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I used to work with a former police officer who was on duty that day, he left the force soon after and was a shadow of his former self. I'm quite confident that the verdict was correct.
and please use their services
Hillsborough
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That's a whitewash Bob. What did she know? And how does an instruction from the PM to 'tone down' blaming the police become supporting an alternative story to shift the blame?
As someone who witnessed state sponsored police brutality only a few years before and not a million miles away, I can't believe only a casual relationship between government and the instruction from the judge at the original inquest.
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i didn't expect anything less slightly different to their headlines on the day
as for canon bob (oh how i was tempted to change one of the letters)
people were prosecuted for heysel and rightly so i've no time for football hooligans whatever team they claim to support,but thatcher knew about the police cover up and was complicit in it, that's why she is hated on merseyside, people haven't been fighting for this day because the tragedy happened,because tradgedies do happen in one way or another every day somewwere in the world) they have been fighting to clear their name and get the people who were responsible to be accountable for their actions instead of trying to convince people that it was a hoard of drunken yobs that broke down the gates instead of admitting they opened the gates
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Crossing out witness statements, false signatures. That is perverting the course of justice. When this evidence was presented to the court there could be no other outcome yesterday.
OP
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Really you think the families asking for justice is as sickening as the death of 96 people? Perhaps you would like to clarify that further.
I suppose thats easy for you too say as it wasn't any of your family unlawfully killed at Hillsborough
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Those jurors spent a very very long time being presented with evidence that has never been in the public arena; studying it, considering it. I think I'm happy to trust their conclusions.
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The problem was at the time, in the 80's, that football hooliganism was at it's height. This is why we ended up with fences around the terraces, segregation, heavy police presence, all england teams banned from europe for 5 years following Heysel
Between May 1985 and 1990 English clubs were banned from all European competitions, with liverpool being banned for a further year. This was because of the Heysel Stadium Disaster where 39 Juventus fans were crushed to death when liverpool fans broke through a line of police officers and ran toward the Juventus supporters in a section of the ground containing both English and Italian fans. When a fence separating them from the Juventus fans was broken through, the English supporters attacked the Italian fans, the majority of whom were families rather than ultras who were situated in the other end of the ground. Many Italians tried to escape the fighting, and a wall collapsed on them.
In this environment, it was easy to blame the fans, we'd had 20 years of blaming the fans and their actions, because it was expected, accepted, we'd seen it week in week out in all the media. It's mostly why families etc stayed away from football, it's why I stopped going.All football fans were scum, only out for violence with the football game second.
After 20 years of escalation, it was the default position, it had to be the fans fault, or even if the police made mistakes, it would be compounded by the fans fault.
What it did do was lead to a number of measures stamping out the violence and allowing the game to become a national pride again.
Today, I'm not surprised the fans have been completely exonerated, I felt it was coming, but speaking to some people there's surprise how this was reached without a fraction of responsibility towards the fans. With the revelations of the police mishandling, cover up, the lengthy delays, the impassioned stories from the families and their fight for the truth, has it been politically/morally expedient to put the full blame at the hands of the police?
Arriving with no tickets for an all ticket game, crowd mentality and eagerness to get to the game, with 2000 fans channelled/funnelled into one small area towards the pitch. How does the crush occur? Does it happen other places? The tube gets very crowded at times yet we don't see multiple people shoved onto the tracks, in front of trains.
If we ignore the hate, the very strong feelings generated from years of misjustice, should there be a small amount of blame from the behaviour of some?
The inquest has said no.
I hope now that this can be an end for the families. It's been a long fight for them to get to the truth.
http://www.lfchistory.net/Articles/Article/3228
http://flashbak.com/police-and-british-football-hooligans-1970-to-1980-3350/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19596766
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You do see busy stations regularly closed at busy times though due to overcrowding and to ensure safety
Canon Bob
Loves the Enemy
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Feel free.....it's the key to the side so you could justifiably claim it as a typo if anyone feels that you overstepped the mark..
Yes, my view of the whole thing probably has some bias. I regularly attended matches from the early 70's until 1985 (including two semi finals at Hillsborough). I saw many terrible things with the behaviour of some police officers indistinguishable from that of the supporters (minorities in both cases). My penultimate match (I attended the final a few weeks later) was a neutral ground semi-final involving Liverpool. Thugs fighting thugs.....let them get on with it if that's what they want. However, during the walk back to the car after the final whistle, I witnessed hooliganism on a scale I'd never seen before. Gates thrown through house windows, cars smashed up, gardens wrecked and front doors broken down. The defining moment for me was seeing an old lady peering through her upstairs window and having it smashed inches in front of her face. Within a month, 39 Italians had paid with their lives fleeing from a similar mob.
