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The Hillsborough Disaster Report
The Hillsborough Disaster Report
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LFC statement on panel report
12th Sep 2012 April 15th 1989 will forever be etched on the minds of everyone connected with Liverpool Football Club. It was a day when 96 supporters attended a football match and never came home. Over the last 23 years the families who lost loved ones and the survivors of this terrible tragedy have shown immense dignity and resilience in their tireless campaign for justice. For 23 years they have campaigned for the full disclosure of documents relating to the disaster and for someone to take responsibility for what happened. Today, following years of inquiries, investigations and setbacks, the Hillsborough Independent Panel has announced its findings in relation to the disaster. Liverpool Football Club commends the Hillsborough Independent Panel report which acknowledges the avoidable catastrophic failures before, during and after the disaster. The club also welcomes the Prime Minister's apology to the families and survivors on behalf of the Government and await the Attorney General's pending review of the report. After 23 long and painful years, our fans have finally been fully exonerated of all blame. Today, the world knows what we have always known, that Liverpool fans were not just innocent on that terrible day but that there was reprehensible and hurtful misrepresentation of the truth. Liverpool Football Club would like to thank the Hillsborough Independent Panel for its rigorous work over the past two-and-a-half years and for publishing a comprehensive report based on the in-depth research and analysis into hundreds of thousands of documents. Tom Werner, chairman, Liverpool Football Club, said: "On behalf of myself, John and everyone at the club, I would like to extend our thoughts and prayers on this hugely significant and deeply emotional day to everyone affected by the Hillsborough disaster. Today the world has heard the real truth about what happened at Hillsborough. "As a football club, we will continue to remember those who died and support the families who lost loved ones on that terrible day. We hope that today's findings will give some comfort to the families and survivors and go some way to addressing some of the key questions that have hung over the Hillsborough tragedy for the last 23 years." |
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They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it".
Apologise for an accurate comment? |
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Full Kelvin MacKenzie Statement on Hillsborough
“Today I offer my profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool for that headline. I too was totally misled. Twenty three ago I was handed a piece of copy from a reputable news agency in Sheffield in which a senior police officer and a senior local MP were making serious allegations against fans in the stadium. I had absolutely no reason to believe that these authority figures would lie and deceive over such a disaster. As the Prime Minister has made clear these allegations were wholly untrue and were part of a concerted plot by police officers to discredit the supporters thereby shifting the blame for the tragedy from themselves. It has taken more than two decades, 400,000 documents and a two-year inquiry to discover to my horror that it would have been far more accurate had I written the headline The Lies rather than The Truth. I published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong.” |
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does not mean it. just saying what max clifford told him to say
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that statement irritates me
even if the info he got suggested that might have happened - the sensationalist nature of how it was reported was very damaging to the people involved cant believe hes saying sorry but etc just say sorry you mug |
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Did it really take him 23 years to work out he was wrong?
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It's a terrible statement isn't it. Better off saying nothing at all.
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hes making out as if he reported something with a list of facts
he chose the big headline and he chose the wording - absolutely disgusting that he can just shift the blame like that |
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Should have said "I should have checked the facts but didn't" how hard can it be to admit that?
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During an after-dinner speech to Mincoffs Solicitors LLP (a Newcastle-based law firm) on 30 November 2006, MacKenzie is reported to have said of his coverage of the Hillsborough disaster:
All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster. The only thing different we did was put it under the headline "The Truth". I went on The World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth. |
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Everybody should be held to account for their part in this tragedy. Can someone remind me why there were fences at grounds in those days as they seem to be the reason why people couldn't avoid the crush.
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Agree with raj.
"I too was totally misled". "I had absolutely no reason to believe that these authority [a Policeman and MP] figures would lie...". From the former editor of The Sun, this really is beyond parody. If he couldn't make a genuine apology he should not have bothered. |
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Twenty three ago I was handed a piece of copy from a reputable news agency in Sheffield in which a senior police officer and a senior local MP were making serious allegations against fans in the stadium. I had absolutely no reason to believe that these authority figures would lie and deceive over such a disaster
I suggest Mr MacKensie is a little long in the tooth for such a belief. |
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it is kind of pointless to demand apologies from people if nobody is going to believe the apologies are genuine if they eventually get made.
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The prejudices of the police, government and some quarters of the public most definitely contributed to the extent of this disaster.
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FWIW I can't begin to even understand what McKenzie's (and IMO it was all down to him) motive's were for printing such poison.
Did he think he was on some great crusade for The Truth? Surely there are more worthwhile causes he could have got behind than spitting in the faces of Liverpool supporters - fk it, the whole of decent minded football supporters - at the time of greatest grief? Being deliberately contrary - see above. Some misguided support for the Police and, by inference, the Thatcher government - my best guess, but even so, why go in in such a cack-handed, yobbish fashion? Theonly language a Sun reader would appreciate I suppose. Crude ideas, crudey expressed by a crude despotic little man. |
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I was at the 1987 FA cup semi final, Coventry v Leeds. We were nearly crushed in the Leppings Lane end through that tunnel under stand. Kids were being passed into stand at the side by parents, and coppers were making them go back into the crush. All this with gates to ground locked. God knows what it must have been like with gates open,as they were that day. Unfortunately I was not surprised when I saw the news that day. It is very sad that the coppers in charge were unable to admit it was their fault in the beginning. RIP those brave Liverpool fans. Sad sad day today.
