However, unlike the Heysel Stadium disaster of 1985 this tragedy didn't occur because of hooliganism, as there was no violence between the two sets of fans. This incident was solely down to congestion. Thousands of fans travelling to the game were late due to traffic on the roads and delays to the railway, however nobody at the ground thought it appropriate to delay the 3pm kick off time. As a result many fans hurriedly entered the ground at the same time to avoid missing any further action. Unfortunately no effort was made to relieve the overcrowding, such as opening large gates. No entrances were sealed off and none of the fans were redirected to safer areas. This along with the ineffectiveness and slowness of the police to react resulted in nearly 100 deaths.
Immediately after the Hillsborough Disaster, the Home Office set up an inquiry under Lord Justice Taylor. It's remit was: "To inquire into the events at Sheffield Wednesday Football ground on 15th April 1989 and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events". The inquiry, which was held in Sheffield, began on the15th May 1989 and lasted thirty-one days.
The Taylor Report recommended that all top division stadiums in England and Scotland phase out their concrete terraces and become all-seater. The result of this report has seen millions of pounds spent by every top club in these countries on developing their grounds. While many fans have complained that the elimination of the standing terraces has ruined the atmosphere at matches, it seems clear that all-seater stadiums are far safer as it is easier to manage spectators if each ticket sold is for a specific seat.
All-seater stadiums have resulted in cases of football hooliganism decreasing significantly, meaning that incidents of violence inside football grounds have become almost non-existent. In addition, arrests for football-related crimes have reduced dramatically since the late 1980's whilst attendances have risen steadily.
The Taylor report wasn't the only testimony to address spectator safety inside football grounds. That same year the government addressed the incidents of 1985 (The Heysel Disaster) and 1986 (The Bradford Fire) and introduced the Football Spectators Act.
The main proposals of the Act, suggested the compulsory distribution of identity cards to every football fan attending league, cup and international matches played in England and Wales. Under this system it would be possible to identify any known football hooligans and prevent them from entering stadiums. This system was first experimented with throughout the sixties and seventies, with clubs using their own membership schemes.
Even before the Football Spectators act had been introduced, the Football Association had come to an agreement with the government to implement membership schemes at every club in the football league. This was down to the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher) vigorously supporting the use of identity cards and signalling it out as the most effective way of preventing football violence.
Despite the government endorsing the scheme, only thirteen of the ninety-two English league clubs implemented the use of identity cards by the initial deadline date. Indeed, it was not only clear that the football clubs did not support the scheme it was also clear that the police were not in favour of the system. A survey of police views on membership schemes revealed that a massive 40% did not favour them.
In any event Lord Justice Taylor condemned the scheme himself, in his report after the Hillsborough disaster. This combined with the clubs and police reluctance to agree to the scheme meant that it was never fully implemented or made compulsory.
RESULT 1 (ID=14):
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/foot-m10.shtml
World Socialist Web Site
Police falsified evidence about 1989 Hillsborough football disaster
1999-03-10
Robert Stevens
Police falsified evidence about 1989 Hillsborough football disaster
An investigation by the Sunday Telegraph has revealed important new evidence relating to the role of the police in covering up and falsifying evidence in the weeks following the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster.
On April 15, 1989, 96 Liverpool football supporters died at the Hillsborough stadium in South Yorkshire. They were crushed to death in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium after the South Yorkshire Police directed thousands of fans arriving just before kick-off to enter an overcrowded stand. A further 400 supporters suffered injuries. The new findings are presented on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the disaster.
The February 28 edition of the Sunday Telegraph reveals that in the aftermath of the disaster more than 100 statements by police officers on duty at the ground were altered significantly to delete any references criticising the actions of the police, before, during and after the event.
The Telegraph's investigation has compared more than 100 original police statements with the ones altered. These documents were among those recently released by Home Secretary Jack Straw relating to the disaster. The Telegraph's findings show how potentially crucial evidence was distorted and doctored.
On April 26, 1989 senior South Yorkshire Police (SYP) representatives met with the force's solicitors, Hammond Suddards, to discuss the disaster. Both parties agreed that the police could be served with writs for their role at Hillsborough. They decided it would be necessary for lawyers to study the statements made by police officers attending the match and advise the SYP on what should be left in or removed.
The police agreed to amend and delete a number of statements on the advice of solicitors during a meeting on May 7, 1989. The meeting agreed that some statements by police officers would need to be changed in order to present them to the impending Taylor Inquiry into the deaths at Hillsborough. Resulting from this agreement, more than 400 statements were submitted to solicitors over the next five weeks. Of these, 60 were changed to alter "minor" errors.
However, this was not the end of the tampering. The Telegraph continues, "More than 100 statements were altered more significantly in an attempt to satisfy the desire of the force's solicitors that hearsay, comment and inappropriate language should be removed." The South Yorkshire Police also changed statements itself at a later date, without consulting solicitors.
Significantly, these statements were the ones used a month later at the 1989 inquiry into the disaster and at the subsequent inquest in 1991. These both criticised the role of the South Yorkshire Police, but did not hold them responsible for any of the deaths. Verdicts of accidental death were returned.
Some of the original and changed statements documented in the Telegraph report are:
* The original written recollection of Police Constable William Holmes, made on April 27, 1989, ended with the sentence, "However, there seemed to be a total lack of contact with police control or at least a senior officer who could have informed us as to what action was required." The following month this sentence was deleted.
* Another officer, PC Desmond Brophy, had a number of assertions deleted from his original account of the disaster, including the words: "My single most strongest observation that I would make was that for a significant period of time there appeared to be a lack of radio guidance from control."
* PC Kevin Bennett's criticisms of the way the police herded supporters into an already dangerously overcrowded stand were also deleted. His original recollection was, "I felt that officers should have been at the turnstile entrance in more strength and caused the crowd to form queues PRIOR to getting near to the turnstiles. No senior officers at this stage appeared to be in command of the situation."
As well as deletions, direct falsifications were used to distort dozens of recollections of police officers on duty at Hillsborough.
* Inspector John Beresford had originally written: "The [police] radio was faint and totally incoherent. No instructions were forthcoming." This sentence was changed in his amended statement to read: "The radio was faint amidst the noise in the ground."
* PC Peter Bradley's statement included both deletions and amendments. His view that "no officer, senior or otherwise, came to inform us of what had happened" was removed. His statement, "Radio traffic was non-existent all through this time, as was a lack of direction from supervisory officers" later became, "Radio messages being passed were more difficult to understand all through this time."
The Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) has responded to the new evidence by calling on Home Secretary Jack Straw to open a fresh public inquiry. The chairman of the group, Trevor Hicks, who lost two daughters at Hillsborough, said, "The sheer scale of the altering of the statements is an absolute disgrace. As far as we are concerned, there was an orchestrated campaign to limit the damage to the absolute minimum." He said that the HFSG "are concerned that adverse references to the behaviour of the fans [on the day of the tragedy] were left in, but any derogatory remarks about the police service, particularly senior officers, were sanitised or diminished."
Shortly after the Labour government came to power, Jack Straw commissioned a report into Hillsborough to see if it merited a new inquiry. The 1998 inquiry, headed by Lord Stuart-Smith, was supposedly based on a "scrutiny of evidence". He reported that no new evidence had emerged that negated the outcome of the original inquiry or the 1991 inquests. Stuart-Smith had access to some of the changed police statements, but he failed to address the importance of them, either in the report or the appendix.
Instead, he concluded that the 11 changed statements he had scrutinised did not alter the verdict of the 1989-91 inquiry and inquest. This was despite his report drawing attention to the case of PC David Frost, who told the inquiry that he and other unnamed officers had refused to sign their amended statements. Frost said, "This was an attempt by senior management to sanitise and protect themselves; and any honour that the South Yorkshire Police had, which I thought at the time was considerable, disappeared for me." Stuart-Smith rejected the allegations of Frost on the basis that statements had to be changed to prevent hearsay and ambiguity.
Defending his report, Stuart-Smith said, "I do not consider that there is any question of misconduct, either by the solicitor who gave the police advice upon the statements or by the police officers who suggested the alterations to the statements without referring the statement to the solicitors."
The catalogue of deleted and amended statements had only one aim: to shift any blame for the disaster away from the police and onto the supporters. All the new evidence that has emerged over the last 10 years about the Hillsborough disaster shows how, at every level, the authorities sought to defend the police version of events. All the inquiries and inquests, from Taylor to Stuart-Smith, have failed to indict the South Yorkshire Police or any single individual officer for their criminal role in the Hillsborough disaster, despite a wealth of evidence and information.
Next month a new book will be released by Professor Phil Scraton of Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England entitled Hillsborough-- the truth. Several years ago Scraton co-authored No Last Rights, a report detailing how the judicial system ensured that the police were not held responsible for the deaths at Hillsborough.
Scraton has studied 1,000 police and witness statements and rejects the view of Stuart-Smith on the question of the importance of the police altering statements. Scraton recently said, "There is no question that statements were changed which went far beyond comment and opinion." He said that one chapter in the book was devoted to the issue of the statements and "completely takes the lid off the statement-taking process".
RESULT 2 (ID=5):
http://www.le.ac.uk/fo/resources/factsheets/fs2.html
University of Leicester
Football Stadia After Taylor
2002-03-01
1. Introduction: the Hillsborough Disaster
1.1 On the 15th April 1989, the worst tragedy in the history of British football took place at the Hillsborough Stadium, home of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. Ninety-six Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the terraces at the Leppings Lane End during the F.A. Cup Semi Final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
1.2 As a result, Lord Justice Taylor, a High Court judge, was commissioned by the Government:
"To inquire into the events at Sheffield Wednesday Football ground on 15th April and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events." (Taylor, Final Report, HMSO, 1990)
1.3 Despite suggestions in some national newspapers, notably The Sun, that drunken Liverpool hooligan fans were behind the events at Hillsborough, the official inquiry concluded that police "operational errors" (HMSO, 1990, p.25) were the main cause of the disaster. Some parents of the Hillsborough victims continue a public campaign which seems aimed at seeking convictions for those senior police officers in charge on the day who, it is alleged, ignored available video evidence that the pen where most of the deaths occurred was becoming dangerously overcrowded some time before the tragedy took place. Families of victims also complained about the 'insensitive' treatment they received immediately after the disaster when the bodies of loved ones had to be identified, scenes vividly dramatised in Jimmy McGovern's C4 TV dramatisation of the events in Sheffield. A recent (1998) official investigation of 'new' evidence about the disaster failed to convince the authorities that it justified a re-opening of the Hillsborough case. Despite apologies from the South Yorkshire Police, the Hillsborough families fight on, supported by spectator campaigns in Liverpool and elsewhere.
2.1 This was not the first time a major tragedy had occurred in the post-war period at a British football ground. The Shorrt Report back in 1924, and investigating chaos at the first Wembley Cup final in 1923, argued that: "the police should be responsible for all matters appertaining to the preservation of law and order and that the arrangements for the convenience of the public the ground authority should be responsible". In 1946, the Moelwyn-Hughes Report followed the deaths of 33 spectators due to crushing at Bolton Wanderers' ground, Burnden Park and recommended that one police officer should be present per 1,000 specatators at English football grounds. In 1972, 66 supporters died at Ibrox Park in Glasgow when fans tried to return into the ground on an exit stairway. This disaster lead to an inquiry conducted by Lord Wheatley (the Wheatley Report 1972) and to the introduction of a Green Guide on Safety at Sports Grounds, and the first Safety at Sports Grounds Act (1975) which first introduced designated sports grounds and safety certificates for large sports stadia. The Popplewell Inquiry in 1985/6 followed the deaths of 56 fans in a fire at Bradford City's Valley Parade. The Taylor Investigation was, in fact, the ninth commissioned Inquiry into ground safety and crowd control at football matches in Britain. Many of the reports produced by previous inquiries had already recognised some of the problems which were manifested at Hillsborough although the strict implementation of recommendations from previous reports had, arguably, not always been adhered to.
2.2 Thus, there is something of a long tradition of spectator tragedies in British football. A combination of poor facilities and poor crowd management and the sometimes aggressively passionate support for the sport in Britain have worked together to claim the lives of at least 306 fans since the turn of the century in 27 separate incidents in which a further 3,500 fans have been injured. Since the war around 186 people have been killed in accidents at Football League matches though from a massive 1.2 billion spectator admissions (Inglis, 1993). Disasters do happen elsewhere in the world, of course. In Eastern Europe there have been a number of sports crowd disasters. Recently in Guatemala, but also in South Africa, where 43 died at Ellis Park in April 2001, and in Harare, Zimbabwe where 12 died in July 2000 after police fired tear gas into the crowd at the Zimbabwe v South Africa match, specatator tragedies have occurred, usually because of a combination of poor crowd management and inadequate facilities.
