Hillsborough documents to be released

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

Hillsborough Forum

 

The eight-person panel appointed to oversee the release of official documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster will convene for the first time in Liverpool tomorrow, meeting family representatives of some of the 96 supporters who died.

 

The Home Office, which announced the panel members last week, has not confirmed the agenda, but it is understood the Hillsborough Family Support Group and Hillsborough Justice Campaign will be represented, and Anne Williams, who has long campaigned against the inquest conclusions about how her son, Kevin, 15, died, will also meet the panel.

 

Chaired by the Right Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, the Hillsborough Independent Panel begins its work following the government's pledge on the 20th anniversary of the disaster last April that all documents held by official agencies would be made public. That was prompted by two Labour ministers and north-west MPs, Maria Eagle and Andy Burnham, who responded to families' protests that a full account has never been produced of what happened on the day and in the disaster's aftermath. Eagle said then that she still agrees with many families that South Yorkshire police attempted to cover up its culpability by the orchestrated alteration of officers' statements.

 

One panel member, Phil Scraton, professor of criminology at Queen's University, Belfast, first discovered the changing of statements and presented his findings to a previous inquiry, the 1998 "scrutiny" by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, who argued it did not constitute a cover-up.

 

Announcing the members last week, the home secretary, Alan Johnson, said the panel will work with the government and other public bodies, including South Yorkshire police, ambulance and fire services and Sheffield city council, to "oversee the maximum possible public disclosure of ... documentation relating to the Hillsborough tragedy and its aftermath".

 

Sheffield Wednesday football club are also understood to be willing to release their own archive, but are negotiating with their insurers, who, with South Yorkshire police and Sheffield city council, paid compensation to victims and bereaved families who sued the three bodies for negligence following the disaster.

 

Johnson said of the process: "I believe that the independent panel has an historic opportunity to bring healing to those affected by the tragedy, and that its establishment can help to begin to bring an end to the grievances strongly felt by many."

 

Margaret Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18- year-old son James died in the disaster, has welcomed the appointments. While the families were heartened by the government's pledge to release the documents, they have been cautious about agreeing the process, having felt hugely disappointed by Stuart-Smith's scrutiny. Aspinall said that the group wanted Scraton included on the panel, because as a long-term author and researcher into the disaster, he had the families' trust. Scraton and Katy Jones, a journalist who was factual producer on screenwriter Jimmy McGovern's 1996 ITV drama-documentary Hillsborough, which also uncovered new material, are the only two panel members with professional expertise directly related to Hillsborough.

 

Scraton is expected to take a lead role in writing the report the panel will produce following the release of documents which number in the tens of thousands. The report, according to its Home Office remit, will "illustrate how the information disclosed adds to public understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath". Johnson said that in addition to the eight-panel members, "a suitably experienced lawyer" will also be appointed.

 

South Yorkshire police offered last April to make all its documents public and today the assistant chief constable Andy Holt explained that the force will work in partnership with the panel. "We are happy to be involved with the panel," he said. "There is a good deal of suspicion from the families that a cover-up took place, and the panel will provide transparency, an assurance that the release of our documents is above board and being done with integrity."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/03/hillsborough-disaster-liverpool-documents

 

[surf]

it's scandalous that a democracy is keeping 20-year secrets, with the only intention of protecting those close to those in charge

 

i really hope for all those involved, especially those that lost loved ones, that the full truth is brought to light

[Buzz]

Have had a quick look but couldn't see this anywhere. James Lawton has been a c*** to Rafa recently and has annoyed me no end, but today I read something by him that I thougt I had better post.

Move on, the Hillsborough families have been told so often. Yet they refuse to budge – and they should be honoured and not scorned, in some time-worn way, by those who refuse for one reason or another to recognise the scale of the injustice that will always lay like a stone on their hearts.