Certainly the police made mistakes in 1987 but it's hard to imagine that they were dealing with a peaceful and law abiding group of people.
Bob
DorsetDude
Spud
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How come this one's not in hot topics?
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Why should it be?
Does every thread that's not about cars, sports, ignore buttons (yawn) have to go there?
To make mistakes is human and, whilst the consequences were disastrous, it could have been accepted. Maybe not by the families of the 96.
What matters most is how you rectify your mistakes. From the reports there was little attempt to rectify and that compounded the issue.
There was then what I regard as even more serious - attempts to shift the blame, lies, deceit and actions to pervert the course of justice. This delivered by the Police who are supposed to uphold law and order. In my opinion there should be no hiding place for those responsible, and the anguish they have caused should result in the highest penalties possible. I find the action of the Police totally despicable.
What matters most is how you rectify your mistakes. From the reports there was little attempt to rectify and that compounded the issue.
There was then what I regard as even more serious - attempts to shift the blame, lies, deceit and actions to pervert the course of justice. This delivered by the Police who are supposed to uphold law and order. In my opinion there should be no hiding place for those responsible, and the anguish they have caused should result in the highest penalties possible. I find the action of the Police totally despicable.
OP
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You make some valid points and to some extent I agree but those factors were not the reason the british public by and large blamed the Liverpool supporters for the tragedy but the lies and mis-briefing by the police. The factors you highlight only made it easier for people to believe them. Regarding the fans being totally exonerated, this wasn't even a majority decision but a unanimous one. The jury listened to the evidence for over two years and all of them agreed that the fans were not to blame.
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And yet, there are a number of examples of this happening with all police forces over the years, even up to present times. It wasn't restricted to that one event, but continues to this day, Some get internally investigated, some retire on full pension, or pension rights.
I saw the actions of the Met at both the miners strike near Doncaster and later at Wapping when my father in law was on the picket line. That had very similar connotations of football hooliganism.
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Agreed, and the reason that the police have always got away with it in the past is that the system protects them.
In theory, a complaint can be made about police misconduct, there are various levels of complaint and various processes used to get rid of them, but the most serious type of complaint requires a full investigation by the police force's "Professional standards department" which usually consists of retired police officers whose job it is to follow a process, not to find out whether or not misconduct has taken place.
The complaint can be sent either to the police force concerned, in which case it will be an entirely incestuous investigation carried out by themselves on themselves, or it can be sent to the IPCC, but all that they will do is to forward it to the police force, unopened.
Eventually, a detailed report is prepared, which may or may not deal with the actual complaint made (sometimes they will leave things out, or change them).
All of the police officers involved in the incident are allowed to provide written answers to written questions, it is extremely rare for anyone to actually be interviewed.
Any police officer who has retired, left, been transferred or is off sick, won't be asked any questions.
Almost invariably, the report will conclude that minor mistakes may or may not have been made, but that no misconduct occurred.
There is of course an appeal process, to the IPCC - but all that they are allowed to investigate is whether or not the proper process has been followed, and they can only investigate what is actually in the report, so anything left out of it (accidentally or deliberately) cannot be investigated.
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173 people were crushed to death during The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster in 1943 as a result of panicking. It was the biggest civilian disaster recorded during the war.
Statements given in Parliament suggested that the victims were to blame. Bethnal Green Council were silenced under the Official Secrets Act. The lessons of history were not learned in time for the poor victims of Hillsborough.
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The guardian football facebook page has a 12min video.
https://www.facebook.com/guardianfootball/
https://www.facebook.com/guardianfootball/
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Interesting history - cheers
OP
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They have a very good piece on the tragedy too
http://www.theguardian.com/football...-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades
OP
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Thanks for that, I had never heard of the Bethnal Green Tube disaster before.
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A woman was talking about this on R4 just a couple of weeks ago. She was a young medical Dr, got a phone call from the ambulance service, saying that 20 people had fainted at the station and were on their way. It wasn't 20 fainters, it was 173 crushed and suffocated to death, and she had just one med student and 2 nurses to help with the massive number of injured. She was later disciplined for removing bodies from stretchers and piling them up, so that the stretchers could be sent back for more victims. The next day, the med student and 2 nurses were transferred elsewhere and told that they would be in trouble if they ever mentioned the subject, and she was told the same thing herself.
