Hillsborough Police Cover Up Disgrace

You really don’t get this at all, do you?

FACT: the police and other authorities made mistakes and blunders, which led to the deaths of 96 people, including women and children
FACT: police officers lied to cover up that fact
FACT: the police lied and smeared the dead
FACT: police, an MP and the establishment media reported those lies and smears as fact to deflect the above

Which of those things were acceptable in 1989?

Re. Fact 2: As the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report says:

"Some 116 of the 164 statements identified for substantive amendment were amended to remove or alter comments unfavourable to South Yorkshire Police."

And then the bullshit about "drunken fans" and the range of other totally unfounded allegations passed on by police to the press.

Re. Fact 3: it's not me saying it though is it? It's in the report (which you clearly haven't read)

FACT 2 - as has been alluded to previously, there is a big difference between being overly critical of your boss/employer and lying to protect and thus corruption.

As I explained to my son yesterday. I had the misfortune to referee a rather nasty basketball game and wrote a report in the heat of the moment after the game which I sent to the relevant authorities. on reflection in the cold light of day, I had been overly critical and submitted another report. The club was still fined but not thrown out of the league.

Surely, these officers wrote up their notes and then reflected on them, which is not the same as saying they were made to change their reports to protect the force or individual senior officers.

If you want to see corruption or conspiracy, then I guess you will always see it, whether it is there or not.

You have the benefit of sitting in your comfortable living room and poking and prodding to your hearts content while the rest of us get on with life

behave Lambie or we will set DTG and Floridagull on you ;D

time for me to bow out

Well, not really, considering Lambethgull has read the report itself. Therefore, it cannot be the case that he's just reading the media - and if he's saying the media are intrepreting it correctly, then surely that means the only conspiracy theory here is the idea that pretty much everyone involved in the media, politicians and families of the victims are intentionally misinterpreting the report to have a go at the police for no reason

And that's not to mention that's what the people who have written the report are saying. It's totally illogical that the press would misinterpret the report when those that have written the report are saying exactly the same thing

Even David Cameron, who a few months ago likened the victims' families' search for justice to “a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there”, has acknowledged this is the truth. Even The Sun, who wrote all those lies in 1989, have acknowledged this is the truth. Even Kelvin MacKenzie, a vile, arrogant man who has repeatedly denied printing misinformation about the disaster, has acknowledge this is the truth. They wouldn't do so unless the evidence was so overwhelming that they had no choice

There is no misinterpretation here. There is no need for it. The Hillsborough families aren't looking to just pin the blame on the police for the sake of it - I'm sure they would much rather it hadn't come to this. They just wanted the truth: an answer to why their loved ones died. In the course of that, they have found that the police made mistakes and then tried to cover that up. They didn't go looking for that - that is what they found. To think otherwise is to resort to the old stereotypes of Liverpudlians, which in this case have been found by the Hillsborough Independent Panel to be totally inaccurate


But there's a difference here

On that occasion, that is you, the authority, changing your own report with no pressure from anyone else

At Hillsborough, these are police statements being altered by the officers who the enquiry found were under significant pressure from their superiors to change it, in order the cover their arses. To quote the report, "Eight years after the disaster it was revealed publicly for the first time that statements made by SYP officers were initially handwritten as 'recollections', then subjected to a process of 'review and alteration' involving SYP solicitors and a team of SYP officers", during which time pressure was applied onto the officers to remove the parts that were critical of SYP

It's not some kind of convenient misinterpretation by the media - they haven't left anything out here. The report says statements were altered. The report says it was because the officers were pressured into doing so. The report says there was a cover-up

To suggest the media have intentionally misinterpreted this is to suggest the people writing the report have as well, and I really doubt that considering all the evidence they have analysed to reach that conclusion - 450,000 pages of documents. If you think one of my posts is long, try reading through some of that lot

Some of it is explained here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19571415. The main conclusions are here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-19577033


There is no conspiracy theory here, because it's no longer just a theory - a judgemental police force, likely influenced by many years of smearing of Liverpudlians, cocked up a major operation at a decrepit stadium which led to the unintentional but avoidable deaths of 96 fans, and then tried to cover up their cock-up with the assistance of politicians and the media. That is what happened. That's not what the media has interpreted it as - that is what the report says. And I trust the report, because the people behind it were neutral and have analysed all the evidence. To ignore the report in favour of what you believed previously about the event is to ignore fact and reason in favour of emotion and prejudice

Oh dear Lambeth I expect you have been tossing and turning all night trying to think of that one although it does show you in your true colours.

I was a little insulted at you accusing me of using the 'wise old copper' card, although it was better I suppose than the name calling you resorted to to another poster who had the audacity to disagree with you the previous evening.

No my tune hasn't changed. My post last night was to tell another poster not to get too wound up by you (I was trying to avoid him going to bed having been called names again!).

I did introduce my first post by saying that it was something that I do not know enough about (something I would never expect you to do) and all I did was raise some questions that I have. Nothing since has answered those questions and all I have seen on this forum is constant repitition on the basis that if you say it often enough it must be right.

You seem to be placing an awful lot of faith in an official enquiry. A different chairman with a different brief as to what the outcome should be could have used the same 'facts' to come to an entirely different conclusion. I expect if the conclusions of the enquiry had not been what you wanted then you would be slamming the integrity of the enquiry board.

I mentioned about the altering of statements in my first post and just asked some questions. I did not draw any conclusions just raised valid points.

A lot is being made about whether the Liverpool fans had been drinking alcohol. Of course they had, as Barton Downs pointed out the make up of football crowds at big games in the 1980's was such that it would be naive to conclude otherwise.

Ticketless fans was another issue examined by the enquiry. The video footage from outside of the ground before the gate was opened clearly show a number of fans climbing the high wall to get into the ground. A strange way to behave for somebody with a ticket.

Taking blood samples from the deceased also seems to have been made an issue. Blood samples are routinely taken at post mortems from people of all ages (even babies) as blood shows a lot more than just toxicology levels.

I haven't got the answers Lambeth and I haven't tried to provide answers. I have raised some questions and I hope you do not think we should be living in a country where things can not be questioned.

The proper place to examine these issues is in a Court of Law with the proper rules of evidence applied. The country has moved on from somebody being accused of theft and being dragged by the townspeople to the outskirts of the town and hanged from the highest tree. Some people haven't.

Well on that note this will be my last post on the subject so if JamesB posts up another link to page after page of the Guardian saying the same old thing but not coming even close to answering the questions I have raised I will not be responding to it.

I await a proper examination of the facts with the proper rules of evidence applied.

PS: I don't know who PC Simon Harwood is but I expect it is another of your files being compiled in readiness for the socialist revolution.

Okay, Stefano, there probably isn't much to be gained by using insults (and they probably do say something about the person who uses them). But in all honesty I'm not really that concerned what anyone on here thinks about my "true colours". Call me touchy, but when 96 people die attending a football match and then are smeared by the authorities, I get irritated when people make excuses for that.

I am well aware of the limitations of politically sanctioned inquiries. I would go further and say that ALL inquiries have a political dimension, whether they take place in a police station or a Court of Law. I agree with you that we should live in a country where everything should be questioned. That includes the authorities and the findings of the police. You say you await a proper examination of the facts, but as the HIP's report explains, this has never happened, not least because of the way the Coroner's Inquests were manipulated and handled.