Selected Football Stadium Tragedies in Britain
| Date | Stadium | What happened? | Outcome |
| 1902 | Ibrox Park | Terrace collapsed | 50 killed, 500 injured |
| 1914 | Hillsborough | Wall collapsed | 80 injured |
| 1914 | Turf Moor | Spectator crushing | 1 killed |
| 1946 | Burnden Park | Spectator crushing | 33 killed, 400 injured |
| 1957 | Shawfield | Barrier collapsed | 1 killed, 50 injured |
| 1961 | Ibrox Park | Barrier collapsed | 2 killed |
| 1971 | Ibrox Park | Crushing/barrier collapse | 66 killed, hundreds injured |
| 1985 | Valley Parade | Fire | 56 killed, hundreds injured |
| 1985 | St. Andrews | Wall collapsed | 1 killed |
| 1989 | Hillsborough | Spectator crushing | 96 killed, hundreds injured |
3.1 During the twenty years before Hillsborough, crowd management and crowd control had become synonymous in England with the prevention of hooliganism. Measures such as high-profile policing, strict segregation of supporters, perimeter fencing and penning had become the main priority in policing operations at major matches. The effects of these strategies on non-hooligan fans seemed less significant. A breakdown in communication between the authorities, police and supporters had often resulted in confusion and, sometimes, mutual hostility. To travel to football as an 'away' fan in the 1970s and 1980s was often to experience something of a 'military' exercise in terms of policing, and hostility and sometimes violence from 'home' and away fans. Relatively few older supporters or female fans then seemed tempted by the prospect. This 'prison-like' character of football grounds has been noted by some theorists who study spatial aspects of sport spectatorship (Bale, 1993).
3.2 Recently, as modern stadia have become much more 'tame' spaces compared to those of the 1980s, there has been considerable nostalgia demonstrated for the 'hooligan period' in the publication of a range of books celebrating the male rituals of the football 'hooligan wars' of the 1970s and 1980s. Sometimes these come in the shape of novels such as The Football Factory (John King, 1996) or the superior Awaydays (Kevin Sampson, 1997) or else in a lurid 'pseudo-documentary' style such as in the range of books of hooligan reminiscences published by Eddie and Dougie Brimson, professed ex-hooligans from Watford.
4.1 Legislation on stadia safety and fan behaviour inside grounds has been a central feature of public policy in relation to football since the mid-1970s. Some key pieces of legislation are:
4.2 The Sporting Events Act prohibits the carriage of alcohol in vehicles going to football matches and also makes it an offence to attempt to gain admission to a ground when drunk. The Public Order Act allows for fans convicted of hooliganism to be banned from football grounds for a specified period. Clubs can also refuse admission to fans who commit offences against ground rules. The Criminal Justice Act, 1994 was aimed at criminalising ticket touting but has been criticised by supporter groups because it also criminalises supporters who want to sell on unwanted tickets. The Act also provides police with new powers of stop and search and also in relation to aggravated trespass. The latter has also concerned fans who felt that their right to peaceful protest against unpopular directors or managers might be endangered by the new legislation (Greenfield and Osborn, 1996). Under the Football (Disorder) Act of 1999 courts were for the first time required, not merely allowed, to make a banning order if the criteria were met - and to explain in open court why no banning order was applied. Fans who were banned were also required to hand over their passports at a police station and report there at a specific time and date. The Football Disorder Act 2000 abolishes the distinction between domestic and international banning orders.
5.1 The Interim Report on Hillsborough by Lord Justice Taylor was published in August, 1989. It produced 43 practical recommendations which could be immediately implemented by League clubs in order to improve safety for the start of the new season (1989/90).
The main recommendations were:
5.2 In Lord Justice Taylor's Final Report published in January 1990, he praised the football clubs for their positive attitude in implementing the interim recommendations. He then went on to look at the problems facing British football. The report discusses and criticises:
5.3 Lord Justice Taylor then went on to make a total of 76 recommendations designed to improve the state of football in Britain. The most important of these were:
5.4 Due to the apparent increase in violence at football grounds in the mid-1980s the, then, Minister for Sport, Mr. Colin Moynihan, introduced the Football Spectators Bill to Parliament in 1988. Part One of the Football Spectators Act, 1989, dealt with the domestic game, proposing compulsory membership or identity cards for all spectators at League, Cup and international football matches in England and Wales. Part Two of the Act was concerned with imposing restrictions on fans travelling abroad to follow the England national team, another source of violent disorder on many occasions during the 1970s and 1980s.
5.5 As a result of the Taylor Report, the section of the Football Spectators Act 1989, which proposed the introduction of a compulsory membership, or identity card scheme for football supporters was shelved. Many people felt that such a scheme would not have helped prevent disasters such as that at Hillsborough, which was not caused by fan violence. Football supporter organisations and other critics went further, saying that the membership cards would have made matters worse by actually slowing down the process of getting supporters in and out of the ground. Taylor's initial recommendation that all major stadia should be all-seated was amended by the Home Office Minister, David Mellor in July 1992. He agreed that some standing accommodation could be retained by clubs in the lowest two divisions of the Football League.
6.1 The FLA was created by the Football Spectators Act of 1989. It is responsible for either granting or refusing a licence to admit spectators to any designated premises to watch football matches. The FLA holds considerable powers to impose conditions on football clubs and to suspend or refuse licences. It has a number of functions:
6.2 The main functions of the FLA relate to ensuring the effective management of football supporters inside football stadia. This involves encouraging a general move toward high profile policing and low profile policing. The FLA provides for training modules for stewards, who normally far outnumber policeman at football these days, often by as many as five or six stewards to every police officer. The FLA is also required to keep under review the discharge by Local Authorities of their functions under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act. All clubs require a safety certificate, which indicates a 'safe capacity', in order to stage matches, and periodic tests must be carried out by clubs to ensure their facilities and emergency services are up to standard. Local Safety Advisory Groups involving police, fire and ambulance services and, sometimes, supporters are also used to assist local authorities in exercising safety functions. If clubs fail to meet safety standards they can be prosecuted for contravening a safety certificate or the FLA can insist on a reduction in stadium capacity until the necessary work is done. The post-Taylor regime at football has effectively moved the safety and management of supporter functions at matches to clubs and their appointed agents and away from the police, whose responsibilty now is to deal with public order problems and crime at football.
6.3 The Home Affairs Committee was set up by Parliament to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Home Office and associated Government bodies. The report Policing Football Hooliganism is concerned with police costs and efficiency and with public order at football matches. In England and Wales, about 5,000 officers police football each Saturday at an annual estimated cost of about £22 million.
The main recommendations to come out of the report were:
6.4 The call for supporters to be involved and consulted more by clubs and to be treated with more respect and dignity was welcomed by supporters' organisations such as the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs and the Football Supporters Association. It has been widely recognised as a further step towards the greater 'democratisation' of football.
7.1 It was evident that the implementation of the Taylor Report would be a tremendous financial burden on many football clubs. Immediately after the publication of the Taylor Report, the Football Trust, a body responsible for helping clubs with money raised from a tax on the football pools and 'Spot The Ball' competitions, said that it would only be able to help clubs with the most basic requirements for the introduction of seating.
7.2 However, in March 1990 the, then, Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Major, announced that the amount of tax levied on football pools was to be cut by 2.5 per cent, releasing £100 million over five years to assist clubs in redeveloping their grounds. This was later extended to the year 2000, providing up to £200 million for stadium improvements from this source. In October 1990, the Football Trust announced that, in addition to this initial £100 million, it would also be distributing around £40 million, (three-quarters of its income) for ground redevelopment over the five year period. The maximum amount of money that any one football club could receive under the new scheme was to be £2 million.
7.3 At this time, the Trust indicated, however, that it might be willing to grant more than the combined maximum total of £4 million to two clubs planning to share a new ground, providing both were prepared to invest the entire proceeds from the sale of existing grounds into the new venture. Even in the so-called 'enlightened' post-Hillsborough times for stadium design and for the construction of new stadia no English or Scottish clubs have actually come forward with proposals to share facilities in a manner which is much more common on the continent, where stadia are often owned, not by the clubs, but by local authorities. This last point often means that continental stadia are often multi-purpose and often have athletics tracks, providing watching conditions for football not favoured by British fans.
7.4 By January 1991, the Football Trust had contributed £7.73 million towards ground improvement projects. Of this amount, both Liverpool and Glasgow Rangers received £2 million, to convert the terraced parts of their stadia into all-seated areas. Combined redevelopment at Anfield and Ibrox Park came to a total cost of more than £22 million. In total, in the first year, applications were received by the Trust from 76 clubs for 120 separate projects. For the rest of 1991, the Trust anticipated approving further projects to a total value of £25 million. By 1997 almost £500 million had been spent by clubs in England and Scotland on major improvements or new stadia, with the Football Trust contributing around 30% of this total cost. Where else did money come from for this modernisation programme? Some came from the sale of old stadia and land; some came from sponsors; some came from club owners; some came from local authorities as partners.
Funding Football Stadia, Post-Hillsborough (£millions)
| Raised by Club | Football Trust Grant | Total Cost | |
| 1991 | 32.5 | 10.6 | 43.1 |
| 1992 | 71.9 | 29.5 | 101.4 |
| 1993 | 69.5 | 24.3 | 93.8 |
| 1994 | 46.9 | 26.2 | 73.1 |
| 1995 | 20.7 | 10.5 | 31.2 |
| 1996 | 60.2 | 18.7 | 78.9 |
| 1997 | 69.6 | 16.7 | 86.3 |
| Totals | 371.3 | 136.5 | 507.8 |
7.5 As mentioned earlier, the Trust's guidelines for grant-aid to clubs allows for larger contributions to be made towards ground-sharing by two clubs. However, no money has yet been allocated for these purposes. Richard Faulkner, the Trust's First Deputy Chairman commented: "...some proposals for new stadia may prove hard to fulfil because of planning permission problems, and there is as yet little enthusiasm for ground sharing."
"There is no panacea which will achieve total safety and cure all problems of behaviour and crowd control. But I am satisfied that seating does more to achieve those objectives than any other measure." (Taylor 1990).
8.1 The move to all-seater stadia is seen by many in the game as the necessary way forward. Soon after the Hillsborough disaster, Liverpool Football Club announced plans to convert its Anfield Stadium to seating. Announcements by both UEFA and FIFA (the European and World governing bodies for football) indicated the determination of both organisations to stage, by 1993, all major games played under their auspices in grounds where all fans are seated. The trend towards the elimination of terracing was seen by the authorities in England as an important step towards increasing spectator safety and crowd control.
8.2 However, despite the arguments above, the opinions of design experts and football supporters themselves are not so clear-cut. Simon Inglis, a writer and researcher on football stadia, has argued that many of the major stadia in the world at present still have terracing and it is the behaviour, management and control of spectators on terracing which are crucial to explaining tragedies like Heysel and Hillsborough. Early research on this issue undertaken on the views of members of the Football Supporters Association at the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research at the University of Leicester in 1989 indicated that a majority of these 'activist' fans were opposed to all-seater stadia. However, given certain qualifications on issues such as price and covering, the opposition to all-seater stadia even among these committed fans does diminish quite considerably.
8.3 More recent research suggests that, in the main, most fans are reasonably happy with new stadia developments, but that a number of issues do concern them. For example, the National FA Premier League Fan Survey (2001) suggests that most fans like the new facilities at football and agree that hooliganism has been reduced inside top grounds and crowd management has improved. However, supporters are also very concerned about the lack of 'atmosphere' in some seated grounds and they are also anxious about the ticket pricing at some venues. At some top clubs close to a majority of fans now want some terraces; fans have also identified the possible advantages and disadvantages of a return of some terracing.
8.4 One of the reasons for the early resistance to all-seater grounds was, of course, this fear of losing the 'terrace culture' experienced when standing at a football match. Many fans feared losing the unique atmosphere of passionate and committed support associated especially with football in British stadia. A poll in the early 1990s in 'France Football' rated English football grounds very low on architectural merit, but highest on stadium atmosphere. Many clubs have already developed all-seater family enclosures aiming to encourage more families and women to attend matches and thus reduce the potential for hostility by 'feminising' the atmosphere at matches. Concerns about safety in football stadia in England are also very high now following the Hillsborough disaster. Balancing up the demands for safety and excitement inside stadia is a key question for fans and administrators these days (Frosdick, 1996). However, 'A National Survey of Female Football Fans' conducted by the Centre for Football Research at Leicester University (Woodhouse, 1991) found that many women who already attend football show the same resistance to change in stadium design and facilities as do their male counterparts. In the 2000 FA Premier League National Fan survey (SNCCFR, 2000) 24% of all supporters still wanted to stand. At Leeds United 39% of fans preferred standing. Ex-Minister for Sport, Kate Hoey continues the campaign for standing areas in 2002 on the basis of offering more choice for fans and that safe standing areas - as in Germany and the lower divisions in England for example - are possible. Some top German clubs remove seats for domestic matches but replace them for European competition. The FLA rejected the comparision with Germany, however, arguing that fan cultures in England and Germany are very different.
8.5 In addition to these issues, many fans also have a considerable emotional investment in their football stadia. Stadia have an enormous symbolic value to fans (Williams and Giulianotti, 1994). Many working class men in particular experience some of their most important collective experiences in the local football ground. The ground also 'carries' the memories of earlier generations of supporters. Sons (and some daughters) follow in their father's footsteps by standing in the same space as did their parent(s). Fans often feel they 'own' certain parts of the stadium and they become strongly attached to the idiosyncracies which marked earlier generations of English football grounds. Moving grounds or demolishing old stands runs the risk of producing sterile, modern, rationalised 'non-places' which are cold and anonymous and which evoke little of the memory or the great 'community' traditions of clubs (Canter, et al 1989; Duke, 1994).
