South Yorkshire Chief Supt (in '89) telling lies in the Mail

[Maldini]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...t-screams-.html

 

I was in charge of the Forest end, and, just before kick-off, I radioed to say all the fans were safely inside and there were no problems.

 

While my driver went to fill up the Range Rover, I thought I'd pop in and have a quick look at the game.

 

As I did, an inspector ran up and said: 'I'm glad you're here. There's a pitch invasion at the Leppings Lane end.'

 

I looked at people being lifted over the fencing and the players heading for the dressing room and knew instantly it was far more serious than that.

 

I dashed straight across the pitch and began trying to deal with what was happening.

 

I set up a line of officers to help get people out of the crush and on to the pitch and I ordered another line to stand across the halfway line to make sure rival supporters were kept apart.

 

There was a lot of anger and frustration, and the last thing we needed was a brawl developing.

 

I also took hold of a loudspeaker and asked people to stay in the ground to allow the best possible access for emergency vehicles.

 

I basically tried to take control, but it was clear lives had already been lost.

 

As I was giving out instructions, it was clear people lying in front of me were dead. There was so much fear, and I remember lifting one little boy of about 10 out of that pen, and he kept saying to me: 'Don't drop me, mister, will you? Don't drop me.'

 

He looked terrified, and I said: 'Don't worry, lad, I won't.'

 

I laid him down on the pitch and said to a woman officer nearby: 'Look after him.' He seemed fine, other than being scared, but so many others were not. It was an ordeal for the police men and women who were in the thick of it as well, but I saw so many young officers come of age that day.

 

We were helped by the fantastic efforts of Liverpool fans who acted as stretcher bearers and did all they could to help the stricken to first aid centres. It is quite possible more lives would have been lost without their endeavours.

I ended up working right through the night, because there was so much to do, in terms of turning the gymnasium into a mortuary and making arrangements for identifying the bodies.

 

John Nesbitt, pictured when head of security at Hillsborough in 1998

All those who had been certified dead were photographed, and the pictures placed on a board. You couldn't have relatives wandering round the gym, looking at one body after another, and this seemed the best way.

 

If they recognised someone, they would be taken directly to them. I remember at about one in the morning, a chap from Runcorn came to me in a really distressed state. He had lost his son and feared the worst. He had been to both hospitals and had looked through every photograph, but there was no sign. I took him into the police room and told him to use our phone to call his wife. She said their son had somehow managed to travel back independently and was back home safe and sound.

 

I'll never forget the look on his face. He walked over and put an arm round me and burst into tears.

One thing the Taylor Report did not mention was that we gathered 1,500 witness statements from people living near the ground who said there had been heavy and sustained drinking by a significant minority of Liverpool fans before the game.

 

That had an influence on events, because people arriving in that state tend to be agitated and more difficult to control.

 

The majority of Liverpool fans are loyal and dedicated people, but that minority caused a problem.

 

I know a lot has been made of the decision to open Gate 3, but I don't think that contributed as much as some people think.

 

There was no mad rush down that tunnel. There can't have been, because there was a six foot high fence running from the end of the tunnel down to the pitch that divided the two central pens.

 

If there had been a stampede, that would have been flattened and there would have been casualties at the mouth of the tunnel. There weren't any.

 

What happened was a crash barrier to the right went over. Pressure on it lifted the concrete mountings out of the ground, people went down with it and others piled on top of them. That created a sort of vacuum that others poured into, and it made the situation worse.

 

Equally, if the gate had not been opened, there would have been crushing and problems outside the ground. It was a case of dammed if you open it, dammed if you don't.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

He's due to be on Five Live's Drive Time on Tuesday. You can contact them here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/drive.shtml

Edited April 14, 2009 by Maldini

[Maldini]

Actually it's Wednesday they're gonna have him on.

[bobbyboulders]

The majority of Liverpool fans are loyal and dedicated people, but that minority caused a problem.

What problem is he referring to? Did people move into a pen they were told not to? I'm genuinely confused as to what he is implying.

[Maldini]

He's implying ambiguously what they lied about openly 20 years ago. That Liverpool fans were responsible.

[smithdown]

This comes under the heading: "Who you gonna believe - me or your own eyes?"

 

south yorkshire police = rotten hearted cowards

[smithdown]

Actually it's Wednesday they're gonna have him on.

 

do they really have to repeat this stuff on the anniversary? is that really the best that r5 - our national public service sports broadcaster - can do?

[GWistooshort]

This is the story they should be telling.

 

The Guardian

Monday 13 April 2009

 

Hillsborough: how stories of disaster police were altered

David Conn

 

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

 

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"?

