle-class audience.

And, to be fair to him, a lot of the evidence he was using was the same evidence the inquest had - and that was evidence that was "collated and organised" by Superintendent Stanley Beechey previously head of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad and suspended in Jan 1989 from this role after countless examples of malpractice, intimidation and evidence-tampering. Although suspended for this, he was seconded to the Hillsborough inquest team .... Personally, I'm convinced that he's one of the most culpable of all in this.

[Anfield Kopite]

In answer to creative usernames post i think i am a bit of an expert at what happened at Hilsborough.Firstly because i was there. Secondly because i spoke to lots of other people who were there in the hours and days after the event and the same info kept on being repeated. What upsets me now is that the very people who started the lies about the fans behaviour now pretty much all admit that they were lies and have offered mealy mouthed apologies and yet some people still try to use them lies as a way to say we contributed to the disaster. Scumbags like Kelvin Mackenzie, Norman Bettison, Irvine Partnick all told lies and it took them 23 years to admit it. On the question you asked regarding justice, we want to see people who commited crimes like changing witness statements without the consent of the people who made the statement face charges like perverting the course of justice. To actually know the police force oxf*rd up and it resulted in 96 innocent people losing their lives is bad enough. To then deliberately orchestrate a campaign to lay the blame on the fans knowing they were innocent defies belief. But that is what they did. Hilsborough is the single most important issue in my life. I saw 2 young lads dead (about 15) left lying on their own in the area between the pens and the turnstlyes. I went to sit with them and an officer told me to oxf*rd off because they were beyond help. I was crying my eyes out and tried to explain that i realised they had gone but that they were somebody sons and they shouldnt be alone so i just wanted to sit with them a while. oxf*rd off or ill nick you i was told. I was one of the lucky ones. I knew people were dying and i was in fear of my own life ending. But i survived. Ill never forget those that didnt. The fight goes on. JFT96.

[PieEater]

Creative, if you want to know more about it, I learnt a lot from reading this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hillsborough-Tr ... 845964950/

It spells out largely what has become exposed as the truth.

I think there is still some way to uncover who decided and why the terms of reference for the inquests were so prescriptive, IMHO that smacks of someone like Bettison exerting influence on it.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

In response to that, I'll refer you to what David Conn says about the inquests, West Midlands Police and Stan Beechey. Absolutely as bent and corrupt as they come

The Sheffield coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, decided in the meantime to hold "mini-inquests", in which a brief "evidence summary" was read out about how each person died. No witnesses were called, nor was there any opportunity to cross-examine or even ask questions. Yet that was the only airing given to how each individual died, what treatment they did or did not receive, who helped them or who didn't. The main inquest, starting in November 1990, considered the general horror of the day but only up to 3.15pm, the controversial "cut-off" time imposed by the coroner. So the families still do not know what exactly happened to their loved ones before they died.

Among all these questions, resentments and agonies, one aspect has been largely overlooked: the role of the West Midlands Police. They were brought in to investigate the disaster on behalf of Lord Justice Taylor, at a time when their own Serious Crime Squad was starting to be exposed as violent, corrupt and responsible for dozens of miscarriages of justice, including those of the Birmingham Six and Bridgewater Four.

On 14 August 1989, Geoffrey Dear, the then West Midlands Police chief constable, disbanded the squad and announced an investigation into the allegations of brutality and malpractice. Just two days later, the DPP appointed the West Midlands Police to the criminal investigation into Hillsborough, a decision many considered a "face saver" for Dear.

While the investigation was carried out into the Serious Crime Squad, Dear transferred its senior officers and some former officers to "non-jobs", well away from their usual detective work. He termed the officers' new responsibilities "non-operational duties", tame areas of work which included, for example, the former head of a branch of the CID being in charge of "road safety and talks in schools".

Detective Superintendent Stanley Beechey, described as a former head of the Serious Crime Squad and in 1989 the deputy head of West Midlands CID, was on Dear's list. His transfer was to "study technical aspects of Hillsborough".

Dear told me that this would have involved going through hours of poor quality videotape to try to make visual sense of it. Beechey was not intended to be involved at all with the meat of the investigation. Instead, Beechey played a very senior role. At the conclusion of the mini-inquests, still a weeping wound for the families, the coroner said Beechey had "an awful lot to do" with preparing the evidence summaries of how each victim had died.

"We could not have managed without you and I do appreciate it," Dr Popper said to Beechey and a fellow officer. Beechey was also involved in the DPP's criminal investigation. Then, at the main inquest, he appeared in day-to-day control of the evidence.

Dr Popper has now retired, but the current Sheffield coroner, Christopher Dorries, told me: "Dr Popper suspects that [Beechey] would have been the second most senior officer at the time of the main inquest."

Geoffrey Dear said that had he known Beechey was involved at this level, he would have removed him: "Not because he might necessarily be doing anything wrong, but because it was not appropriate."

Dear left the West Midlands Police in April 1990. His replacement, Ronald Hadfield, restored some former Serious Crime Squad officers to full duties, but according to the independent inquiry carried out by Dr Tim Kaye of Birmingham University, Stanley Beechey was not restored to operational duties until 30 November 1990. He was never charged with any disciplinary offence arising out of the investigation into the Serious Crime Squad, but nevertheless this means that from 14 August 1989 to 30 November 1990, Beechey was formally on "non-operational duties".

That period took in the Hillsborough mini-inquest procedure, the whole course of the DPP's inquiry, and even the early sessions of the main inquest, which began in Sheffield on 19 November 1990. Yet Beechey was, throughout, clearly working on more than "studying technical aspects" of the disaster.

There is no evidence that Beechey did anything at all improper on the Hillsborough investigation, but West Midlands Police have declined to comment on why he was allowed to participate at that senior level while under investigation himself. Beechey himself is now retired, and he did not reply to a letter from me, which the force forwarded to him.