And

If Terry's behaviour was some kind of commentary on contemporary values, the refusal to acknowledge significantly the cry for justice over Hillsborough remains a direct and disturbing statement about the reluctance of official bodies to acknowledge honestly their own failures.

Full Coloumn Here.

YNWA,

Justice for the 96

[Roscoe]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/apr/14/bishop-of-liverpool-hillsborough-panel

 

Half an hour into talking to James Jones, the Anglican bishop of Liverpool, about his role as chair of the panel seeking to establish the truth about the Hillsborough disaster, a familiar thought intrudes. It is, along with the other emotions Hillsborough has always provoked – horror, grief, shame, outrage – one which has only deepened in the years since, as English football has extravagantly rebuilt, hosting its FA Cup semi-finals now at plush, £757m Wembley. The thought is disbelief. That at a semi-final one sunny April in modern times, 96 people, mostly young, really did lose their lives.

 

Tomorrow it will be a year since Andy Burnham, then the minister for culture, media and sport, addressed the Hillsborough 20th anniversary memorial service. The attendance, 30,000, astonished everybody, and the nation witnessed his words of sympathy drowned out by cries for justice.

 

"When you saw that reaction," Jones reflects, over a cup of tea at his comfortable Bishop's Lodge in south Liverpool, "you realised this was a very, very deep wound in the body of this community. It suggested to me there were deep unresolved questions which needed to be addressed."

 

Burnham, with Maria Eagle, the junior justice minister, had called before the anniversary for all official documents relating to Hillsborough to be released, but he decided he should not stress that in his speech at the memorial service. The crowd's reaction, protesting that this government had done too little to resolve the unanswered questions over Hillsborough and accusations of a South Yorkshire police cover-up, in fact worked in Burnham's favour. It powerfully demonstrated to Gordon Brown and his cabinet the resentment still burning in Liverpool, prompting them to respond.

 

The result, after months of discussions with the home secretary, Alan Johnson, and intensive negotiations with the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), is a process much more substantial than simply publishing all documents relevant to the disaster. Having considered how such disclosure, by South Yorkshire police, the Yorkshire ambulance service, the Sheffield coroner and Sheffield Wednesday among other bodies, could answer the families' enduring questions, the government invited a group of experts to order and assess the documents.

 

That produced the nine-person Hillsborough Independent Panel (see right), chaired by Jones, which includes former senior police officers, medical, legal, media and archive specialists, and Professor Phil Scraton, whose book, Hillsborough: The Truth, concluded in 1999 that South Yorkshire police did seek to cover up their culpability for causing the disaster. Scraton has been invited by the home secretary to take a leading role in ultimately writing the panel's report, with Paul Leighton, the retired former deputy chief constable of Northern Ireland, and Dr Bill Kirkup, the Department of Health's former associate chief medical officer.

 

The panel's terms of reference, issued by the Home Office in December, crucially include the responsibility to write a report which will: "Illustrate how the information disclosed adds to public understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath." That, Jones says, clearly represents a duty to examine what the archives reveal of Hillsborough's most bitterly contested areas.

 

"We are aiming to ensure the maximum possible disclosure," he says emphatically. "Then with that information, to write a fuller story than has been told to this point. We are hoping, absolutely, that we can tell as near to the full story as possible."

 

In a country where the church is rarely involved with such investigative processes, a bishop may be considered an unexpected choice as chair. However, in this, his first full interview since accepting the post in December, Jones makes clear he believes the task falls very firmly within his duties as bishop.

 

"I know people knock the Church of England for being an established church," he acknowledges. "But the positive aspect of it is that an Anglican priest has a responsibility to everybody in the community, not just those who go to church. I've taken it on because I have a pastoral responsibility to the bereaved, the families, whether they are church members or not."

 

At its first full meeting in February, the panel heard representations from the HFSG, to which 67 bereaved families are affiliated, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC), which represents several more families and many survivors, and also met Anne Williams, whose son, Kevin, aged 15, died at the semi-final. The panel has since been to Sheffield, to see some 600 boxes of documents held by South Yorkshire police and other public bodies, and to the National Archives at Kew in south‑west London.