[floyd]

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"?

If this cvnt is given the oxygen of publicity on Radio 5, on the anniversary, these are some of the many questions this cvnt should be made to answer. But no doubt this will be a recorded interview, as there is no way, he will want to face a public grilling from people who know what truly went on.

Edited April 14, 2009 by floyd

[Jarg Armani]

The idea of the BBC giving this their usual debate style coverage, ie: 'get on the texts and tell us what you think', is a sickener. There is a debate to be had, but not about fan's culpability, and equally importantly NOT NOW.

 

That policeman sticking up for his mates is nothing new or surprising. Neither is the Daily Mail gleefully publishing it.

[Maldini]

If this cvnt is given the oxygen of publicity on Radio 5, on the anniversary, these are some of the many questions this cvnt should be made to answer. But no doubt this will be a recorded interview, as there is no way, he will want to face a public grilling from people who know what truly went on.

 

5 Live were looking for a red to go on. A lad on RAWK brought this to my attention, he said they wanted him to go on.

[gkmacca]

The idea of the BBC giving this their usual debate style coverage, ie: 'get on the texts and tell us what you think', is a sickener.

 

Yes, it's like that ghastly Digital Spy forum featuring so-and-so from Manchester adding their predictable views. And on ITV's This Morning today, Fern Britton simpered and whispered while she made Jenny Hicks talk her through what happened, adding the odd aside such as 'The pens, I believe, were there because of earlier hooliganism' (not verbatim, but that's what I remember her saying). 20 years on and the average London-based media hack is as badly informed, and as tactless, as ever,

Edited April 14, 2009 by gkmacca

[£440,000]

Guardian Video of Interview with South Yorks Chief Constable

[DanielS]

The Guardian's coverage, online at least, has been very good and very positive. Its worth a note of thanks considering how vile and insenstive the media have been and can be regarding this subject.

[stressederic]

The Guardian's coverage, online at least, has been very good and very positive. Its worth a note of thanks considering how vile and insenstive the media have been and can be regarding this subject.

 

Yeah the Guardian have really gone to town over this. They've been hammering away at it for weeks now.

[Case]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...t-screams-.html

 

I was in charge of the Forest end, and, just before kick-off, I radioed to say all the fans were safely inside and there were no problems.

 

While my driver went to fill up the Range Rover, I thought I'd pop in and have a quick look at the game.

 

As I did, an inspector ran up and said: 'I'm glad you're here. There's a pitch invasion at the Leppings Lane end.'

 

I looked at people being lifted over the fencing and the players heading for the dressing room and knew instantly it was far more serious than that.

 

I dashed straight across the pitch and began trying to deal with what was happening.

 

I set up a line of officers to help get people out of the crush and on to the pitch and I ordered another line to stand across the halfway line to make sure rival supporters were kept apart.

 

There was a lot of anger and frustration, and the last thing we needed was a brawl developing.

 

I also took hold of a loudspeaker and asked people to stay in the ground to allow the best possible access for emergency vehicles.

 

I basically tried to take control , but it was clear lives had already been lost.

 

As I was giving out instructions, it was clear people lying in front of me were dead. There was so much fear, and I remember lifting one little boy of about 10 out of that pen, and he kept saying to me: 'Don't drop me, mister, will you? Don't drop me.'

 

He looked terrified, and I said: 'Don't worry, lad, I won't.'

 

I laid him down on the pitch and said to a woman officer nearby: 'Look after him.' He seemed fine, other than being scared, but so many others were not. It was an ordeal for the police men and women who were in the thick of it as well, but I saw so many young officers come of age that day.

 

We were helped by the fantastic efforts of Liverpool fans who acted as stretcher bearers and did all they could to help the stricken to first aid centres. It is quite possible more lives would have been lost without their endeavours.

I ended up working right through the night, because there was so much to do, in terms of turning the gymnasium into a mortuary and making arrangements for identifying the bodies.

 

John Nesbitt, pictured when head of security at Hillsborough in 1998

All those who had been certified dead were photographed, and the pictures placed on a board. You couldn't have relatives wandering round the gym, looking at one body after another, and this seemed the best way.

 

If they recognised someone, they would be taken directly to them. I remember at about one in the morning, a chap from Runcorn came to me in a really distressed state. He had lost his son and feared the worst. He had been to both hospitals and had looked through every photograph, but there was no sign. I took him into the police room and told him to use our phone to call his wife. She said their son had somehow managed to travel back independently and was back home safe and sound.

 

I'll never forget the look on his face. He walked over and put an arm round me and burst into tears.

