As Liverpool Marks 36 Years Since the Hillsborough Disaster That Killed 97 Fans, The Fight For Justice Contnues

 

April 15 will always remain one of the most sombre days in English football. On this day in 1989, 97 Liverpool  fans went to a game of football and tragically never came back. The terrrible events of that day at Hillsborough remain as heartbreaking now as they were 36 years ago. 
In  Liverpool today hundreds of people came together  earlier at the Hillsborough memorial at Anfield to mark the 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster,  at 3.06  the time the FA Cup semi-final  with Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, was halted, that touched so many lives and changed the face of English football forever. At  the  same time  the city's bells tolled 97 times.in tribute to each victim, fwhich  was followed by an instrumental version of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. 

The remembrance was be led by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool Richard Kemp, who was be joined by Liam Robinson, leader of Liverpool Council.  Similar tributes took place on Sunday (13 April) before Liverpool’s Premier League fixture against West Ham United at Anfield, where both teams laid wreaths at the stadium’s Hillsborough Memorial.

Arne Slot and Virgil van Dijk were among those to lay wreaths at the Hillsborough Memorial outside Anfield, joined by the coaches and captains of Liverpool’s women’s, U21s and U18s teams. A period of silence was observed ahead of first-team training at the AXA Training Centre later in the day.  And clubs in the Premier League and beyond showed their support for the Hillsborough families and survivors while honouring the 97.  That saw many of Liverpool’s rivals, including Everton, Man United, Arsenal and Man City, all post tributes on X.

In the run-up and the immediate aftermath of the 3pm kick-off, a crush at the Leppings Lane end of the "neutral" stadium resulted in the worst ever disaster to befall a British sporting event. As well as those killed, hundreds more were injured while thousands suffered emotional and psychological trauma as a result of their experience. 

The families of the victims, who have campaigned tirelessly ever since, say the truth of what happened that day and crucially the role of senior officers within South Yorkshire Police has never been satisfactorily explained.  

Football was blighted by hooliganism in 1989 and this provided the main focus of the policing operation rather than the welfare and safety of the fans. The venue was a poor choice for the occasion. There was a well-known "bottleneck" at the Leppings Lane end caused by the slow old-fashioned turnstiles. Some 38 people had been injured in a crush at the ground in 1981.  

As the excited crowds built up close to kick-off, a senior officer radioed the match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who was overseeing his first major match, asking him to authorise the opening of the exit gates allowing fans to get into the ground without passing through the creaking turnstiles. He agreed. But by this time the number of people inside the "central pens" of the terrace was also beginning to mount dangerously. 

Crucially police did not steward the entering fans into the relatively empty side pens. Instead some 2,000 supporters eager to watch the match piled into the already crammed central area where a perimeter fence guarded against the threat of a pitch invasion.  

Incredibly, as people started to suffocate, the match got under way, and desperate pleas for help were drowned out by the excitement of the game. Fans attempting to climb the anti-hooligan fences were forced back by officers. Limited relief came only when the two narrow gates on to the perimeter track were opened. The game was abandoned after six minutes by which time fans were on the pitch, fashioning stretchers out of hoardings to transport the injured and dying towards medical help. But of the 42 ambulances that were summoned to the ground only three made it on to the pitch. Here paramedics faced chaotic scenes described by one as "bedlam". 

Official medical cover that day was provided by St John Ambulance volunteers.  Few victims received even rudimentary help opening airways. Many of the injured were laid on their backs rather than in the recovery position. There were no doctors to confirm who was dead and who still had a chance of survival as the bodies were left in piles. Only 14 of those who died ever made it to hospital. The remainder were taken to the ground's gymnasium where they were photographed and the images shown to grieving relatives who were denied access to their loved ones.

.Lord Justice Taylor was appointed by Douglas Hurd to conduct a Home Office Inquiry into the disaster, the Inquiry opened on 15th May and made an interim report on 1st August 1989.  Taylor found that hooliganism played no part in the disaster. The real cause was the overcrowding and the failure of police control. The South Yorkshire police had been responsible for the match security at Hillsborough. He castigated senior officers of the South Yorkshire police and commented on the police orchestrated campaign against the Liverpool fans.  