9.1 A solution suggested by Taylor to the financial problems incurred by the requirements for ground improvements and the transition to all-seater stadia, was the sharing by two clubs of an existing ground, or the relocation of clubs to new stadia. The vast majority of English League grounds remain in the same locations of fifty or more years ago, in cramped, working-class residential and industrial areas close to town and city centres.
9.2 By 1910, for example, 66 Football League clubs had moved into the stadia they still occupied in the early 1990s. Most of the others moved between 1912 and 1955. Up until the new Taylor-inspired generation of football stadia only two new Football League grounds had been built since then, at Scunthorpe and Walsall. The National Stadium at Wembley, currently being redeveloped, is now around eighty years old. The high cost of implementing Lord Justice Taylor's recommendations forced many clubs to reconsider their position at their existing grounds. This has especially been the case as interest in football has boomed in recent years and some clubs have found their new all-seated venues are simply too small. In the last couple of years Manchester United in England and Celtic in Scotland have extended ground capacity to over 55,000 spectators.
9.3 For some clubs, it has proved more cost effective to move and build a new stadium. For example, Millwall FC in South East London was one of the first clubs to move to a new site. Around 48 clubs were reported to be 'interested' in relocating elsewhere in the early 1990s. The number of relocations (11) has been much smaller, but impressive nevertheless, especially given the initial reticence of most clubs in this direction.
English Stadia Relocations as part of the post-Taylor Initiative
| Club | Stadium | Year | Capacity |
| Chester City | Deva Stadium | 1992 | 6,000 |
| Millwall | New Den | 1993 | 20,146 |
| Northampton Town | Sixfields Stadium | 1994 | 7,653 |
| Huddersfield Town | McAlpine Stadium | 1995 | 24,000 |
| Middlesbrough | Riverside | 1995 | 35,000 |
| Derby County | Pride Park | 1997 | 33,000 |
| Sunderland | Stadium of Light | 1997 | 41,590 |
| Bolton Wanderers | Reebok Stadium | 1997 | 25,000 |
| Stoke City | Britannia Stadium | 1997 | 24,054 |
| Reading | Madejski Stadium | 1998 | 20,000 |
| Southampton | St. Marys Stadium | 2001 | 32,000 |
9.4 In addition to these shifts in site, Charlton Athletic has recently moved back to its original site at The Valley. Oxford United has also been building a new ground, though the club is also suffering financially which has delayed its opening. Arsenal, Leeds United, Leicester City, Manchester City, Everton and Coventry City are also planning to move stadia in the near future. Southampton has tried to find a new site for almost 10 years but has been repeatedly turned down for planning permission on the south coast. Despite the apparent willingness of some clubs to move, many, like Southampton, experience problems such as finding the required money, getting planning permission from local councils and facing opposition from residents in the area to which the club wishes to move. The difficulties of acquiring appropriate 'green field' sites outside town centres are quite considerable. Southend, Wrexham, Bristol Rovers and Shrewsbury Town have all had plans to move blocked. Only two top English football clubs actually share a stadium - Wimbledon and Crystal Palace - at Selhurst Park in South London. In 2002 the Chief Executive of the Football League was quoted as saying ground sharing was the only route to a secure financial future for a number of Football League clubs playing in the same city as local rivals. However, as some clubs have tried to make maximum usage of their stadium facilities a number now share with other sports. Reading, Watford and Queens Park Rangers all share their venues now with top rugby union clubs. Rugby League uses football facilities in the north of England, at Bury, Huddersfield and even on occasions at Elland Road, Anfield and Old Trafford.
9.5 A controversial proposal for relocation has recently come from Wimbledon FC. The club shares a ground with Crystal Palace, has a very small fan base and like many Football League clubs is losing money. The club proposed a stadium move, firstly to Dublin and then into a custom-built new facility in Milton Keynes. Most of the club's fans favour a move back to the London borough of Merton, where opinions are divided about whether a stadium is a viable proposition. For the fans, the issues here are the club's traditions, its historic links with South London and the principle of maintaining the organic links between football clubs and their places of origin. If Wimbledon was allowed to move, then any buyer could step in and buy an ailing Football League club before locating it elsewhere, where crowds might be larger. This is more like the system for sport in the USA, where owners effectively purchase the franchise - the position a sports club holds in a sporting competition. For Wimbledon's South African-born chairman Charles Koppel and its Norwegian owners, the issues are increasing the club's appeal, securing the financial future of the club and the fact that even with the fans' preferred move back to Merton local support will not offer the club the prospects of gaining an FA Premier League place or long term commercial survival. The decision in this case is crucial for future policy on all football relocations. Wimbledon's aims seem likely to offer an option for the future in cash-strapped times.
9.6 In the late-modern period most major stadia have now become less sports' facilities than sites for a range of functions and types of leisure consumption and business activites. The communal areas below the seats which traditionally would have remained unused or available only for informal activities, have now been converted at many grounds into areas for bars and shops - the 'streets of the stadium'. At Leeds United a veritable shopping 'mall' has emerged under the giant new East Stand. All major grounds now house club shops which are open on most days. Top clubs such as Liverpool and Manchester United also have stadium museums. Many clubs with new stands try to utilise their facilties for a range of local business and conference functions. This diversification of club activities points up the determination of clubs to maximise their resource and to try to open up new markets for football - as well as seeking a return on stadium investment. Club matches and stadium facilities are now used to attract corporate customers - Leicester City described its new Carling Stand as the 'business stadium'. Executive boxes are controversial for many committed fans, who would clearly prefer more space for 'dedicated' club followers. But football stadia now can also act as a strong lure for international business in their new role as a focus for regional regeneration, business development and 'place marketing' (Williams, 1996). The executive facilities are here to stay.
9.7 But a word of warning is worth making here. Some stadium managers and club owners imagined their new venues might become major sites for other sports, for pop concerts, firework displays etc. However, the market for such events is actually quite small and competitive. Millwall hoped to corner some of this market when opening the New Den; but the club failed to book major events, mainly because the venue was simply too large or else it was poorly located. Partly for this reason the club was soon in major financial trouble and facing economic ruin. After a period of trauma the Millwall club is back in recovery though the New Den still hosts few non-football events of any note.
9.8 In addition to this, new football facilties often now contain 'community' rooms and even classrooms as clubs seek ways of maintaining positive links with local people despite the extended multi-purpose use of venues which once used to be active only once or twice a week. However, a new national organisation, the Federation of Stadium Communities has been formed in order to represent the interests of people who live close to football grounds. When clubs want to extend their facilties or their activities this often has negative implications for the local community. In recent years, for example, Arsenal FC has faced substantial opposition from residents in Highbury because of that club's ambitions to increase the stadium capacity. More stadium capacity means more traffic and more potential nuisance to residents - especially as stadium activities are no longer contained to the 'traditional' Saturday/Wednesday couplet. In fact, most research on stadium nuisance suggests that people who live near football grounds are less concerned by hooliganism than the are by the problems of car parking and other forms of 'incivility' (Mason and Robbins, 1991; Bale, 1993)
10.1 Again, the view of supporters and 'experts' appear to be mixed on these issues. For one thing, it is often pointed out that by no means all continental stadia have 'out of town' locations, and that some of our 'city' stadia are actually quite well placed for facilities, parking etc. In the 1989 survey by the SNCCFR of members of the Football Supporters Association, the majority were opposed to ground-sharing, but more appeared to support moves to newly-built stadia if fans were consulted and facilities improved. (See Graph below).
10.2 Some of the opposition from fans to ground-sharing - and even to moving grounds - may stem from the fear of losing their local identity and of damaging the ties that exist between football clubs and their local communities. The intense rivalry that can occur between clubs in the same area is also a significant obstacle to ground-sharing. In fact, in the 1990s as the Premier League has become such a powerful force and the quality of club facilties a clear sign of the ambition of clubs to reach, or remain involved in, the top league supporters seem much more willing to support a move to a new ground. The facilities at Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Derby County, especially mark the ambitions at those clubs to remain a major force.
Source: SNCCFR, 1989
Bolton Wanderers have probably moved furthest, and the impressive Reebok Stadium - like Pride Park and the new Reading stadium - perhaps lacks the traditional 'football infrastructure' - bars, shops etc. - which give older venues part of their character and a 'sense of place'. Certainly, fans at Middlesbrough seem very impressed by the new Riverside venue, which has, itself, played a major role in the general rejuvenation of the fortunes of that club.
11.1 Back in 1914, when Liverpool played Burnley in the FA Cup final at Crystal Palace, fans from the North travelling down to the match were already wary of the metropolitan exploitation which lay ahead. Spectators for the final, for example, had to pay a shilling (5p) admission to the pleasure grounds before gaining access, for an additional payment, to the football stadium. This was, naturally, frowned upon by the hardy Lancastrians who had gone 'down' for the Cup, and when the Final moved to a new stadium at Wembley in 1923 supporters from outside the metropolis remained ambivalent towards the attractions of a London final. Most people, sure, were in awe of the size and symbolism of the new stadium and, eventually, its place in the world game. But, increasingly, travel down to London became a nightmare as more and more people wanted to do it in their own cars. Access to final tickets for fans was also frozen to a miserly 12,000 until supporter action and public opinion finally shamed the FA into change.
11.2 In recent years, especially as English club grounds have improved in their facilities and services, as travel to European football venues has opened up (usually invidious) comparisons, and as fans began to demand more from the final as an 'event', the privations of the North London venue and its environs became more and more apparant. Where could you eat or drink? Not in Brent, and not easily in the parking venues around the suburbs north up to the Stanmore tube link. Inside Wembley became known for its poor offers and high prices.
11.3 In June 1996 and Sir Norman Foster unveiled plans for a new national stadium, initially incorporating the famous twin towers. In December, after a nebulous beauty contest, the Sports Council chose Wembley as the site for the new national venue at a cost of £230 million, to be used to host the 2001 World Athletics Championships and as a centrepiece for London bids for the Olympic Games in 2008 or 2012. £120 million of this cost was earmarked from the Lottery, the rest to be raised in loans from the City; a feasible and timely national sports project. But because commercial companies cannot receive Lottery funds this also meant that the then owners of the stadium, the ailing Wembley plc, needed to be ditched. Rather than a trust established under the auspices of the Sports Council (the original plan), the FA became ambitious owners of Wembley via their subsiduary, Wembley National Stadium Ltd (WNSL). Trouble ahead.
11.4 When Ken Bates took charge of the Wembley project he had four apparant, if unlikely, aims in mind: one, to build a new stadium at top cost fit for the ill-fated 2006 World Cup bid; two, to turn the new stadium into a lucrative corporate and hotel base a la Chelsea Village - in Brent? - three, to build a football stadium complex for the FA but apparently with no FA cash input at all; and four, to squeeze athletics and any other sports out of the Wembley picture. Chris Smith, Minister at the DCMS, and now blanching at the huge sums involved, agreed in January 2000 that Wembley should be a football-only venue. But as the sums involved looked increasingly bizarre as the cost of the stadium rocketed to £660 million, Ken Bates himself was forced to leave this leaky ship before FA Cheif Executive Adam Crozier finally called a halt on the whole embarassing and overblown affair, calling for another £150 millions worth of public investment to 'save' Wembley.
11.5 Plans are now afoot to revive the Wembly project, possibly including athletics once more. Some fans were alarmed that the new scheme plans to have 15,000 VIP seats at the stadium to cover the costs of the new venue. But the world has also moved on since the grand old stadium's closure. Cardiff, with its friendliness, easy reach cafes and bars and reasonably priced accommodation, has actually done an excellent job of hosting English football's major events and of showing up north London's more obvious failings. And the Millennium Stadium is no hyper-commercialised forum of a kind visioned by the English game's elite. It's an impressive football and rugby venue built for sport, not just for consumption, and is an important focus for Welsh civic pride. An FA Cup final half-time spent on the sunny boardwalk over-looking the River Taff, or in the shopping 'streets' of a new London stadium mall? It's a good question
11.6 Also, the gains of having England playing international football matches in club grounds away from London since the Wembley closure have been considerable. The atmosphere at these matches so far has been powerful and far less poisoned than what we too often got at Wembley. Taking England to the provinces might just help to dissipate some of the jingoism and racism which attaches itself to the national team and which the government and the FA seem so keen to try to target at the moment. Surely, we cannot now go back to playing all England's matches in the capital? As many fans point out, the national team, after all, belongs to the north as well as the south of England.
11.7 A national survey of fans drawn from 43 FA Premier League and Football League clubs was conducted by the SNCCFR in 2001 (see Williams, 2001). Some of the results are as follows
12.1 Some time has now elapsed since the Taylor Report was published. There has been much discussion on what has been probably the most comprehensive review of the condition of British football in the history of the game.The move towards all-seater stadia is the most radical and significant development during this time. One club, Coventry City, tried seats in the early 1980s, with little success.(See Williams et al, 1984). But since this initial experiment the English game and its public has changed considerably. Seating and improved facilties have been generally welcomed. Some clubs have seen the cost of introducing seats into decaying and run-down stadia as money badly spent compared with the prospects for ground relocation. Many grounds are no longer the best places for the clubs they house. Some clubs have successfully moved, while others have fallen foul of planning permission or of supporter resistance. Finally, it has become clear that rather than being seen by public authorities as a focal point for social problems, football stadia today are now regarded more as an important boost to the local economy and to local identity and 'place marketing' (Williams, 1996). Recent struggles in England over the siting of stadia suggest that the 'dependent city' syndrome of the USA (Euchner, 1993), where cities are desperate to keep or attract sports franchises, may soon become a feature, too, of the British landscape.