 

They meet again on Thursday next week, 22 April, when the members will be expected to say, following this preliminary work and their own reading, which areas they believe most clearly demand investigation. Jones does not want to pre-empt that discussion by presenting his own list, but says the panel's role is certainly to follow up the issues which have outraged the families and sparked accusations of injustice and cover-up over two decades.

 

"We want to be led by the questions the families are asking," he says. That, he confirms, will include seeking detailed answers to what happened on the day of the disaster after 3.15pm, the time which the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, determined as a "cut-off": his inquest heard no evidence about events after that time. Popper decided all the victims had suffered their fatal injuries by 3.15, but his decision has caused lasting agonies for the families. It meant most have never even been informed, in detail, what actually happened to their loved ones – where they were taken, what treatment they did or did not receive. In addition, no official process has ever considered whether people might have been saved had the response from the police and emergency services been better organised.

 

"That question – why 3.15? – has come up," Jones says. "I fully expect that to feature on the 22 April agenda. We will be having access to the ambulance service documents, which were not admitted to the inquest because they were after 3.15."

 

The two groups and Williams all raised "strongly", Jones says, the allegation of an attempted cover-up by South Yorkshire police. Lord Justice Taylor, in his official report into the disaster, emphatically stated that the principal cause was police mismanagement of the crowd and rejected the force's case that Liverpool fans were responsible because of drunken bad behaviour. Years later it emerged, discovered first by Scraton, that shortly after the disaster, senior officers had instructed junior officers on duty that day to rewrite their statements about what happened. Often the order was to stress misbehaviour by supporters and remove comments critical of the police's own work.

 

The families consider that to have been part of a cover-up attempt and have long campaigned to be told the extent of it, the names of those senior officers, and what their instructions were. The force has always denied that the changing of the statements amounted to a cover-up and the 1998 "scrutiny" by Lord Justice Stewart-Smith reached the same conclusion.

 

"The families have asked us if we will see, and they will see, the original documents," Jones says. "Our response is that we will be seeking the maximum possible disclosure. That is something we will certainly have on the table on 22 April."

 

The families have also always seen as part of the cover-up the removal of a CCTV tape from inside the Hillsborough control room on the evening of the disaster. "That was mentioned," Jones agrees, saying the panel will investigate the incident for which no culprit has ever been identified.

 

The families believe, too, that South Yorkshire police had high-level government support despite the Taylor finding. The then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, visited Hillsborough the day after the disaster and was briefed by the chief constable, Peter Wright. Thatcher's press secretary, Bernard Ingham, has since said publicly and unapologetically that he "learned on the day" that the disaster was caused not by the police, but by "a tanked-up mob" of Liverpool supporters. The families have asked the panel to examine official records of Wright's briefing, to establish what he said to Thatcher about the disaster's cause, and how she responded. "That has been raised," Jones confirms, "and that is the sort of question we will follow up."

 

Ever since the inquest in 1990, the families have also sought to understand the involvement of an officer from the West Midlands police, the force appointed to investigate the disaster. Detective Superintendent Stanley Beechey was at the time on "non‑operational duties" after the disbanding of the notorious serious crime squad, of which he was a former head. Yet at the inquest, he played a senior role, assisting the coroner. "The families have mentioned that," Jones confirms.

 

The disclosure of official documents in these most contentious areas represents a huge step forward for the Hillsborough campaign. The limitation of the process, Jones acknowledges, is that it has no power to recommend further action, such as prosecutions or disciplinary action, if any new wrongdoing is discovered.

 

"We are not an inquiry, and we recognise that that disappoints," he says. "But the phrase I have used with the families is that truth has its own pressure, and that the fullest truth told will bring its own pressure."