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the fences went up in response to the hooliganism throughout the 70s and 80s to prevent pitch invasions
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mafe - you have been given a serious answer to an unneccessary question.
roger - i agree his motive was probably blind support for the coppers, especially those who'd fronted up to the miners in South Yorkshire. |
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the Sun loved these hooligan stories it sold papers
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its easy to say now, with all the technology and regulations that are in place, that is shouldn't have happened. The 80's were a very different time though. attitudes to safety, attitudes towards authority, attitudes towards crowd control were all very different. Its fair that fans arent being blamed but equally i think the police should not completely vilified. Crowd flow simulations are very complex and without access to proper modern training it would have been almost impossible to guess the correct procedure for dealing with the situation they found themselves in. It was a tragic accident, nothing more.
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mafe/berto
It was a rhetorical rather than unecessary question. If there wasn't a culture of violence at football there would never have been fences at matches and the police and other emergency services wouldn't have been having to try to do several different sometimes conflicting jobs at the same time. Don't forget that Heysel was also fresh in the memory. Context seems to have been lost. |
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We get the Government,Police forces and media we deserve in this country perhaps we are ALL a little to blame in the unfolding of this disaster and subsequent cover-up.
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The Police are one of the most rancid corrupt organisations we have in this country.Always brought up to respect authority but I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.Their actions were absolutely disgusting.
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^^^Couln't agree with this post more^^^
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I was too young to remember, but given the historical context, back in 1988 I'm sure football fans weren't treated with much respect from the police. However, there's still some grounds and some elements in certain situations where the police still don't treat football fans with respect.
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I know what they do darlo don't worry, they did a hatchet job on Burton a few years ago saying it was full of drunks. they got hold of some kids and plied them with free booze all night, job done
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darlo, they were basically considered scum back then. certainly wasn't "fashionable" to follow or like football
the thatcher government hated football and football fans |
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Policing like this was routine at every ground every week, it could have happened anywhere at any time, probably the main reason it happened was that it was a big game with a small area of terracing, it is a great shame that this had to take place for them to sit up and take notice of how badly fans were treated by the police who saw themselves as some sort of elite SS squadron.
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Does anyone think that the Police didn't do what they thought was best in the heat of the moment? You can hammer them for making a bad decision but it is not as if they made a deliberately harmful decision.
I take it many of the posters on here apportion zero blame to the Liverpool fans for what happened? |
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that local Mp needs serious looking into for his statement
and needs his title taken away imo |
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Java 12 Sep 12 18:09
Does anyone think that the Police didn't do what they thought was best in the heat of the moment? You can hammer them for making a bad decision but it is not as if they made a deliberately harmful decision. I take it many of the posters on here apportion zero blame to the Liverpool fans for what happened? Well the Liverpool fans should get zero blame because they weren't at fault at all. If you think they were you obviously havent read the Taylor report, you havent read today's report and you have been in a locked room all day. As to your other point, I cant bring myself to demand criminal proceedings against the Police for the decisions they made that day. I dont think anyone wanted this to happen, it was just a series of mistakes. However, the coverups are unforgivable. And people should be prosecuted for preventing the course of justice imo |
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Does anyone think that the Police didn't do what they thought was best in the heat of the moment? You can hammer them for making a bad decision but it is not as if they made a deliberately harmful decision.
I take it many of the posters on here apportion zero blame to the Liverpool fans for what happened? Java - it doesn't matter if the police thought they were making the best decision in the heat of the moment(which I doubt). They were being paid to make the right decision but instead were negligent in the extreme. The fans were not to blame. Isn't that fact evident from today's findings. Over the years people like you have said why don't they let it go - thank god they didn't. Now it's time for people like you who can't accept the truth to let it go. |
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If it is a fact that the police deliberately altered statements,(and I assume that this is the case), then there will definitely be criminal proceedings.
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How can fans turning up with no tickets and trying to get in not be considered a contributory factor?
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The panel has quite simply found “no evidence” in support of allegations of “exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans"; ”no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium”
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no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium”
rather odd wording tbf undoubtedly loads of them did arrive late in vast numbers and this was the catalyst was anybody ever really suggesting they actually 'conspired' to arrive late  |
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the "crime" here is not the way the game was policed, that was ineptitude that led to a tragic accident.
tjhe crime is the conspiracy [that went right to the very top] to cover up that ineptitude and blame the fans. there are large elements of the establishment who should be facinc charges of perverting the coyurse of justice. no stone should be left unturned. |