12.2 Most fans are convinced that more clubs will have to move, but more now want their own club to do so. Currently, both Arsenal and Leeds United are set on a stadium move. A move also looks likely at Everton, where more than 80% of fans voted for a new location. There is, arguably, a need for greater realism and less conservatism among supporters and clubs and, once again, a need to build upon the sorts of positive outcomes which supporters and clubs might expect from a move or from stadium redevelopment which is properly handled and financed. By the same token, many clubs are probably still best suited by their current location. One wonders, however, whether some of the money spent post-Hillsborough has, perhaps, been used, too quickly, to create modern stadia for today rather than the football venues which will be needed for the 21st century. New football stadia in Holland and Belgium, for example, already seem more advanced than our own. Here a retractable roof and a removable pitch are already features of new venues. Computer programmes now offer the opportunity to 'design' a stadium on screen and for fans to see the view they will have of matches before a single brick is laid. These features are also available in Japan, where a reported £4 billion has been spent on stadia to house the 2002 World Cup finals. Will Japan benefit from these new venues after the finals? Soon, and in the wake of the challenges posed by ever-more-sophisticated TV coverage, top football stadia are likely to offer higher paying fans individual video consoles, as already happens in the USA. But will it still be possible, then, to generate the conditions of a sports crowd rather than a sports audience in the new stadia of the future?
12.3 The future for the game as outlined by documents like the Taylor Report and the Home Affairs Committee Report, however, will involve more than simply an improvement and extension of facilities. The need for co-operation between all those involved in our national sport is becoming more apparent. According to this agenda, all interested parties - including clubs, fans, police, local authorities and the football Establishment - will have to work effectively together if real progress is to be made. Balancing up the 'business' functions of the new football venues with the requirement that football grounds remain best designed to generate the sort of 'atmosphere' which is strongly associated with traditional British football venues.
Bale, J. (1991) 'Home and away', in Williams, J. and Wagg, S. British Football and Social Change, Leicester University Press
Bale, J. (1993) Sport, Place and the City, Routledge
Bale, J. (1994) Sporting Landscapes, University of Leicester Press
Canter, D. et al (1990) Football in its Place, Routledge, London
Duke, V. (1994) 'Football and the supermarket imperative' in Giulianotti, R. and Williams, J. Game without Frontiers, Avebury Press, Aldershot
Euchner, C. (1993) Playing the field: Why Sports Teams Move and Cities Fight to Keep Them, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore
Frosdick, S. (1996) 'Venues of extremes' in Int. Magazine of Arena construction and Management, Winter, pp26-30
Greenfield, S. and Osborn, G. (1996) 'After the Act; the reconstruction and regulation of football fandom', Centre for Study of Law, Society and Popular Culture, School of Law, University of Westminster.
Home Affairs Select Committee (1991) 'Policing Football Hooliganism', London HMSO.
Inglis, S. (1987) Football Grounds of England and Wales. Collins Willow, London
Inglis, S (1990) Football Grounds of Europe Collins Willow, London
Mason, C. (1993) 'The effect of relocation on the externality fields of football stadia: the case of St.Johnstone' in Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol 109, No. 2 pp.96-105
Mason, C. and Robins, R. (1991) 'The spatial externality fields of football stadiums: the effects of football and non-football uses of Kenilworth Road, Luton' Applied Geography, 11, 251-66.
Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research (1989) 'Football and football spectators after Hillsborough: A national survey of members of the Football Supporters Association', SNCCFR, University of Leicester
Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research (1996, 1997) 'FA Premier League national fan survey', University of Leicester/FA Premier League
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Taylor (1989)'The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 15 April 1989: Interim Report' London HMSO.(1989)
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Taylor (1990) 'The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 15 April 1989: Final Report' London HMSO.
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Stewart-Smith (1998) 'Scrutiny of Evidence Relating to the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster', HMSO, London.
Williams, J. (with Neatrour, S.) (2001) A National Survey on the New National Stadium, SNCCFR, University of Leicester
Williams, J. (1994) 'English football stadia after Hillsborough', in J. Bale and O. Moen (eds) The Stadium and the City
Williams, J. (1996) 'Sir John Hall, Newcastle United and the 'new Geordie nation', in S. Gehrmann (ed) Football and Regional Identity
Williams, J., Dunning E., Murphy, P. (1984) 'All seated football grounds and hooliganism: The Coventry City Experience'. Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research.
Williams, J. and Giulianotti, R. (1994) 'Stillborn in the USA?' in Giulianotti, R. and Williams, J. Game without Frontiers, Avebury Press, Aldershot
Woodhouse, J. (1991) 'A national survey of female football fans'. Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, University of Leicester.
The failure to close or block the tunnel leading into the already full pens three and four once the police had ordered Gate C to be opened was the immediate cause of the disaster, but the public inquiries set up by the Thatcher Government under Lord Justice Peter Taylor found, more generally, that football had simply not learned anything from the numerous disasters in its past, that it and the police were so obsessed with the threat of violence that they were unable to spot people in genuine danger of their lives, that police fundamentally lost control of the situation, and did not demonstrate the leadership expected of senior officers, that safety procedures were inadequate, that the ground was badly maintained and dangerous, that fans were routinely treated with contempt by football, and that fans had been the victims rather the guilty party. His reports, published in August 1989 and January 1990, dismissed the allegations against Liverpool supporters for the disaster, and called instead for a total rethink in the industry's attitudes towards fans, and on the issue of safety. It also highlighted the failures by local authorities to check safety certificates for stadia (Sheffield Wednesday had redeveloped parts of the ground without obtaining a new safety certificate, or telling the emergency services: the result was that the safety certificate was outdated and useless, and that plans Sheffield Wednesday had developed with the local emergency services could not be put into practice, as the layout of the ground had changed).
Specifically, Taylor recommended the closure of terraces at all grounds, new safety measures on exits and entrances, and a new advisory committee on stadium design to ensure that best practice was followed. Crucially, Taylor also recommended that the Government's Identity Card scheme (whereby all fans would have to have a membership card to get into a ground) be dropped, on grounds of safety, a suggestion that the Government reluctantly carried out. Taylor's report did not have the force of law, and not all his recommendations were carried out, but his work in identifying the wider reasons for the disaster has been acknowledged as one of the most significant turning points in the history of English football. The result was the total transformation of British stadia, paid for in large part by tax-payers' money, with terraces at grounds in the top two divisions closed by May 1994, and new safety regulations and regimes put in place at every stadium.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE 1989?
The controversy over the disaster has not subsided: Thatcher's Press Secretary, Bernard Ingham, has frequently repeated the allegations made by the 'Sun', as did Brian Clough (Nottingham Forest manager on the day of the disaster) some five years later; a boycott of the 'Sun' on Merseyside (that still goes on to this day) has cost its parent company News International tens of millions of pounds in lost revenue; new Government enquiries were ordered to see if there was a case for criminal prosecutions (undertaken by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith); television documentaries and academics have alleged a systematic police cover-up (written evidence from junior officers to the Taylor enquiry was altered by superiors, for instance); and until 1999, Sheffield Wednesday refused to erect a memorial at the ground to the victims (leading to Liverpool fans boycotting Hillsborough in season 1998-99). Finally, in 2000, families of the victims brought a private, civil prosecution against Duckinfield and his deputy Bernard Murray, for manslaughter. Murray was acquitted, but the jury were unable to reach a verdict in the case of Duckinfield, and the judge prevented a re-trial. Nonetheless, the two Hillsborough groups (the Hillsborough Family Support Group, and the Justice for Hillsborough campaign) remain determined to pursue the truth of what happened that day. Over a decade later, Hillsborough remains a highly controversial issue, with its effects most obvious at every stadium in the country.
FURTHER READING
• Lord Justice Stuart-Smith (1998) Scrutiny of evidence relating to the Hillsborugh stadium disaster, HMSO, CMND 3878
• Lord Justice Taylor (1989) Interim Report into the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, HMSO, CMND 765
• Lord Justice Taylor (1990) Final Report into the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, HMSO
• Scraton P (1999) Hillsborough: the truth, Mainstream, Edinburgh
• Scraton P et al (1990) Hillsborough and after: the Liverpool experience, Liverpool
• Scraton P, Jemphrey A and Coleman S (1995) No Last Rights, Alden Press
• Taylor R et al (1993) The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster, Liverpool UP
• Also see the Hillsborough Disaster Attitudes Survey, conducted by the FIG. Contact: Dr Rogan Taylor, Football Industry Group, University of Liverpool
RESULT 4 (ID=11):
http://www.liv.ac.uk/footballindustry/attitude.html
University of Liverpool
Hillsborough Attitudes Survey Report
1998-04-01
Hillsborough Attitudes Survey Report
Conducted for Radio City, Liverpool, and Radio Hallam, Sheffield Rex Nash and Sam Johnstone, Football Industry Group
University of Liverpool, April 1998
The following is a summary of the research report presented by the FIG to Radio City and Radio Hallam, based on a survey of 1,350 members of the public, addressing their attitudes towards the Hillsborough Disaster. Respondents were not necessarily football fans.
The research formed a major part of the radio stations' news coverage of the ninth anniversary of the Disaster, in April 1998.
Area
Of those surveyed, 59% of people in Sheffield blame Liverpool fans for the disaster, whilst in Liverpool, 89% blame South Yorkshire Police (SYP). In both areas, the vast majority have never changed their view of the disaster (81% in Sheffield and 93% in Liverpool). 97% of those who blame Liverpool fans have never changed their view, nor have 85% of those who blame SYP. Regional trends are also clear over the Home Secretary's decision not to reopen the inquiry into Hillsborough - 59% of Sheffield respondents agree with Jack Straw, while 88% of Liverpool respondents disagree. 60% in Sheffield agree it was time to move on from the disaster, but 79% in Liverpool disagree; 70% in Sheffield feel an apology is enough for people to move on from the disaster, but 88% in Liverpool think it insufficient.
Blame
92% of those who blame SYP also think Jack Straw is wrong not to re-open the inquiry, but 92% of those who blame Liverpool fans support him. 87% of those who blame SYP think Hillsborough should remain a political issue, while 94% of those who blame Liverpool fans, think the matter should be closed. Similarly, 86% of those who blame SYP think it is not time to move on, while 95% of those who blame Liverpool fans think it is. Of those who blame SYP, 86% consider an apology insufficient, but 92% of those blaming Liverpool fans disagree. 85% of people whose views have changed to blaming SYP cite McGovern'sdocumentary as the turning point. His impact is not uniform: he has had very little influence on Liverpool fans (only 1.5%) and Evertonians (4%), a marginal impact on people who support no club (9%) and SWFC fans (11%), but more on SUFC (17%), all other fans (17%) and other Yorkshire and Derbyshire fans (25%).
Jimmy McGovern's documentary, broadcast by Granada, December 1996
McGovern clearly influenced most those not directly affected by the disaster. Importantly 86% of those influenced by McGovern feel Hillsborough should still be an active issue, 85% blame SYP, and 88% feel it is not time to move on. Of those who have changed their view (11% of the total sample), 83% cite McGovern as the reason.
Club Affiliation
97% of LFC fans, 93% of Evertonians, 41% of Yorkshire and Derbyshire fans and74% of all others blame SYP, whereas 61% of Blades and 78% of Sheffield Wednesday (SWFC) fans blame Liverpool fans, suggesting regional and club loyalty. Similar divisions were found elsewhere: 58% of Blades and 81% of SWFC fans agree it is time to move on, while 92% of LFC fans, 79% of Evertonians, 47% of Yorkshire and Derbyshire fans, and 65% of all other fans disagree. Equally 93% of LFC fans oppose Straw's decision, as do 93% of Evertonians, 52% of Yorkshire and Derbyshire fans, 74% of all fans and even 43% of Blades, but only 22% of SWFC fans.
Of those who do not support any club, opinion is heavily divided: 52% blame SYP and 24% Liverpool fans, 58% oppose Jack Straw's decision, 51% feel it should remain an active issue, and 52% think it is time to move on.
Essentially, as you get further away from SWFC, people attach more blame to SYP. SWFC fans are the most vociferous in blaming Liverpool supporters, followed by SUFC, other Yorkshire and Derbyshire, all other clubs, and then Merseyside. This suggests regional and club loyalty play asignificant role, along with the local media. As you move further away from Sheffield-based media (which regularly carry interviews with SYP officers, along with articles by those who support them), so people become more hostile towards SYP, and there is more sympathy for the campaign.
(c) Football Industry Group, University of Liverpool Last modified on 8th October 1999
RESULT 5 (ID=15):
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/nov/death-on-the-terraces.pdf
Statewatch
Death on the Terraces: The Contexts and Injustices of the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster
2004-07-01
Phil Scraton
Death on the Terraces: The Contexts and Injustices of the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster
The crush came … it wasn't a surge. It was like a vice getting tighter and tighter and tighter. I turned Adam 'round to me. He was obviously in distress. There was a police officer, about five or six feet away and I started begging him to open the gate. I was screaming. Adam had fainted and my words were 'My lovely son is dying' and begging him to help me and he didn't do anything. I grabbed hold of Adam's lapels and tried to lift him over the fence. It was ten feet or thereabouts with spikes coming in. I couldn't lift him. So I started punching the fence in the hope I could punch it down. Right at the beginning when I was begging the officer to open the gate, if he'd opened it I know I could've got Adam out. I know that because I was there.