 

The implication is clearly that if the panel's report does expose further culpability for what happened on the day, or in the official response which followed, the families themselves can call persuasively for action to be taken.

 

Jones is very firm that although the Labour government, which has set up this process, could be voted out in the forthcoming election, the panel's work will continue. "Given the momentum that has been established, it is inconceivable to me that anybody would want to pull the plug on this," he says. "If anybody should want to, they would have to reckon with a panel that would robustly resist."

 

The panel has been given secretarial and administrative support led by a senior civil servant, Ken Sutton, with funding, guaranteed to be adequate to complete the job satisfactorily, provided jointly by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and that of Culture, Media and Sport. Given the mountain of documents to be read and catalogued, and a detailed report to write and agree, Jones says he expects the panel's work will take two years.

 

Trevor Hicks, the president of the HFSG, whose teenage daughters, Sarah and Victoria, died in the disaster, customarily cites research that miscarriages of justice take on average 26 years to overturn, and says he hopes Hillsborough will come in, finally, a little under that. Asked if Hicks has put that to him, Jones smiles. Then he replies: "I would not presume to say to the families of the 96 what to expect out of this. Except that we will do our job, and we will ensure the fullest story is told."

2010

[dl2009]

How many of the documents have been redacted beyond recognition or worse, 'misplaced'?

[libero]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/apr/14/bishop-of-liverpool-hillsborough-panel

 

Half an hour into talking to James Jones, the Anglican bishop of Liverpool, about his role as chair of the panel seeking to establish the truth about the Hillsborough disaster, a familiar thought intrudes. It is, along with the other emotions Hillsborough has always provoked – horror, grief, shame, outrage – one which has only deepened in the years since, as English football has extravagantly rebuilt, hosting its FA Cup semi-finals now at plush, £757m Wembley. The thought is disbelief. That at a semi-final one sunny April in modern times, 96 people, mostly young, really did lose their lives.

 

Tomorrow it will be a year since Andy Burnham, then the minister for culture, media and sport, addressed the Hillsborough 20th anniversary memorial service. The attendance, 30,000, astonished everybody, and the nation witnessed his words of sympathy drowned out by cries for justice.

 

"When you saw that reaction," Jones reflects, over a cup of tea at his comfortable Bishop's Lodge in south Liverpool, "you realised this was a very, very deep wound in the body of this community. It suggested to me there were deep unresolved questions which needed to be addressed."

 

Burnham, with Maria Eagle, the junior justice minister, had called before the anniversary for all official documents relating to Hillsborough to be released, but he decided he should not stress that in his speech at the memorial service. The crowd's reaction, protesting that this government had done too little to resolve the unanswered questions over Hillsborough and accusations of a South Yorkshire police cover-up, in fact worked in Burnham's favour. It powerfully demonstrated to Gordon Brown and his cabinet the resentment still burning in Liverpool, prompting them to respond.

 

The result, after months of discussions with the home secretary, Alan Johnson, and intensive negotiations with the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), is a process much more substantial than simply publishing all documents relevant to the disaster. Having considered how such disclosure, by South Yorkshire police, the Yorkshire ambulance service, the Sheffield coroner and Sheffield Wednesday among other bodies, could answer the families' enduring questions, the government invited a group of experts to order and assess the documents.

 

That produced the nine-person Hillsborough Independent Panel (see right), chaired by Jones, which includes former senior police officers, medical, legal, media and archive specialists, and Professor Phil Scraton, whose book, Hillsborough: The Truth, concluded in 1999 that South Yorkshire police did seek to cover up their culpability for causing the disaster. Scraton has been invited by the home secretary to take a leading role in ultimately writing the panel's report, with Paul Leighton, the retired former deputy chief constable of Northern Ireland, and Dr Bill Kirkup, the Department of Health's former associate chief medical officer.

