April 15th 1989 is a day that lives in infamy in Britain, particularly amongst football fans and most of all with the people of Liverpool. On that day 96 people died at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield at the beginning of a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
It is now clear that police were at fault in the incident, wrongly directing spectators into the wrong areas of the stadium causing some areas to become overcrowded which in turn resulted in some supporters of Liverpool FC to be asphyxiated to death.
The events themselves were a tragedy but efforts by the South Yorkshire Police to cover up their culpability are criminal. In addition to crowd control mistakes senior officers appear responsible for failing to allow emergency services faster access, in an attempt to re-write the script of responsibility.
As a result initial press reports blamed Liverpool supporters for the tragedy. Outcry from the club challenged this and an ‘independent’ investigation by the West Midlands police backed the South Yorkshire police version of events. This ‘investigation’ is as big a sham as the original cover-up and itself is now under investigation.
For over 20 years supporters groups fought for the truth to come out and the police cover-up, including doctored witness statements, to come out. Government after government washed over the cries but relentless campaigners like the late Anne Williams, who lost her son at Hillsborough, would not be silenced. Anne lived to see the original verdicts quashed and new ones ordered but cancer took her life last year and she died, as her book title says, “With hope in her heart”.
Two new inquests are about to begin. One specifically investigates the police and their conduct (IPCC) while the other investigates the matter from a more generalized perspective. These will formally begin on March 31st and are supposed to work in co-operation with each other.
Home Secretary Theresa May took to the floor of the House of Commons this week to update Parliament on the progress of the investigations. She emphasized that new documentation had come forward and that she wanted there to be no room for challenge after the investigations are complete.
Indeed those who have already been interviewed this year have said privately that for the first time they are no longer being treated as criminals, and the investigators actually want hear the truth from them. Subsequently they have reached out to others and encouraged them to come forward with their stories, which for the first time many have.
May’s opposite number in the Labour Party, Yvette Cooper, asked some pointed questions about the said progress, not all of which were answered with complete confidence. The debate that followed still seemed to leave a couple of things unresolved.
Cooper asked if the investigators were encouraging witnesses to be forthright about what they saw and knew, beyond simply answering the questions posed – in other words were the investigator s asking open-ended questions. It was a throwback to Watergate when the FBI simply didn’t ask the right questions despite witnesses being ready to give incriminating answers. May’s answers lacked conviction when she said the investigators were doing their job and she would help them more if they asked.
More disturbing is the allegation by a number of witnesses and surviving family members that they were subject to police surveillance in the months and years following. Whereas this may be conspiratorial thinking (to some extent), May’s contradictory statements are disturbing.
At one point May says that the Independent Police Complaint Commission (IPCC) is not investigating surveillance against families, at another she says the IPCC will pursue evidence, at another point she says she is aware of concerns but there is no evidence yet, while in response to another question she says “police do not confirm or deny” if surveillance is used.
Although said over the space of an hour or so those comments seem to cover all possibilities and do not inspire the confidence of those who have waited so long for truth and accountability. It does seem though that the bulk of the facts will stand and police commanders will be standing in some bad light.
What is less clear is what will happen if the worst is confirmed. Will some officers be charged with manslaughter? It appears clear that emergency services could have reacted more quickly if allowed and that many lives could have been saved.
Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield and another officer, Bernard Murray, were subject to a private prosecution. Murray was acquitted, and the jury hung on Duckenfield with the judge refusing to allow a re-trial. Police disciplinary charges against Duckenfield were abandoned when he retired for health reasons.
What is clear is the Hillsborough families will continue to pursue the truth. They have proved to be relentless in upturning stones that the government’s justice system should have done for them. Having come this far and established so much it will be difficult to deny anything to them other than absolute justice.