Back then, these things could be hushed up by misuse of the Official Secrets Act, and by the fact that communications were poor.
Coming back on topic, the police spread their lies about Hillsborough despite the fact that the BBC had gone there to film the match and had broadcast film of the police behaving badly (or not at all) and the crowd behaving very well, and doing what they could for the victims.
The official secrets act can still be misused, and the police now have additional tools, mainly legislation intended to help them to fight terrorism, for example the ability to look at mobile phone records, which givess them the freedom to to misuse legislation for their own purposes. The most high profile example of this may be the phone records of journalists, which were interrogated so that somebody who had got his wife to take his speeding points could be prosecuted - a dodgy cabinet minister may deserve to go to prison for that, but the legislation is designed to catch terrorists...
Nothing changes.
Mr Bump
From under the bridge
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I'm glad all the facts are now out and that we now know about more of the cover up and the deceptions after the case.
I am not to sure about the apportion of blame as it has been given but I feel that public wanted it this way and I think the jury have delivered a verdict that will allow people to move on.
now the insanity of lawsuits and court cases will dominate for many years more.
I am not to sure about the apportion of blame as it has been given but I feel that public wanted it this way and I think the jury have delivered a verdict that will allow people to move on.
now the insanity of lawsuits and court cases will dominate for many years more.
woof woof
I like a nice Chianti
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Deep sigh...
My opinion matters not one bit more or less than yours. We're just chatting on an internet forum or are people only allowed to post if you agree with them? Rhetorical question, don't answer.
I'm not. The longer this goes on the more chance we take of blighting more lives and institutions. I'd rather learn from this, alter procedures and practices and move on. We've found that smoking in public arena's not best designed or maintained to resist fire is a very bad idea and so is having poor crowd control and fencing people in. Both caused mass casualties at football matches in the UK.
Personally I think that it's better to learn and improve rather than look for someone and / or some institution to nail to a wall as I believe this may cause additional problems in the present and the future as more families are blighted and institutions spend time and recourses which could perhaps (arguably) be put to better use. And before someone has a pop at me over that I'll expand a little... We've spent millions on a trial when perhaps we could have had a non judgemental enquiry, got answers, learned lessons and improved but sadly that's not how our society seems to work and instead inadequacy leads to fear which leads to dishonesty and years of expensive (in terms of everything, money, resources and emotion) contradiction, allegations and upset.
I think we need an inquiry into the whole thing including the police cover ups and I'd like to think that we've learned that a culture of blame isn't necessarily the best way forward but that's a forlorn hope and I've no doubt that cock up will continue to lead to dishonesty and cover up. We see this all the time, police, NHS, you name it. Time for a rethink and a change in how we behave and act I think so that we can make a real attempt to improve and stand a better chance of both avoiding tragedies and learning from them. Just a thought. But I suppose nailing folk to the wall and calling for Maggie to be exhumed and beheaded is another valid way of proceeding.
Oh really, how tiresome and annoying of you. Where the hell did I say that? Or perhaps you thought you'd just misrepresent what I wrote for effect? Shame on you. Still, deliberate misrepresentation and playing to the gallery is par for the course on the internet so I'm not all that surprised, just disappointed, and actually I'm rather sickened by you and your comments.
My opinion matters not one bit more or less than yours. We're just chatting on an internet forum or are people only allowed to post if you agree with them? Rhetorical question, don't answer.
I'm not. The longer this goes on the more chance we take of blighting more lives and institutions. I'd rather learn from this, alter procedures and practices and move on. We've found that smoking in public arena's not best designed or maintained to resist fire is a very bad idea and so is having poor crowd control and fencing people in. Both caused mass casualties at football matches in the UK.
Personally I think that it's better to learn and improve rather than look for someone and / or some institution to nail to a wall as I believe this may cause additional problems in the present and the future as more families are blighted and institutions spend time and recourses which could perhaps (arguably) be put to better use. And before someone has a pop at me over that I'll expand a little... We've spent millions on a trial when perhaps we could have had a non judgemental enquiry, got answers, learned lessons and improved but sadly that's not how our society seems to work and instead inadequacy leads to fear which leads to dishonesty and years of expensive (in terms of everything, money, resources and emotion) contradiction, allegations and upset.