 

The panel's terms of reference, issued by the Home Office in December, crucially include the responsibility to write a report which will: "Illustrate how the information disclosed adds to public understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath." That, Jones says, clearly represents a duty to examine what the archives reveal of Hillsborough's most bitterly contested areas.

 

"We are aiming to ensure the maximum possible disclosure," he says emphatically. "Then with that information, to write a fuller story than has been told to this point. We are hoping, absolutely, that we can tell as near to the full story as possible."

 

In a country where the church is rarely involved with such investigative processes, a bishop may be considered an unexpected choice as chair. However, in this, his first full interview since accepting the post in December, Jones makes clear he believes the task falls very firmly within his duties as bishop.

 

"I know people knock the Church of England for being an established church," he acknowledges. "But the positive aspect of it is that an Anglican priest has a responsibility to everybody in the community, not just those who go to church. I've taken it on because I have a pastoral responsibility to the bereaved, the families, whether they are church members or not."

 

At its first full meeting in February, the panel heard representations from the HFSG, to which 67 bereaved families are affiliated, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC), which represents several more families and many survivors, and also met Anne Williams, whose son, Kevin, aged 15, died at the semi-final. The panel has since been to Sheffield, to see some 600 boxes of documents held by South Yorkshire police and other public bodies, and to the National Archives at Kew in south‑west London.

 

They meet again on Thursday next week, 22 April, when the members will be expected to say, following this preliminary work and their own reading, which areas they believe most clearly demand investigation. Jones does not want to pre-empt that discussion by presenting his own list, but says the panel's role is certainly to follow up the issues which have outraged the families and sparked accusations of injustice and cover-up over two decades.

 

"We want to be led by the questions the families are asking," he says. That, he confirms, will include seeking detailed answers to what happened on the day of the disaster after 3.15pm, the time which the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, determined as a "cut-off": his inquest heard no evidence about events after that time. Popper decided all the victims had suffered their fatal injuries by 3.15, but his decision has caused lasting agonies for the families. It meant most have never even been informed, in detail, what actually happened to their loved ones – where they were taken, what treatment they did or did not receive. In addition, no official process has ever considered whether people might have been saved had the response from the police and emergency services been better organised.

 

"That question – why 3.15? – has come up," Jones says. "I fully expect that to feature on the 22 April agenda. We will be having access to the ambulance service documents, which were not admitted to the inquest because they were after 3.15."

 

The two groups and Williams all raised "strongly", Jones says, the allegation of an attempted cover-up by South Yorkshire police. Lord Justice Taylor, in his official report into the disaster, emphatically stated that the principal cause was police mismanagement of the crowd and rejected the force's case that Liverpool fans were responsible because of drunken bad behaviour. Years later it emerged, discovered first by Scraton, that shortly after the disaster, senior officers had instructed junior officers on duty that day to rewrite their statements about what happened. Often the order was to stress misbehaviour by supporters and remove comments critical of the police's own work.

 

The families consider that to have been part of a cover-up attempt and have long campaigned to be told the extent of it, the names of those senior officers, and what their instructions were. The force has always denied that the changing of the statements amounted to a cover-up and the 1998 "scrutiny" by Lord Justice Stewart-Smith reached the same conclusion.

 

"The families have asked us if we will see, and they will see, the original documents," Jones says. "Our response is that we will be seeking the maximum possible disclosure. That is something we will certainly have on the table on 22 April."

 

The families have also always seen as part of the cover-up the removal of a CCTV tape from inside the Hillsborough control room on the evening of the disaster. "That was mentioned," Jones agrees, saying the panel will investigate the incident for which no culprit has ever been identified.

 

The families believe, too, that South Yorkshire police had high-level government support despite the Taylor finding. The then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, visited Hillsborough the day after the disaster and was briefed by the chief constable, Peter Wright. Thatcher's press secretary, Bernard Ingham, has since said publicly and unapologetically that he "learned on the day" that the disaster was caused not by the police, but by "a tanked-up mob" of Liverpool supporters. The families have asked the panel to examine official records of Wright's briefing, to establish what he said to Thatcher about the disaster's cause, and how she responded. "That has been raised," Jones confirms, "and that is the sort of question we will follow up."