The South Yorkshire Police had form when dealing with ordinary workers and miners during the 1984-85 Miners strike. The South Yorkshire Police really never accepted that their mismanagement of the game had been the primary cause of the disaster. There were numerous oversights and mistakes by Taylor including the failure to question the FA’s decision to use Hillsborough, the Sheffield’s club failure to sort the bottleneck that was Leppings Lane and the medical care administered at the ground in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. However his main findings that the police were responsible were important.  The South Yorkshire Police settled some compensation claims for very low amounts and treated the matter as being closed.

Of the 97 people who died, 37 were teenagers, most still at school, many attending their first ever away football match supporting Liverpool. Seven of the dead were girls and women, including one mother, Inger Shah, whose children Becky and Daniel were teenagers at the time. Twenty-five were fathers; altogether, 58 people lost a parent in the disaster.

Many survivors still struggle to come to terms with the mental and physical wounds of the incident. It's so horrible  to think of going to a match and not returning, never mind it being covered up and being blamed for the tragedy as well. From the onset survivors of Hillsborough  spoke of how they were intimidated and threatened by  police and left feeling traumatised, accused of wasting police time because they did not like their evidence, because it did not fit into their versions of the event. 
The Police, the Conservative Government of the time, the Stadium management and the press, all  colluded to keep us from what actually happened at the tragedy that was Hillsborough, they were lied about, especially  by the police, the scum newspaper, the dead were vilified and labelled,  and demonised. Thatcher's Conservative Government created a culture of impunity, who needed a partisan police force, because they wanted to protect their own self interests Remember too, that 164 police officers lied, 14 of whom were awarded millions of pounds of compensation between them, the Hillsborough familres have not recieved a penny. Also since this terrible occasion some Police Officers were even  promoted to senior positions.

The propaganda pumped out in the first two years after the disaster coloured public opinion. The Scum newspapers ‘The Truth’ headline, falsely pointing the finger at Liverpool fans, set the tone. The coroner’s dismissive verdict was an official endorsement of the lies. The dead, their fellow supporters who tried to save them and the bereaved were dehumanised, demonised and dismissed with the complicity of the state, .the Police, the Conservative Government of the time, the Stadium management and the press,  all  of whom colluded to keep us from what actually happened at the tragedy that was Hillsborough.

 
 Kevin McKenzie editor of the Scum at the time , sanctimonious git supremeo, sanctioned the making up of 'quotes'  he then  repeated the same lies time and time and again, a pathetic , wretched individual who only made  half apologies in order to further his own self interests. Shame , shame, shame.  
Because of this, The S*n, as it is referred to in Liverpool, became an instant target. 36 years on and the paper remains unwelcome in the city, the effect of which has led to big supermarkets and small newsagents all over no longer stocking it. 

Remembrance is thus not only conducted as a vigil for the lives lost, nor the want for it to be rubber stamped in the history books. It is an inherently political act and one which seeks to build solidarity with campaigns fought on similar lines elsewhere. It  is crucial that there is accountability and transparency in public life. 36 years on it is only natural for people to pursue justice. 

97 lives unlawfully stolen. An innocent city vilified.Serving police officers colluded to cover up the truth about their colleagues unlawfully killing 97 innocent football fans..Abuse ongoing and neverending. The evil lying culprits free and clear. And still the brave souls who remain fight the fight for justice! 

Despite those who passed at Hillsborough being found to have been unlawfully killed, only one person has ever been successfully prosecuted relating to the disaster., the stadium safety officer, Graham Mackrell, was fined £6,500.  He failed to ensure there were enough turnstiles to prevent large crowds from building up outside the Leppings Lane end of the ground. There were just seven turnstiles open for over 10,000 supporters.

In 2019, former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who ordered and subsequently lied about the opening of exit gate C – the gate opposite the tunnel to the overfilled pens – was found not guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence. 

Duckenfield, who was match commander at the fatal semi-final, was found to have been grossly negligent by the jury at the 2016 inquest. However, this wasn’t decided a criminal court case and, when he was prosecuted for gross negligence manslaughter, the 2019 jury acquitted him of criminal charges.  In addition, solicitor Peter Metcalf and retired police officers Donald Denton and Alan Foster were accused of altering police statements and helping to cover up police failings. 