I think we need an inquiry into the whole thing including the police cover ups and I'd like to think that we've learned that a culture of blame isn't necessarily the best way forward but that's a forlorn hope and I've no doubt that cock up will continue to lead to dishonesty and cover up. We see this all the time, police, NHS, you name it. Time for a rethink and a change in how we behave and act I think so that we can make a real attempt to improve and stand a better chance of both avoiding tragedies and learning from them. Just a thought. But I suppose nailing folk to the wall and calling for Maggie to be exhumed and beheaded is another valid way of proceeding.
Oh really, how tiresome and annoying of you. Where the hell did I say that? Or perhaps you thought you'd just misrepresent what I wrote for effect? Shame on you. Still, deliberate misrepresentation and playing to the gallery is par for the course on the internet so I'm not all that surprised, just disappointed, and actually I'm rather sickened by you and your comments.
I'm not. I don't agree with the verdict but I understand the process that has brought us here and I'm not surprised as it's what I expected and in line with what we've seen in other tragic and long running cases.
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My viewpoint isn't an opinion. It's a fact. Soz.
OP
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Well I shall annoy and sicken you a little bit more by quoting exactly what you said.
Personally I think these deliberate actions after the event would be as sickening as the tragedy itself.
Or did you mean something else? I did give you the opportunity in my first reply to fully clarify your comment.
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Interesting Gary, another piece of the jigsaw. I was given to understand that that real reason for the enforced silence and the Official Secrets Act was to protect the War Effort, it was thought that it would be damaging to the Country if the Nazi propaganda machine ever learned that their Bombing was causing panic. Of course, it is well known the London Underground was used as shelter during the war.
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It isn't your place to agree or disagree with it really, as you've been presented with zero actual evidence thus far.....only what has been drip fed to you.
If you had served on the jury, you have no idea what conclusions you would have arrived at.
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Ipso facto !
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Well, he's now been suspended, and there is now talk about getting rid of S.Yorkshire police altogther, and absorbing it into a new force that includes all 4 Yorkshire forces - mind you, that would save money and this latest debacle may just be the excuse needed to actually do it.
What seems to be very clear right now is that Crompton won't be the only police casualty, there's going to be a major managerial reorganisation that hopefully will give the front line officers the leadership they deserve and give the public the police force they deserve.
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Why was he suspended?
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Regardless of the outcome or the jubilation outside the courtroom yesterday we can't get over the fact that 96 people died that day, countless families affected. Nothing will bring them back sadly.
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Ir will be another scandal if there are no investigations and the CPS will be under pressure to bring prosecututions and quire rightly imo. The whole thing from the tragic deaths, the cover up - whick surely affected those who should have done better on that day and those who tried to change the facts- as Phil V pointed out - and the 27 years wait/figt for justice.. Whole story is hard to believe.
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The questions the jury had to answer were loaded and not formulated from a neutral standpoint. The jury had to answer some of the questions in such a way that if they believed that there was blame on fans it looked as though they were blaming the dead if they did so.
Now it's turnes into a mob baying for blood whithout any balance at all.
simon ess
Just call me Roxanne.
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I don't know about loaded questions or mobs baying for blood.
I do know that allegations of senior law enforcement officers commiting perjury and perverting the course of justice must be investigated. If found to be true and proven the guilty must, given their position, be prosecuted in the strongest possible way.
I find any conflation of these allegations with any other aspect of the case to be, frankly, astonishing.
I do know that allegations of senior law enforcement officers commiting perjury and perverting the course of justice must be investigated. If found to be true and proven the guilty must, given their position, be prosecuted in the strongest possible way.
I find any conflation of these allegations with any other aspect of the case to be, frankly, astonishing.
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And you have no idea what evidence they considered as part of the process, do you, so forgive me for putting no stock in your opinion re. the non existent baying mob.
You're not a Sun journalist, are you?
Nod
Tootles
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He should have been suspended in August 2014 when the Jay report in Rotherham was published. Some of the bad policing identified in the report happened under Crompton's reign. That said, he has been suspended over HIS response from verdict.
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What was wrong with his response? I've only heard the part where he apologised.
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Lessons still hadn't been learnt if you look at the Love Parade crush that killed 21 people in Duisburg Germany in 2010. Also put down to mismanagement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Parade_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Parade_disaster