 

Ever since the inquest in 1990, the families have also sought to understand the involvement of an officer from the West Midlands police, the force appointed to investigate the disaster. Detective Superintendent Stanley Beechey was at the time on "non‑operational duties" after the disbanding of the notorious serious crime squad, of which he was a former head. Yet at the inquest, he played a senior role, assisting the coroner. "The families have mentioned that," Jones confirms.

 

The disclosure of official documents in these most contentious areas represents a huge step forward for the Hillsborough campaign. The limitation of the process, Jones acknowledges, is that it has no power to recommend further action, such as prosecutions or disciplinary action, if any new wrongdoing is discovered.

 

"We are not an inquiry, and we recognise that that disappoints," he says. "But the phrase I have used with the families is that truth has its own pressure, and that the fullest truth told will bring its own pressure."

 

The implication is clearly that if the panel's report does expose further culpability for what happened on the day, or in the official response which followed, the families themselves can call persuasively for action to be taken.

 

Jones is very firm that although the Labour government, which has set up this process, could be voted out in the forthcoming election, the panel's work will continue. "Given the momentum that has been established, it is inconceivable to me that anybody would want to pull the plug on this," he says. "If anybody should want to, they would have to reckon with a panel that would robustly resist."

 

The panel has been given secretarial and administrative support led by a senior civil servant, Ken Sutton, with funding, guaranteed to be adequate to complete the job satisfactorily, provided jointly by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and that of Culture, Media and Sport. Given the mountain of documents to be read and catalogued, and a detailed report to write and agree, Jones says he expects the panel's work will take two years.

 

Trevor Hicks, the president of the HFSG, whose teenage daughters, Sarah and Victoria, died in the disaster, customarily cites research that miscarriages of justice take on average 26 years to overturn, and says he hopes Hillsborough will come in, finally, a little under that. Asked if Hicks has put that to him, Jones smiles. Then he replies: "I would not presume to say to the families of the 96 what to expect out of this. Except that we will do our job, and we will ensure the fullest story is told."

2010

 

 

JFT 96.

[MarkD]

What happened on that day and the subsequent , scandalous events by those entrusted to protect and with power is never forgotten by all of us and yet whenever I read a piece like that in The Guardian I still shake my head and have to force myself to believe that it's true, that this really was allowed to happen.

 

It did happen and people who know how and why have evaded scrutiny and responsibility for their actions for over 20 years. It's not the script of some paranoia-led, student-written thiller, but the government, leaders from the police, the Home Office, the Health Service, legal and medical experts - they all failed to tell the truth and failed those who were killed. Not died - were killed.

 

Families have spent a high percentage of their time on this earth seeking nothing but justice - not a lot to ask for - and yet further delays and mazes are all they have received. I feel nothing but shame that this country, this divided country, has allowed those in positions of trust, power, integrity and more pertintly 'the facts' to sit idly by whilst the lives of those left behind have been tossed and blown and been worn down.

 

Never let anybody forget our fellow fans who were killed, the events of the day nor the events of every single day afterwards that has dawn for those families with hope and closed unfulfilled. Hopefully ,one day very soon they can receive what they are entitled to and the dignity and respect and rest their unyielding efforts deserve.

 

JFT 96. YNWA

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

In case you haven't already read it, Phil Scraton's 'The Turth' is an essential read.

 

It completely converted my dad, who'd been in the majority of thinking it was a combination of poor safety & bad luck into one of this is a complete f***ing whitewash & a disgrace. Esp the 3.15 thing. As a doctor, and Scraton goes into detail on this point, he immediately recognized that people were alive well past that point & not afforded the essential, and in some cases rudimentary, medical care that would have saved their lives.