This is Eddie Spearritt's testimony to the last moments of his son's life. Adam, eventually evacuated from the Hillsborough terraces, was pronounced dead at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield at approximately 4.45 p.m. on 15 April 1989. He was one of 96 men, women and children who died as a result of injuries sustained on the terraces or, as became increasingly clear, because the police response to the impending disaster and the medical response that followed were inadequate. Of the 96 who died only 14 were taken to hospital. The rest were pronounced dead at the ground and, in body bags, were laid out on the floor of the Hillsborough gymnasium. Pat Nicol, whose ten-year-old son, Lee, was killed, spoke for many when she said, 'You don't expect to go to a football match and
die'.
Eddie Spearritt came close to death. Having struggled in vain to save Adam he lost consciousness and collapsed under foot in the crush of pen 4. This was some time around 3 p.m., six minutes before the FA Cup Semi-Final between Liver-pool and Nottingham Forest was stopped, and 20 minutes before the dead and dying in central pens 3 and 4 were dragged through two narrow gates across the perimeter track and onto the pitch. Two hours are missing from Eddie's life. The first medical record of him at the hospital is his admission to intensive care at?5 p.m. Following the chaos of the pens' evacuation, and given the paucity of immediate necessary medical treatment and facilities, it is clear that an unknow-able number of those who died could have been saved. Eddie has no knowledge of his whereabouts between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. It appears he had been presumed dead, as were others who also recovered. He agonizes over Adam's death and whether he too might have been saved. As the disaster was happening, in full view of the police control box high above the Leppings Lane terrace, a further tragedy was set in motion. The South York-shire Police match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, informed Graham Kelly, then Chief Executive of the Football Association, that Liverpool supporters had forced entry through an exit gate causing an 'inrush' onto the already packed terraces. Within minutes this version of events was broad-cast worldwide. Jacques Georges, then President of FIFA, railed against 'people's frenzy to enter the stadium come what may, whatever the risk to the lives of others'. They 'were beasts waiting to charge into the arena'.
Thus, Liverpool fans were responsible for the deaths of 'their own'. The lens of hooliganism was firmly in place. This was also the version relayed by the police to the South Yorkshire Coro-ner, Dr Stefan Popper en route to the stadium. He instructed the taking and recording of blood alcohol levels of all who died, including children. This was unprecedented. As the pathologists' reports would establish the medical cause of death it was clear that the Coroner considered alcohol to be a significant factor in the disaster. Within hours, bereaved families queued outside the gymnasium to identify their loved ones. The presentation of bodies in body bags, and the casual treatment of the bereaved, combined insensitivity with callousness. Grief-stricken relatives were 'interrogated' regarding the drinking habits and 'criminal' records of their loved ones. The next day the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Sheffield accompanied by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. She was briefed that there 'would have been no Hillsborough if a mob, who were clearly tanked up, had not tried to force their way into the ground'.
Two days later the Sheffield Star (18 April 1989) published the first serious police allegations as facts concerning Liverpool supporters not only causing the disaster, but also attacking rescue workers and stealing from the dead. Its headline was: 'Drunken Attacks on Police: Ticketless Thugs Staged Crush to Gain Entry'. This included an allegation that 'yobs' had 'urinated on policemen as they gave the kiss of life to stricken victims'. Local politicians and Police Federation represen-tatives, without any substantiating evidence, reiterated the allegations, and on 19 April the Sun cleared its front page. It pronounced: 'The Truth: Some Fans Picked Pockets of Victims; Some Fans Urinated on the Brave Cops; Some Fans Beat Up PC Giving Kiss of Life'. A further eight newspapers carried the allega-tions including 'sex jibes over a girl's corpse' (Sheffield Star 19 April 1989). It later transpired that the Sun editor, Kelvin Mackenzie, had considered running the headline 'You Scum'.
As the Home Office Inquiry under Lord Justice Taylor?commenced, Duckenfield's instant reaction to blame the fans, thereby exonerating the police, had established a broad and seemingly legitimate constituency. Not only did it determine the course of events in the immediate aftermath, but it set a wider media and political agenda.
THE HILLSBOROUGH STADIUM
One of the greatest problems we have is access to the ground, particularly at the Leppings Lane end. The redesigned turn stiles [sic] do not give anything like the access to the ground, either on the Leppings Lane terraces or in the West Stand, needed by away fans. On occasions last season when large numbers attended, we had away supporters who were justifyably [sic] irate because of the inefficiency of the system, which was turned on the police and could have resulted in public disorder.
The Hillsborough Football Stadium opened in 1899 and, like so many other football stadia, had been modified to meet the requirements of the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act, and, subsequently, revisions to the 1976 Home Office Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds, brought about by the Popplewell inquiry into the deaths at Bradford, Birmingham and Heysel.
Hillsborough was considered by the football authorities to be one of England's best grounds. While parts of the stadium had been upgraded, the essential fabric of the Leppings Lane terrace was unchanged. Previous lessons regarding crowd safety had been ignored and the modifications to the terrace prioritized crowd control and segregation. Following serious crushing in 1981, resulting in injuries to 38 fans, the Leppings Lane terrace was divided by lateral fences into three sepa-rate enclosures or pens, thus preventing movement along the terrace. Tragedy had been narrowly avoided by opening the gates in the trackside perimeter fencing. In 1985 the police requested further lateral fences and the terrace was divided into five pens. Both central pens, directly behind the goal, were fed by a 1 in 6 gradient tunnel beneath the West Stand, built in 1965 in preparation for the 1966 World Cup. Emerging from the tunnel, fans walked to the right or left of a fence into pens 3 or 4 respectively. A high, overhanging fence mounted on a wall separated the terraces from the perimeter track. There was restricted access into each pen through a narrow, locked gate. The crush barriers were reviewed in 1979 leaving a mixture of relatively new and old. Modifications made in 1985 and 1986 resulted in different barrier distribution in each pen. In pen 3, for example, a diagonal gap stretched from the front barrier to the back of the terrace. A crush down this chan-nel would clearly place the front barrier under considerable pressure. The West Stand seated 4,500 spectators. The uncovered Leppings Lane terrace held 10,100. Entry into the North Stand was also from the Leppings Lane turnstiles. Thus 24,256 fans converged on 23 turnstiles located in a small, divided?outer concourse. The 10,100 fans with tickets for the Leppings Lane terrace walked through outer gates onto the concourse to queue at seven turnstiles. The remaining 14,156 ticket-holders for North and West Stands accessed 16 turnstiles through the adjoining concourse. In the hour before kick-off this tightly confined area, a shop wall to the left and a fence above the River Don to the right, had to cope with 25,000 people unfamiliar with the layout of the stadium. The outmoded turnstiles regularly malfunctioned. Although an electronic counting system recorded the numbers accessing the terrace there was no way of knowing the distribution between the pens. The two central pens, with capacities of 1,000 and 1,100, were always the first to fill. The doors at the head of the tunnel feeding the central pens could be closed once it was estimated that the pens' capacities had been reached. It was a calculation based on observation rather than actual numbers entering.
It flew in the face of the Moelwyn Hughes' Inquiry's recommendations after the Burnden Park disaster of 1946 that all terrace enclosures should be accurately monitored. Moelwyn Hughes 'feared that the disaster at Bolton might easily be repeated at 20 to 30 grounds'. He concluded: 'How simple and how easy it is for a dangerous situation to arise in a crowded enclosure. It happens again and again without fatal or even injurious consequences.' All that was necessary was the occurrence of one or two additional factors and that inherent 'danger' would be transformed into 'death and injuries'.
15 APRIL 1989
It was a beautiful spring morning as Liverpool fans embarked on their trip across the Pennines to Sheffield. The last thing on anyone's mind was danger. For the second time in successive years their team had drawn Nottingham Forest in the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Hillsborough was hired by the Football Association as a neutral venue and policing and crowd control arrangements were virtually iden-tical. Liverpool fans were allocated the West Stand, the Leppings Lane terrace and the North Stand. It was an all-ticket match and the only instruction on the tickets was that spectators were expected to be inside the stadium 15 minutes before kick-off. Fans travelled by train, coaches, transits and cars. Coaches and transits were stopped en route and searched by police. Arriving in Sheffield, all were directed to designated car parks, searched and briefed by South Yorkshire Police officers. Those arriving by train were escorted to the stadium. Delays on the journey meant that thousands of Liverpool fans arrived in Sheffield in the hour before the 3 p.m. kick-off.
At 2.30 p.m. a police officer noticed coaches 'arriving one after another'. Ten minutes later fans were disembarking coaches 'about a quarter of a mile away' and a 'large number of Liverpool supporters were trying to park'. With train escorts arriving just before 2.30 p.m., coaches backed up along main roads and cars attempting to park, it was clear that the steady stream of supporters arriving at the?Leppings Lane turnstiles prior to 2.15 p.m. would become a torrent. And so it happened. Lack of stewarding and the absence of filtering along Leppings Lane contributed significantly to the sudden and intense build-up in the narrow outer concourse area. Any semblance of queuing evaporated as the bottleneck, the concern raised by the 1986 internal police memorandum, began to take its toll. The simple equation was that more people were arriving at the rear of the enclosed concourse than were passing through the turnstiles at the front. A serious crush ensued. Even mounted police became trapped in the crowd and fans struggled to breathe. The senior officer outside decided that the 'only practical way to prevent deaths outside would be to open the [exit] gates' thereby allowing people into the stadium and relieving the crush. He 'radioed ground control [the police control box inside] and asked for the gates to be opened. There was no acknowledgement'. Thinking his radio was defective he used another and 'repeated my request'. Again, 'there was no acknowledgement'.
Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield assumed responsibility for policing Hillsborough Stadium just 21 days before the semi-final. He and his assistant, Superintendent Bernard Murray, watched the congestion build at the turnstiles on CCTV monitors. It was tense in the control box as the request to open the exit gates came through. Duckenfield, a match commander with virtually no experi-ence of policing football in a stadium with which he was unfamiliar, faced a massive dilemma. He thought: 'A man who I have known for many years, a man who I respect and admire, was demanding of me something I would not normally give … [he] was telling me that unless I opened the gates there would be serious injury and possibly death.' He was 'all consumed'. Murray broke the long silence: 'Mr Duckenfield, are you going to open the gate?' After further hesitation, and as if thinking aloud, Duckenfield responded: 'If there's likely to be death or serious injury outside I have no option than to open the gates.' He instructed Murray to open the gates.
Despite being located in a control box directly above the Leppings Lane terrace, they did not consider that the crowd distribution in the pens might be a problem. Yet photographs taken moments before show both central pens were packed while the side pens were sparsely populated. The clear and obvious danger was that in relieving the life-threatening crush at the turnstiles a worse situation would develop on the terraces. Murray's mind-set is evident from an earlier inter-change with a chief inspector who had inquired whether the terrace should be filled one pen at a time. Murray's reply was that all pens should be open from the outset and fans could be left to 'find their own level'.
When gate 'C' opened there was instant relief around the outer concourse. Fans, including Eddie and Adam Spearritt, who had stood back from the crush walked through unstewarded and without police direction. Directly opposite was the 1 in 6 gradient tunnel beneath the West Stand, signposted 'STANDING'. It led into the packed central pens. Neither police nor stewards thought to close the tunnel and redirect incoming fans to the side pens. Over 2,000 fans walked down?and compression was immediate. Faces were jammed against the perimeter fence, people fell and in pen 3 a barrier, near the bottom of the diagonal channel, collapsed bringing down a tangled mass of bodies. As the match kicked-off the thunderous roar of the crowd drowned out the screams of the dying. The police failed to respond and forced those trying to escape the crush back into the pens. Officers on the perimeter track were under explicit orders not to open the narrow perimeter gates without authorization of a senior officer. The failure to close off the tunnel before opening Gate C was compounded by the failure to respond immediately and effectively to the disaster unfolding on the terraces. Once the two narrow perimeter track gates were opened the full horror began to dawn. Over 500 people were dead, dying or injured. Restricted access prevented effective and speedy evacuation of the pens. The match was abandoned at 3.06pm and fans and some police officers tried to resuscitate those who had lost consciousness. As these distressing scenes were taking place, Duckenfield told the Assistant Chief Constable that it was a 'pitch invasion'. He radioed for reinforce-ments including dog handlers. Minutes later he lied to the FA officials, not mentioning that he had directed his officers to open the exit gates. In giving evidence to the Taylor Inquiry, Duckenfield stated: 'The blunt truth [was] that we had been asked to open a gate. I was not being deceitful … I just thought at that stage that I should not communicate fully the situation … I may have misled Mr Kelly.'
He did. And, unwittingly, Kelly reiterated the lie to the awaiting media. As the disaster happened the fans were blamed. FROM OFFICIAL INQUIRY TO JUDICIAL SCRUTINY In the immediate aftermath the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, appointed Lord Justice Taylor to conduct an Inquiry 'into the events at Sheffield Wednesday Football Ground on 15 April 1989 and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events'.