Their trials collapsed on a technicality.  Conn explained: “Three police officers were charged with an offence called perverting the course of public justice, through a process of amending the statements of police officers after the disaster.

 I stand with families calling for a full Hillsborough Law to fix our broken justice system. A Hillsborough Law is a package of new laws that aims to ensure other bereaved families do not go through the same painful experiences as those who lost loved ones at the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, on April 15 1989 and who had to fight for years against the lies and obfuscation of the different organs of the state in their pursuit of justice. 

The bill is intended to include a statutory duty of candour on public servants, backed by criminal sanctions, to force them to tell the truth during all forms of public inquiry and criminal investigation.  The package also includes a provision for a parity of legal funding for ordinary people forced to take on large institutions following tragic events, so that bereaved families have access to public funding in the way that those who lost loved ones in Sheffield on that fateful day were not.  

Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly promised - including twice in speeches at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool - that his government, if elected, would bring in a Hillsborough Law in full. The bill was included in his new government's first King's Speech in July last year. The Prime Minister said the new legislation would be ready by April 15 this year, to time with the 36th anniversary of the disaster. That now will not happen.  This is because when those who have campaigned so hard for the Hillsborough Law saw the changes that had been made to the bill by government officials last month, they were appalled, with some of the key measures said to have been watered down to a point where the families and the campaigners could not support it.

Observers of Keir Starmer’s career as the Director of Public Prosecutions could be forgiven for holding suspicions of a man with his track record. From the police killings of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson to the persecution of Julian Assange, Starmer’s history often shows him siding with powerful interests against victims of injustice. If the Hillsborough Law is abandoned, it will leave no ambiguity about the fact that it is those interests his government serves.

In Margaret Aspinal's  words  whose 18-year-old son James lost his life in the disaster,  a “watered down” version of the law would be “no use” and must be introduced “in all its entirety”.

Keir_Starmer do the right thing and follow through on your promise. It is the bare minimum families deserve.Imagine actually having to fight for a Law that requires the authorities to simply tell  the truth in any and all official investigations, inquests and inquiries.The Hillsborough Law must be passed in full. No compromises. No half-measures. The Government must do the right thing and pass a Hillsborough Law that is fit for purpose. 

Hillsborough's continued relevance has helped to expose other great historical injustices, even when people's capacity for shock regarding the behaviour of those charged with protecting society is diminishing.  From the hacking of a missing murdered schoolgirl's phone, to the surveillance of Stephen Lawrence's family, to the free rein that Jimmy Savile was afforded to abuse a seemingly endless list of vulnerable children, to Orgreave and the Shrewsbury pickets, questions remain about the conduct of some of those whose job it was to protect and serve.

On this raw emotional day my thoughts remain with the survivors and those affected by the tragedy as the city of Liverpool comes together to mark this sad occasion. Never forget the 97 and the  far  too  fight for justice. Today, I  am  also  reminded that the tragedy  of Hillsborough  transcends the boundaries of fandom and club loyalty, and irrespective of our rivalries, we are all human.

One of the most famous Hillsborough photographs was of Liverpool fan Dave Roland sitting alone in the stadium on the day of the tragedy. Dave sadly died of coronavirus in April 2020.

Here is a touching poem by Carol Ann Duffy about the Hillsborough disater.

Poem for the Hillsborough disaster - Carol Ann Duffy

The Cathedral bell, tolled, could never tell;

nor the Liver Birds, mute in their stone spell;

or the Mersey, though seagulls waild, cursed, overhead,

in no language for the slandered dead...

not the raw, red throat of the Kop, keening,

or the cops' words censored of meaning;

not the clock, slow handclapping the coroner's deadline,

or the memo to Thatcher, or the tabloid headline...

but fathers told of their daughters; the names of sons

on the lips of their mothers like prayers; lost ones

honoured for bitter years by orphan, cousin, wife-

not a matter of footbal, but of life.

Over this great city, light after dark;

truth, the sweet silver song of the lark.