[meredithmathieson]

In case you haven't already read it, Phil Scraton's 'The Turth' is an essential read.

 

It completely converted my dad, who'd been in the majority of thinking it was a combination of poor safety & bad luck into one of this is a complete f***ing whitewash & a disgrace. Esp the 3.15 thing. As a doctor, and Scraton goes into detail on this point, he immediately recognized that people were alive well past that point & not afforded the essential, and in some cases rudimentary, medical care that would have saved their lives.

 

Bought that years ago, but have never been able to bring myself to read it.

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

you have to, he's not looking to pull the heart-strings, it's very dry, matter of fact. He doesn't dwell on unnecessary details

[smithdown]

Bought that years ago, but have never been able to bring myself to read it.

 

 

Same here

[psl]

Its an excellent book. I read it as I thought that I should educate myself about Hillsbrough as I was only 9 when it happened. I was astounded by the depths of the negligence displayed by the police and medical staff and the subsequent actions taken to cover their backs by the authorities and their shady and flawed inquiries. Not to mention the horrific accusations thrown by the press while the city was still in mourning.

 

I haven't bought a copy of The Sun since I read it and that was many years ago now. I actually did a short presentation on 'Why you shouldn't read The Sun newspaper' at a pupillage interview at a barrister's chambers a couple of weeks after reading it! I would recommend it to everyone but think that it is a must read for Liverpool fans, if not football fans in general.

[johngibo YPC]

What happened on that day and the subsequent , scandalous events by those entrusted to protect and with power is never forgotten by all of us and yet whenever I read a piece like that in The Guardian I still shake my head and have to force myself to believe that it's true, that this really was allowed to happen.

 

 

Indeed. I've read it all before, but i'm still shocked when i read the level of cover-up each time

[madaboutlfc]

21 years today and no justice.. I cannot still believe this could happen in a developed country.

 

 

YNWA 96 brothers and sisters we should never forget

 

JFT96

[Falconhoof]

Bought that years ago, but have never been able to bring myself to read it.

 

Me too. Its on the shelf but haven't been able to open it.

[KIDORIGINAL]

I was at the anniversary last year, never have I been so emotional. I didn't feel like crying throughout the service but when I left I just broke down completely and sobbed for an absolute age.

 

Justice! Gone but never forgotten.

[Red Kent]

Bought that years ago, but have never been able to bring myself to read it.

 

Like you, although I've never bought it. I don't know if I will ever read it. I was there, and the year before, I think the pain will get worse if I read it.

[pipnasty]

Reading Scraton's book really helped me if it is any consolation. It is well worth reading.

[Red Kent]

Reading Scraton's book really helped me if it is any consolation. It is well worth reading.

 

How do you mean - helped you ?

[pipnasty]

How do you mean - helped you ?

 

It put things in the right place - if that makes sense. I was there too and I just found that the context that Scraton's puts the tragedy in really helped me start to overcome some of the more irrational things you have going around your head. I suppose I wanted to know 'why?' and he did as good a job as anybody in describing it. But, it is just my personal take on things.

[Red Kent]

It put things in the right place - if that makes sense. I was there too and I just found that the context that Scraton's puts the tragedy in really helped me start to overcome some of the more irrational things you have going around your head. I suppose I wanted to know 'why?' and he did as good a job as anybody in describing it. But, it is just my personal take on things.

 

Fair enough, I suppose one day I will read it, just dont think that day is in the near future that's all.

[smithdown]

Anyone know if you definitely need a ticket for today?

[Knox_Harrington]

Anyone know if you definitely need a ticket for today?

Supposedly so but I just can't see them turning anyone away.

[badtodabone]

Anyone know if you definitely need a ticket for today?

 

yes i have one spare if you want it phone me on 07907791161

[Red Kent]

Currently looking at the Anfield pitch now, it's bathed in glorious sunshine, it looks lovely yet I don't want to be here if you know what I mean.