Hurd appointed the West Midlands police to assist in the Inquiry. The Force also conducted the criminal investigation and serviced the inquests as 'coroner's officers'. Apart from oral evidence to the public hearings, the Inquiry team processed 2,666 telephone calls, 3,776 state-ments and 1,550 letters. Taylor produced an Interim Report within four months concluding that the 'main cause' of the disaster was 'overcrowding' and the 'main reason' was a 'failure of police control'. He also criticized Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, their safety engineers and the local authority which had failed to issue an up-to-date licence for the stadium. But he directed his most damning conclusions towards South Yorkshire police. Taylor condemned senior officers as 'defensive and evasive', considering 'neither their handling of problems on the day nor their account of it in evidence showed the qualities of leadership to be expected of their rank'. It was 'a matter of regret that at the hearing, and in their submissions, South Yorkshire Police were not prepared to concede that they were in any respect at fault for what had?occurred'.
Duckenfield's 'capacity to take decisions and give orders seemed to collapse'. He had failed to give 'necessary consequential orders' after he had sanc-tioned the opening of the gates and he failed 'to exert any control' once the disaster was in train. Worse still, he lied; his 'lack of candour' triggering around the world 'a widely reported allegation' against fans.
The severity of Taylor's criticisms, alongside his exoneration of the fans' behaviour, took many commentators by surprise. In December 1989 the South Yorkshire police accepted civil liability in negligence and paid damages to the bereaved. Subsequently, in a House of Lords judgment, Lord Keith concluded that the Chief Constable had 'admitted liability in negligence in respect of the deaths and physical injuries'.
In a later Divisional Court judgment Lord Justice McCowan stated that the force 'had admitted fault and paid compensation'.
These words were reiterated in the House of Commons by the AttorneyGeneral.
In March 1990, following consultation with the Director of Public Prosecu-tions (DPP), the Coroner resumed the adjourned inquests on a 'limited basis' ahead of the decisions regarding criminal prosecution or disciplinary action. He held unprecedented 'preliminary hearings' for each of the deceased dealing only with the medical evidence, blood alcohol levels, the location of bodies prior to death and the identification. There was no discussion of 'how' the person died. The often sparse and inconsistent evidence in each case was summarized and presented to the hearing by a designated West Midlands police officer. Witness statements on which summaries were based were not disclosed and no cross-examination was allowed. What the jury heard was a mixture of interpretation, selection and conjecture presented, unchallenged, as fact. Unable to access primary statements and cross-examine the evidence, bereaved families were left with numerous unanswered questions, disqualified as being outside the agreed parameters of the preliminary hearings.
Four months later the DPP decided there was 'no evidence to justify any crim-inal proceedings' against any organization involved and 'insufficient evidence to justify proceedings against any officer of the South Yorkshire Police or any other person for any offence'.
The Coroner resumed the inquests in generic form. They ran from 19 November 1990 to 28 March 1991. Two hundred and thirty witnesses were called and 12 interested parties (six of whom were police interests) were represented. One barrister represented 43 families. Despite the cost and length of the inquests and the number of witnesses called, disclosure of evidence was limited. Once again, police witnesses emphasized the very issues discounted by Taylor: fans' drunkenness, hooliganism, violence and conspiracy to enter the ground without tickets. In summing up, the Coroner steered the jury away from returning a verdict of unlawful killing. He told them that an accidental death verdict could 'straddle the whole spectrum of events' including 'a situation where you are … satisfied there has been carelessness, negligence … and that someone would have to make compensation payments in civil litigation'.
Accidental death would not mean absolution 'from all and every measure of blame'. There could?have been mistakes made and 'very serious errors' but being 'incompetent is not the same as saying that a person is being reckless'.
After two days of deliberation the jury returned a majority verdict of accidental death. Despite the Police Complaints Authority's determination to bring disciplinary proceedings against the match commander and his assistant for 'neglect of duty', Duckenfield left the police on ill-health grounds and the case against Murray was withdrawn. Six families took test cases to the Divisional Court aiming to quash the inquests' verdicts on the grounds of irregularity of proceedings, insufficiency of inquiry and the emergence of new evidence. The Court ruled in favour of the Coroner, finding that the inquests had been properly conducted, evidence had not been suppressed and his direction of the jury had been 'impeccable'. In June 1997, following publication of No Last Rights
and the screening of Jimmy McGovern's award-winning drama documentary Hillsborough (ITV, December 1996), Jack Straw, the recently-elected Labour Government's Home Secretary, announced an independent judicial scrutiny 'to get to the bottom of this once and for all'.
The Scrutiny, without precedent and conducted by former MI6 Commissioner Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, would review evidence not available to previous inquiries or investigations. 'New' evidence had to be of such significance that it would have resulted in prosecutions or changed the outcomes of the Taylor Inquiry or the inquests. Stuart-Smith visited the South Yorkshire police and took evidence from 18 bereaved families, submissions from the Hillsborough Family Support Group and other concerned parties. In February 1998 he presented his report to the Home Secretary who greeted it as 'thorough', 'comprehensive', 'dispassionate', 'objective' and 'impartial'. Stuart-Smith's conclusion was that neither the Taylor Inquiry nor the inquest had been flawed and the so-called 'new' evidence did not add 'anything significant' to what was already known.
The Home Secretary ignored serious allegations made to Stuart-Smith by the author and a former South Yorkshire police officer. They revealed that in the immediate aftermath police officers were instructed not to record events in their pocket books but to submit hand-written 'recollections' of events. Unusually, they were encouraged to include emotions, comment and opinion as they were solely for the information of legal advisors, were 'privileged' and, therefore, not subject to disclosure. The 'recollections' were gathered by senior officers, submitted to the force solicitors and returned to the Head of the South Yorkshire Police Management Services as part of a systematic process of 'review and alteration'.
A review team of senior officers, appointed by the Chief Constable, then transformed the 'recollections' into formal statements and had them signed by individual officers. It amounted to an institutionalized process clearly intended to remove all criticism of senior officers and operational policy while emphasizing misbehaviour by fans. Over 400 'recollections' were processed. In a confidential transcript of a meeting between Stuart-Smith and the former Head of Management Services, the latter stated that 'the police had their backs to the wall' and it was 'absolutely?natural for them to concern themselves with defending themselves'.
A former
police officer, interviewed by the author, gave oral evidence to Stuart-Smith. He stated that 'a certain chief superintendent' took him and his colleagues for a drink. They were told, 'unless we all get our heads together and straighten it out there are heads going to roll'.
None of this impressed Stuart-Smith. He concluded that in a few cases 'it would have been better' not to have made alter-ations. At worst it constituted an 'error of judgement' but not 'unprofessional conduct'.
There would have been serious implications in finding otherwise. It transpired the West Midlands police investigators, the Treasury solicitor, the Coroner and Lord Justice Taylor were aware that the statements were written initially as personal recollections, under the guarantee of non-disclosure, and then transformed into criminal justice act statements through a carefully managed process of review and alteration. Despite Taylor's unequivocal condemnation of senior police officers, he condoned their privileged access to the investigations and inquiries and the recon-stitution and registration of the 'truth' to best advantage the interests of the force. His silence on the process of review and alteration compromised his Inquiry.
Yet lack of disclosure of evidence, alongside ignorance of the process through which police statements were taken, severely hindered and disadvantaged bereaved fami-lies and their lawyers. The DPP's decision not to prosecute on the grounds of insufficiency of evidence gave no indication of the quality of evidence in his possession. At the inquests the use and selective presentation of evidence by West Midlands police officers prevented disclosure of the original statements and their cross-examination. The South Yorkshire police held all the evidence and used it to establish and sustain their defence.
A CASE TO ANSWER
In August 1998 the Hillsborough Family Support Group initiated a private pros-ecution against David Duckenfield and Bernard Murray. It was the culmination of a decade's campaigning to establish criminal liability and to access key docu-ments, witness statements and personal 'body files' on each of the deceased compiled by the police investigators. On 16 February 2000 Mr Justice Hooper committed the officers for trial. They were charged with manslaughter and misconduct in a public office. Duckenfield was also charged with misconduct 'arising from an admitted lie told by him to the effect that the [exit] gates had been forced open by Liverpool fans'. The judge summarized the cases for the prosecution and defence as follows:
It is the prosecution's case that the two defendants are guilty of manslaugh-ter because they failed to prevent a crush in pens 3 and 4 of the West Terraces [Leppings Lane] 'by failing between 2.40 and 3.06 p.m. to procure the diversion of spectators entering the ground from the entrance to the pen'?… that police officers should have been stationed in front of the tunnel lead-ing to the pen to prevent access. It appears, at this stage, to be the defence case that neither of the officers, in the situation in which they found them-selves, thought about closing off the tunnel or foresaw the risk of serious injury in the pen if they did not do so. The prosecution submit that they ought to have done. This is likely to be the most important issue in the case.
The judge noted the bereaved had been left with 'an enduring grief' and 'a deep seated and obviously genuine grievance that those thought responsible' had not been prosecuted nor 'even disciplined'. Yet both defendants, 'must be suffer-ing a considerable amount of strain'. The 'greatest worry' for a police officer was 'the thought of going to prison' where they would run the risk of 'serious injury if not death'. While committing them for trial he took a 'highly unusual course' to 'reduce to a significant extent the anguish being suffered'.
He assured them that if found guilty of manslaughter they would not face a prison sentence. It was an extraordinary decision. Again, it appeared that police officers were receiving special treatment. The bereaved families and their lawyers were stunned but noth-ing could be voiced, published or disclosed until after the trial. The trial opened on 6 June 2000 at Leeds Crown Court and ran for seven weeks. A sombre mood prevailed. The prosecution's case was 'described simply'. People died because they could not breathe and the crush was due to overcrowding 'caused by the criminal negligence of the two defendants … They had been grossly negligent, wilfully neglecting to ensure the safety of supporters'. Their negligence was not the sole cause of the disaster. The ground was 'old, shabby, badly arranged, with confusing and unhelpful sign-posting … there were not enough turnstiles'. There existed a 'police culture … which influenced the way in which matches were policed'. Yet, the 'primary and immediate cause of death' lay with the defendants' failures. Each defendant 'owed the deceased a duty of care … his negligent actions or omissions were a substantial cause of death' and the 'negli-gence was of such gravity as to amount to a crime'. For the first time the essence of the case had been articulated in full, in public and without interruption. A bereaved mother commented: 'Whatever happens now I have the satisfaction of seeing those men brought to court because it has been decided that there is a case to answer.'
Duckenfield did not give evidence but considerable time was devoted to detail-ing his evidence to the Taylor Inquiry. The judge called Duckenfield's predeces-sor, former Chief Superintendent Mole, as he had drafted the police operational order. The judge introduced him as a crowd safety 'expert'. Murray also gave evidence, stating he had been 'haunted by the memory' of Hillsborough. Closing off the tunnel was 'something that did not occur to me at the time and I only wish it had'. While not recognizing how packed the central pens had become, he denied he had been 'indifferent to the scenes … I did not see anything occurring on the terrace which gave me any anxiety'.
The judge presented the jury with four questions. First, 'Are you sure, that by having regard to all the circumstances, it was foreseeable by a reasonable match commander that allowing a large number of spectators to enter the stadium through exit gate C without closing the tunnel would create an obvious and serious risk of death to the spectators in pens 3 and 4?' If 'yes' they were to move to ques-tion 2, if 'no' the verdicts should be 'not guilty'. Second, could a 'reasonable match commander' have taken 'effective steps … to close off the tunnel' thus preventing the deaths? If 'yes', they were to move to question 3, if 'no' the verdicts should be 'not guilty'. Third, was the jury 'sure that the failure to take such steps was neglect?' If 'yes', it was on to question 4, if 'no' the verdicts should be not guilty. Finally, was the 'failure to take those steps … so bad in all the circumstances as to amount to a very serious criminal offence?' If 'yes', the verdicts should be 'guilty'; if 'no' they should be 'not guilty'.
Each question had to be contextualized 'in all the circumstances' in which the defendants had acted. Centrally, did the circumstances of chaos and confusion impede or mitigate the senior officers' decisions? On opening Gate C, was an obvi-ous and serious risk of death in the central pens 'foreseeable' by a 'reasonable match commander?' Not someone of exceptional experience and vision, but an 'ordinary' or 'average' match commander. Even if gross negligence could be estab-lished, question four demanded that it had to be so bad in the circumstances that it constituted a serious criminal offence. For, while gross negligence might result in death, it does not necessarily amount to a serious criminal act.
The prosecution argued that the police 'mind-set' of 'hooliganism' at the expense of crowd safety amounted to 'a failure' best illustrated 'in the word neglect'. It was not a failure caused by the urgency of a 'split-second decision' but 'a case of slow-motion negligence'. The prosecution had presented witness evidence that drew a 'clear, cogent, overwhelming picture from all four corners of the ground': the pens were already dangerously overfull when Duckenfield ordered the opening of the exit gate. If all the witnesses could recognize this fact then Duckenfield and Murray, in the control box, could not miss it. Not only could Duckenfield and Murray see the 'dangerously full pens' but they had adequate 'thinking time' to seal the tunnel and redirect the fans. Their failure amounted to negligence. Not postponing the kick-off 'intensified the responsibil-ities of those who had taken the decision to get it right'. It was a serious criminal offence because 'thousands of people' had been affected by the breach of trust in the officers.