One thing the Taylor Report did not mention was that we gathered 1,500 witness statements from people living near the ground who said there had been heavy and sustained drinking by a significant minority of Liverpool fans before the game.

 

That had an influence on events, because people arriving in that state tend to be agitated and more difficult to control.

 

The majority of Liverpool fans are loyal and dedicated people, but that minority caused a problem.

 

I know a lot has been made of the decision to open Gate 3, but I don't think that contributed as much as some people think

 

There was no mad rush down that tunnel. There can't have been, because there was a six foot high fence running from the end of the tunnel down to the pitch that divided the two central pens.

 

If there had been a stampede, that would have been flattened and there would have been casualties at the mouth of the tunnel. There weren't any.

 

What happened was a crash barrier to the right went over. Pressure on it lifted the concrete mountings out of the ground, people went down with it and others piled on top of them. That created a sort of vacuum that others poured into, and it made the situation worse.

 

Equally, if the gate had not been opened, there would have been crushing and problems outside the ground. It was a case of dammed if you open it, dammed if you don't.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

This fellah is so deluded it's untrue. EVERY neutral report (and some from the police themselves) that I've read, indicates that the Police 'froze' 20 minutes either side of 3pm. Some of these statements cames fropm PC's and SPC's themselves.... This bloke is making out that they were ALL 'MEN' and he was the hero at the head of them, not only directing people to save lives, but stopping a massive ruck at the same time.

 

1500 witness statements of people living near the ground? Did that many people come forward voluntarily to state this?b******s. I'm not having that.

 

The Mail has miserably failed to give a balanced view of what happened. Thousands of words from this deluded f***** A bloody essay from Ray Lewis (The Ref)? And just a single paragraph from Trevor Hicks (possibly from archive material?)

 

Whoever commisioned this article should be bloody sacked.

[Snookie]

Yeah the Guardian have really gone to town over this. They've been hammering away at it for weeks now.

 

The Guardian also been nailing any of the f***wits who have been posting offensive comments in articles. The difference in tone and attitude between it and the Mail couldnt be more perfectly illustrated by reading those two articles.

[smithdown]

Whoever commisioned this article should be bloody sacked.

 

Some masonic c*nt

[melia]

Any paper looking for quotes from the South Yorkshire Police are on the wrong path. They've already done enough harm, they should be kept out of it.

[Spike]

it's a ridiculous case to state - the fans being drunk. This happens en masse in most games. What doesn't happen at most games is to let in more people than the capacity can handle

[Falconhoof]

There's so much wrong with what he's said, its very wrong so you don't know where to begin or even how to counter that sort of misinformation.

The police gave far to much attention to the possibility of fighting between rival fans. There was no danger of it kicking off because all of us on the Leppings Lane who weren't in immediate danger and unable to help get people out were stunned, horrified and hoping to god that there was some sort of emergency plan to get people. To claim that "There was a lot of anger and frustration, and the last thing we needed was a brawl developing." is twisting the situation grossly.

 

"Equally, if the gate had not been opened, there would have been crushing and problems outside the ground. It was a case of dammed if you open it, dammed if you don't."

Problems outside the ground, what police work to do ? If you hadn't opened the gate 96 people would still be here today.

 

I don't buy the Daily Mail but those Liverpool fans who do, should think long and hard about where they put their money.

[Billy Talbot]

One thing the Taylor Report did not mention was that we gathered 1,500 witness statements from people living near the ground who said there had been heavy and sustained drinking by a significant minority of Liverpool fans before the game.

What? Like at every other football game I've ever been to? The Taylor report took that into consideration mate and concluded it had no bearing.

 

That had an influence on events, because people arriving in that state tend to be agitated and more difficult to control.

 

That's your job. Controlling a football crowd in an agitated state. It's an FA Cup Semi Final.

 

The majority of Liverpool fans are loyal and dedicated people, but that minority caused a problem.

 

No different than at every football game then...

 

t***.

Edited April 14, 2009 by jr_ewing

[Tosh]

I really hope that the fans tonight give JFT96 a full airing for a few minutes

 

I'd also love it if some of the Chelsea fans joined in. I can dream...

[RP]

Some masonic c*nt

 

 

Funny you should say that.

 

Has that ever been fully investigated/discussed?

[kop205]

Interview with Coroner

 

He 'can't remember' why he didn't call as a witness Tony Edwards, the only paramedic who made it onto the pitch.

[ManxRed]

Interview with Coroner

 

He 'can't remember' why he didn't call as a witness Tony Edwards, the only paramedic who made it onto the pitch.

 

How convenient.