Duckenfield's counsel replied that the events were 'unprecedented, unforesee-able and unique'. Rather than offering hooliganism as the cause of the crush he maintained that a 'unique, unforeseeable, physical phenomenon', without prece-dent in the stadium's history, occurred in the tunnel. It projected people forward with such ferocity that it killed people on the terraces. His explanation was that a small minority of over-eager and enthusiastic fans who had caused crushing at the turnstiles perhaps was responsible for the explosion of unprecedented force in the?tunnel. It was a far-fetched explanation aimed at producing a hidden cause that could not have been anticipated and could not be verified.
Murray's counsel argued that what happened was not 'slow-motion negli-gence', as described by the prosecution, but 'a disaster that struck out of the blue'. The deaths could not have been foreseen and no reasonably competent senior officer could have anticipated the sequence of events. While the overall police operation might have 'had many deficiencies' Duckenfield and Murray should not be singled out to 'carry the can'. The terraces had been authorized as safe, the fans 'finding their own level' was taken for granted. It was 'Mole's policy, Mole's custom and practice'. A conviction would make Murray a 'scapegoat'.
In his summary the judge emphasized that the case had to be assessed 'by the standards of 1989' when 'caged pens were accepted' and 'had the full approval of all the authorities as a response to hooliganism'. The defendants had to be regarded as 'reasonable professionals', meaning 'an ordinary competent person', not a 'Paragon or a prophet'. When the exit gates were opened, 'death was not in the reckoning of those officers'. They were responding to a 'life and death situa-tion' at the turnstiles and the jury had to 'take into account that this was a crisis'. The jury should 'be slow to find fault with those who act in an emergency', a situ-ation of 'severe crisis' in which 'decisions had to be made quickly'. He noted the 'huge difference between an error of judgement and negligence', that 'many errors of judgement we make in our lives are not negligent' and 'the mere fact that there has been a disaster does not make these two defendants negligent'. A guilty verdict would mean that the negligence was, 'so bad to amount to a very serious offence in a crisis situation'. The judge presented two crucial questions to the jury: 'Would a criminal conviction send out a wrong message to those who have to react to an emergency and take decisions? Would it be right to punish someone for taking a decision and not considering the consequences in a crisis situation?' After 16 hours of deliberation the jury was told that a majority verdict would be accepted. Over five hours later Murray was acquitted. Eventually the jury was discharged without reaching a verdict on Duckenfield. The judge refused the application for a retrial; the case was over. A bereaved father reflected the families' shared feelings: 'I never expected a conviction, especially after I heard the judge's direction. But people on that jury held out. The case went all the way.'
The
judge's direction covered the debates over circumstances, hindsight, foreseeabil-ity, negligence, obvious and serious risk, and what constituted a 'serious criminal act'. Yet it was his comments on the impact of a guilty verdict on the future actions and responses of emergency services' professionals that caused the most surprise and concern. This conflated and confused a policy matter with legal direction. Further, his casual remark that the 'mere fact' that 96 people had died did not necessarily mean that a serious criminal act had been committed deeply offended and distressed the families.
The private prosecution of David Duckenfield and Bernard Murray was possi-bly the most significant in recent times. It was not malicious or vengeful; neither?was it about attributing all blame and all responsibility to two men. Given the DPP's decision not to prosecute and the lack of disclosure of evidence, the families had little choice. It remains instructive that the inquest jury and the private pros-ecution jury each requested further direction on negligence. In both courts the relationship between negligence and unlawful killing or manslaughter was central to their mammoth deliberations. The fact that there was a case to answer and, in the end, the jury remained deadlocked over Duckenfield's culpability, demon-strates that the families' pursuit of limited justice was not ill-conceived.
'JUSTICE FOR THE 96'
Before this Inquiry began, there were stories reported in the press, and said to have emerged from police officers present at the match, of 'mass drunk-enness'. It was said that drunken fans urinated on the police while they were pulling the dead and injured out, that others had even urinated on the bodies of the dead and stolen their belongings. Not a single witness was called before the Inquiry to support any of those allegations … Those who made them and those who disseminated them, would have done better to hold their peace.
Such was their strength and widespread dissemination, the 'grave and emotive calumnies', explicitly stated and unequivocally condemned by Lord Justice Taylor, not only persisted but intensified. The South Yorkshire Chief Constable, who had initiated the process of review and alteration of police recollections and had been contrite at the Taylor Inquiry, publicly welcomed the inquests as an opportunity to challenge Taylor's rejection of hooliganism and drunkenness as primary causes. The Inquiry had left his force with a 'very strong feeling of resent-ment and injustice'.
In the build-up to both the preliminary hearings and the generic inquests, the media reiterated the police allegations. As individual cases were presented, recorded blood alcohol levels were announced. The inference was clear: presence of alcohol suggested culpability for the death of the person and for the deaths of others. Calculated or not, it was a process that attached blame to the deceased and brought shame on the bereaved.
Duckenfield's initial lie became part of a much wider and deeper deceit. The recording of blood alcohol levels by the Coroner, the orchestration of fabricated allegations by police officers and the reaffirmation by senior officers of charges of 'hooliganism' left a durable impression, reinforced and seemingly legitimated by journalists, politicians and academics. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph (4 February 1990) Simon Heffer argued that 'the problems of Hillsborough, though Taylor was reluctant to say it, was one [sic] of hooliganism'. 'However much it might enrage Liverpool' he continued, 'Liverpool fans were killed by the thuggishness and ignorance of other Liverpool fans.' On his chat show?Terry Wogan commented that unlike soccer's other disasters, Hillsborough was 'self-inflicted'. Following a serious confrontation between English fans and the Rotterdam police, David Evans MP remarked that the Hillsborough disaster, as 'everyone in football knows although they won't say it, was caused by thousands of fans turning up without tickets, late and drunk' (Today, BBC Radio 4, 14 October 1993).
Brian Clough, Nottingham Forest's manager at Hillsborough, wrote that he would 'always remain convinced that those Liverpool fans who died were killed by Liverpool people' and 'had all the Liverpool supporters turned up at the stadium in good time, in orderly manner and each with a ticket, there would have been no Hillsborough disaster'.
His widely reported comments reignited the public debate over Hillsborough and hooliganism. Faced with a mass of criticism from a range of sources he remained unrepentant. He repeated his allegation that 'Liver-pool people killed Liverpool people' on national television.
Reflecting on Liver-pool City Council's call for a boycott on his autobiography he retorted, 'half of them can't read and the other half are pinching hub caps'.
There was astonish-ment, hurt and anger among the bereaved and survivors and many wrote directly to Clough.
Academic researchers seemed to confirm the relationship between the disaster and violence. For example, in the preface to a book on soccer hooliganism, Kerr recalls watching on television the 'chaotic horror at Hillsborough' caused by a 'late inrush of spectators' who 'had run into an already full enclosure of Liverpool fans, causing a desperate crush'.
For Young, Hillsborough was one of 13 international 'noteworthy incidents of sports-related collective violence' between 1955 and 1989; '94 fans' had been 'crushed to death as fans arriving late attempted to force their way into the game'.
In a text on disasters and their aftermath Cohen wrongly attributes allegations about Hillsborough to Heysel: 'some fans … urinated on the dead, on police and on ambulance men'.
Lewis and Scarisbrick-Hauser propose the application of McPhail's 'behavioural categories' 'as a guide for analysing crowd behaviours'. In their overview of contemporary football crowd safety reports they add four 'new' categories: 'climbing, falling, kicking and public urinating'. Without any attempt to evidence, locate or contextualize behav-iour that might warrant inclusion in these categories, they attribute 'surging', 'jogging', 'climbing', 'falling' and 'public urinating' to fans' behaviour at Hillsborough.
Cohen situates this behaviour in Liverpool city's 'darker side: a massive drugs problem, endemic unemployment and a resultant capacity for mass disor-der'. Liverpool fans had developed a 'ferocious reputation' bearing 'the hallmarks … of Neanderthal man'.
In an insightful analysis of the political-economic context of the disaster, Ian Taylor discusses the Thatcherite obsession with 'secure containment', resulting in the penning of fans, the acceptance of stadium neglect and the compromising of crowd safety. In a subsequent version of this article, however, while challenging 'a series of unpleasant stories … circulat[ing] about the behaviour of Liverpool fans',?Taylor notes 'persistent reports of some [fans] snatching wallets from the dead or dying and also of some obstructive action by drunken and aggressive fans'.
These few examples are taken from a mass of media, political and academic commentary on Hillsborough. They are typical and they were not without conse-quences. When Lord Justice Stuart-Smith arrived in Liverpool to take evidence from bereaved families, some of the Hillsborough Family Support Group were delayed by a few minutes. On the steps of the Maritime Museum he asked the Group's Secretary, 'Have you got a few of your people or are they like the Liver-pool
fans, turn up at the last minute?'
At the opening of the private prosecution at Leeds Crown Court the judge warned families that 'any display of campaigning, written or verbal, would constitute intimidation and be considered contempt of court'. Further, 'any demonstration would jeopardise the trial'. Seven weeks later as the trial ended and the bereaved families left the court, 'a West Yorkshire police video-surveillance team … filmed their dignified, calm yet unbowed departure'.
Over time such comments and actions were regarded by the bereaved and survi-vors as intimidatory, constituting slurs on their reputation and that of their loved ones. 'We felt like criminals', was the common response.
Following the publication of the Stuart-Smith report, a South Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable wrote, 'perhaps the greatest tribute to those who tragi-cally lost their lives, and the firmest indicator that the deaths were not in vain, lies in the transformation of football stadia'.
He demonstrated an unwitting yet crass insensitivity towards the long-term suffering of the bereaved. As stated elsewhere, there was 'not the slightest acknowledgement that it took a disaster, for men, women and children to be killed, to shake the reckless complacency that had infected football; its ownership, its organisation and its policing'.
Conn states that Taylor's 'most fundamental recommendations', including a full 'reassessment of policy for the game', were 'ignored'. Yet 'directors wheeled and dealed to make fortunes for themselves'.
As the Premier League was launched its clubs were obliged to provide all-seater stadia. Supported, and dependent on, unprecedented investment from Rupert Murdoch's media empire, Premiership clubs enjoyed unforeseeable, if not over-inflated, wealth and prosperity.
However safer the reconstructed or new stadia were, and however welcome the facilities provided, the inexorable rise in football's popularity – and notoriety – represents a triumph in rebranding, publicity and marketing. Personal reputa-tions, David Beckham for example, were lost and rebuilt in the media-fuelled hype of celebrity and fame. Beckham's club throughout this period, Manchester United, became the most wealthy sports club in the world and overseas players, many of great talent and all with agents, gravitated towards the new prosperity of the English Premiership. Meanwhile, back in Liverpool, the Hillsborough Family Support Group and the Justice campaigns provide a poignant reminder that, despite Taylor's attribution of responsibility for the disaster, there followed no state prosecutions, no disciplinary proceedings and no full and appropriate disclosure of the documentary evidence. What remain are the inquest verdicts of?accidental death and a hung jury, unable to decide on Duckenfield's guilt. Stuart-Smith's judicial scrutiny was exposed as little more than a politically motivated attempt to quell the outrage of the bereaved and survivors. On finally receiving 'body files' detailing the last hours of their loved one's lives, families were soon aware that much of the 'factual' information provided was partial, inaccurate and/or contradictory.
The significance of the Hillsborough disaster is not limited to its broader context and immediate circumstances. A sequence of injustices followed: the appalling treatment of the bereaved and survivors by the police and other author-ities in the immediate aftermath; the inhumane police and coronial procedures adopted for body identification of loved ones; the conduct and outcome of the inquests; the systematic review and alteration of police recollections, their trans-formation into criminal justice statements and Taylor's acceptance of the process; the judge's direction of the jury in the private prosecution of Duckenfield and Murray; the taking of body tissue from the deceased without the knowledge or permission of the bereaved. And Eddie Spearritt has received no information regarding his whereabouts between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. when he was admitted to intensive care. The aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster reveals the shortcom-ings, failings and manipulation of the state's systems of inquiry and investigation. Over time, it shows how disproved and discredited accounts can be reconstituted and legitimated, how 'truth' can be degraded through propaganda to protect powerful interests and how public servants, supposedly legally and politically accountable, can evade the reach of the law.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to my former colleagues at the Centre for Studies in Crime and Social Justice at Edge Hill, to the ESRC-funded Disaster Research Seminar Group and to Deena Haydon for her critical comments and personal support. Most of all, continuing respect to the bereaved and survivors of Hillsborough and the campaign groups who have retained immense dignity in the face of continuing injustice.
NOTES
1. P. Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2000), pp.60–1.
2. Personal interview, The Hillsborough Project 1989. Held in the Disasters Research Archive, Centre for
Studies in Crime and Social Justice, Edge Hill.
3. Liverpool Echo, 17 April 1989.
4. Sir Bernard Ingham, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, personal correspondence, 13 July 1994.
Correspondence held by author.
5. D. Chippindale and C. Horrie, Stick It Up Your Punter! The Rise and Fall of the Sun (London: Manda-rin,
1992), p.283.
6. South Yorkshire Police Memorandum from Inspector Calvert to The Chief Superintendent, 'F' Div,
dated 11 June 1986. Document held by author.?7. For an overview of the evolution of safety regulation at UK football grounds see Martin Johnes,
'"Heads in the Sand": Football, Politics and Crowd Disasters in Twentieth-Century Britain', chapter
one in this volume.
8. References taken from officers' statements. Held by author.
9. See Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth, pp.52–4.
10. Rt Hon. Lord Justice Taylor, The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: 15 April 1989, Interim Report, Cmnd.
765, (London: HMSO, 1989) paras 171–4, pp.30–1.
11. Taylor Inquiry Transcripts, May–June 1989, Day 8: 112–13.
12. Rt Hon. Lord Justice Taylor, The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: 15 April 1989, Interim Report, Cmnd.
765, (London: HMSO, 1989), p.1.
13. Ibid., p.50.
14. Ibid.
15. Lord Keith of Kinkel, Copoc (AP) and Others v. Wright; Alcock (AP) and Others v. Wright, House of
Lords Judgment, 28 Nov. 1991.
16. R.v.H.M.Coroner for South Yorkshire ex parte Stringer and Others, Divisional Court Judgment, 5 Nov.
1993.
17. Hansard, 26 Oct. 1994: col. 981.
18. Letter from the Head of the Police Complaints Division to the Chief Constable, 30 Aug. 1990. Held by
author.
19. Inquest transcripts, Day 75, 21 March 1991: 63. Disaster Research Archive, Centre for Studies in Crime
and Social Justice, Edge Hill, Ormskirk.
20. Inquest transcripts, Day 78, 26 March 1991: 31. Disaster Research Archive, Centre for Studies in Crime
and Social Justice, Edge Hill, Ormskirk.
21. P. Scraton, A. Jemphrey and S. Coleman, No Last Rights: The Denial of Justice and the Promotion of
Myth in the Aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster (Liverpool: LCC/Alden Press, 1995).
22. Guardian, 1 July 1997.
23. Hansard, 18 Feb. 1998: cols 1085–97.
24. Correspondence between Peter Metcalf, partner in Hammond Suddards Solicitors and the Head of
Management Services, South Yorkshire Police, 15 May 1989. Held by author.
25. Scrutiny Transcript, 1 Dec. 1997. Held by author.
26. Scrutiny Transcript, 24 Oct. 1997. Held by author.
27. Rt Hon. Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, Scrutiny of Evidence Relating to the Hillsborough Football Stadium
Disaster, Cmnd. 3878 (London: HMSO, 1998), p.80.
28. See P. Scraton, 'From Deceit to Disclosure: The Politics of Official Inquiries in the United Kingdom',
in G. Gilligan and J. Pratt (eds), Crime, Truth and Justice: Official Inquiry, Discourse, Knowledge
(Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2004), pp.46–70.
29. Mr Justice Hooper, Regina v David Duckenfield and Bernard Murray Case No: T19991569, Leeds
Crown Court, 16 Feb. 2000.
30. Ibid.
31. See Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth, pp.216–19; full text of opening speech by Alun Jones, Q.C. avail-able
at www.hfsg.org/opening 11 June 2000.
32. Bernard Murray, in evidence, 10 July 2000 (research notes, held by author).
33. Mr Justice Hooper, questions put to the jury, 12 July 2000 (research notes, held by author).
34. Alun Jones, Q.C., closing speech, 12 July 2000. Available at www.hfsg.org/closing.
35. William Clegg, Q.C., address to the jury, 13 July 2000 (research notes).
36. Michael Harrison, Q.C., address to the jury, 13 July 2000 (research notes).
37. Mr Justice Hooper, summing up, 12–18 July 2000.
38. Taylor, Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Interim Report, p.44.
39. Peter Wright, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, quoted in the Sheffield Star, 6 Feb. 1990.
40. B. Clough, Clough: The Autobiography (London: Corgi, 1995), p.258.
41. Sunday Mirror, 6 Nov. 1994.
42. Daily Mirror, 8 Nov. 1994.
43. See Scraton, Jemphrey and Coleman, No Last Rights.
44. J.H. Kerr, Understanding Soccer Hooliganism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press), p.18.
45. K. Young, 'Sport and Collective Violence', Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews, 19 (1991), 540.
46. D. Cohen, Aftershock: The Psychological and Political Consequences of Disasters (London: Paladin, 1991),
p.143.?47. J.M. Lewis and A.-M. Scarisbrick-Hauser, 'An Analysis of Football Crowd Safety Reports using the
McPhail Categories', in R. Giulianotti, N. Bonney and M. Hepworth (eds), Football, Violence and
Social Identity (London: Routledge, 1994), p.170.
48. Cohen, Aftershock, p.146.
49. I. Taylor, 'Hillsborough, 15 April 1989: Some Personal Contemplations', New Left Review, 177, Sept.–
Oct. (1989), 89–111; I. Taylor, 'English Football in the 1990s: Taking Hillsborough Seriously?', in J.
Williams and S. Wagg (eds), British Football and Social Change: Getting into Europe (Leicester: Leices-ter
University Press, 1991), p.9.
50. Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth, p.169.
51. Ibid., p.235.
52. Ibid.
53. I. Daines, 'Hillsborough Legacy', Police Review, 13 March 1998, 20.
54. Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth, p.241.
55. D. Conn, The Football Business: Fair Game in the '90s? (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1997), p.126.
56. Scraton, Hillsborough: The Truth, p.241.
57. See P. Scraton, 'Policing with Contempt: The Degrading of Truth and Denial of Justice in the After-math
of the Hillsborough Disaster', Journal of Law and Society, 26, 3 (Sept. 1999), 273–97; P. Scraton,
'Lost Lives, Hidden Voices: "Truth" and Controversial Deaths', Race and Class, 44, 1 (2002), 107–18.
RESULT 6 (ID=16):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4258455.stm
BBC News
'Sorry' Sun tries to woo Scousers
2005-02-14
'Sorry' Sun tries to woo Scousers
Asking for forgiveness is not usually the Sun's style.
Britain's top-selling tabloid is more likely to be crowing about its successes than drawing attention to its mistakes.
But in an extraordinary turnabout, executives at the newspaper have spent the past six months on their knees, trying to win forgiveness for what they describe as the biggest mistake in the paper's history.
On 19 April 1989, the Sun published a front page article claiming to have the real story about what happened during the Hillsborough stadium disaster, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA cup semi-final.
Called The Truth, the article quoted unnamed police to say "some fans" had urinated on the dead, pick pocketed bodies and beat up police officers giving the kiss of life.
But the article was not the truth.
Boycott
In Liverpool, grief over the tragedy turned to hatred. A boycott of the Sun was launched on Merseyside and sales of the paper plummeted.
It's a boycott that has now lasted more than 15 years and cost the paper tens of millions of pounds in lost sales.
Many newsagents in the city still refuse to stock it.
"If countries can go to war and be friends in 15 years, then can't the Sun and the people of Merseyside do that as well?" asks Sun managing editor Graham Dudman.
Last summer, Mr Dudman met in secret with relatives from four Hillsborough families in a bid to win their forgiveness.
The meeting was part of a series of delicate negotiations between the paper and the Hillsborough Family Support Group that was followed by a BBC documentary crew.
Mr Dudman's secret meeting came after the Sun's deal to tell Liverpudlian Wayne Rooney's life story saw it attacked once again in the city.
'Blackest of days'
Rooney was slammed for having betrayed his home town by speaking to "the scum" - as the paper is known to many Scousers.
"He [Rooney] was being vilified locally in the papers, on the web and on the radio stations and having abuse hurled at him all for talking to the Sun.
"And we thought, 'Well, this is getting ridiculous now, so we'll apologise'," says Mr Dudman.
For the first time since publishing its article, the Sun printed a full page apology describing it as the most terrible mistake in its history.
In an editorial last July, it added "Our carelessness and thoughtlessness following that blackest of days made the grief of their families and friends even harder to bear."
But after 15 years, it was time for the city to "move on".
On Merseyside, the apology failed to make any headway.
'Mud sticks'
It was widely attacked as insincere and seen simply as a ploy to sell more papers.
Moreover, many of the Hillsborough families feel they have never got justice for the death of their loved ones and blame the Sun for having turned public opinion against them.
"People believe what they read. When we had the trial all we heard was drink, drink, drink," says Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James died at Hillsborough.
"James didn't even have a drink that day or been near a pub. But that's what we heard.... because mud sticks. That article made me have to defend my son."
Undeterred, Mr Dudman travelled to Liverpool to try to put his case in person to the Hillsborough Family Support Group.
Margaret Aspinall and members of three other Hillsborough families agreed to meet with him informally.
His appeal for forgiveness included an offer to campaign for justice on their behalf - but only if the group would accept the apology.
After much persuasion, the four family members agreed to put his appeal to the group as a whole.
Six weeks later, Mr Dudman travelled again to Liverpool to wait in a nearby hotel room while the support group met at Anfield. But they voted to refuse him an audience.
The rejection of its apology is a major setback for the Sun's attempts to rehabilitate itself in Liverpudlian eyes and to win back lost sales on Merseyside.
And it's clear that it has a considerable way to go to convince many Merseysiders of its sincerity.
"Do you forgive Hitler for what he's done?" asks Margaret Aspinall.
"Does anybody forgive Pol Pot for what they done? We are not God. I cannot forgive people like that. And that Sun newspaper, may God forgive them - not me."
RESULT 7 (ID=17):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/liverpool/5056427/Hillsborough-football-stadium-disaster-a-fight-for-justice-and-wounds-that-never-heal.html
Daily Telegraph
Hillsborough football stadium disaster: a fight for justice and wounds that never heal
2009-03-26
Phil Scraton
Twenty years after the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, questions remain unanswered and, for the families of the 96 Liverpool fans who died, justice has yet to be done.
Stephanie Jones travelled to Sheffield the night before the game to stay with her brother, Richard, and his girlfriend, Tracey, both at Sheffield University. On the Saturday afternoon Doreen, Stephanie and Richard's mother, visited her father at his home. 'I was in the back kitchen but my father shouted to me to tell me there was trouble at Hillsborough.' Doreen rushed to watch on the television. 'I saw people lying on the pitch and people coming over the fence. For somebody who is very calm in herself, I started to panic, shouting, "My three are in there." I started to cry.'
Doreen rang her husband, Les, who was also watching the coverage at work, 'already aware that there were deaths in the crowd'.
Some time before 5pm Stephanie rang from Sheffield. She was in tears because she had lost contact with Richard, 25, and Tracey, 23, at the ground. Helped by another fan, she had returned to their car and a local woman had taken her into her house to use the phone. 'She said she'd hurt her ribs, hurt her arm,' Doreen said. 'I told her to go back to the ground and tell the police what she had told me. We told her we were leaving right away for Sheffield.' As they set off, Les felt sure that Richard was seriously hurt.
The FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989, was one of the highest-profile domestic football games of the season. By any standards, policing Hillsborough was a massive operation. The 1,122 officers on duty comprised approximately 38 per cent of the entire South Yorkshire force.
In 1989 Hillsborough, the home of Sheffield Wednesday, was typical of many First Division grounds. Built a century earlier, it stood two miles out of Sheffield's city centre, alongside the River Don. The east end, the Spion Kop, was a modern standing terrace holding 21,000, allocated to Nottingham fans. The west end, the decrepit Leppings Lane terrace, was allocated to Liverpool supporters.
Access to the Leppings Lane turnstiles was tight. Gates in the fencing led into confined areas feeding 23 old-style turnstiles, with exit gates nearby. The turnstiles processed fans entering the Leppings Lane terrace, the West Stand and the North Stand: more than 24,256. Three years earlier a police inspector had warned that the Leppings Lane turnstiles 'do not give anything like the access to the ground… needed by away fans'.
A beautiful spring day added to the carnival atmosphere. Many fans were led to the ground by police, who met them from trains and buses. But close to the ground there was no filtering of the crowd by the police. The bottleneck at the turnstiles became tightly packed and the mood changed. With walls, fences or gates to the sides and front the only relief was behind, but more and more fans arrived, oblivious to the mounting crush at the front.
As kick-off approached, the crush became desperate, the situation critical, as men, women, children and police officers struggled to breathe. In later testimonies police officers talked of the crowd growing 'unruly', 'nasty' and 'violent'. Those in the crush gave a considerably different account. They commented that there was no attempt to manage the crowd, no filtering and no queuing: 'It stands to sense that if you have people trying to find their turnstiles in a narrow space which leads to different parts of the ground you need a filtering system further back.'
Hillsborough's police control box was inside the ground, elevated above the Leppings Lane terrace, giving a commanding view of the crowd below.
Around 2.30pm the CCTV monitors showed the sudden build-up of fans in Leppings Lane and at the turnstiles. Chief Supt David Duckenfield, the match commander, had virtually no experience of policing football. He had taken over from his predecessor only three weeks before the game. Now he faced a serious dilemma.
The senior officer outside the ground told him that unless he opened the large exit gates, there would be serious injuries, possibly deaths. After some hesitation Duckenfield gave the command: 'Open the gates.
'Gate C was close to the turnstiles and fans walked through. 'We were just hanging back waiting for the crowd to thin out and the big blue gate opened,' one fan said. 'They called us through and we went. I had my ticket out but no one was interested. I thought, "Great, we're in," and walked straight down the tunnel in front of us.'
Directly opposite Gate C was the entrance to a tunnel under the West Stand. It was signed standing. More than 2,000 fans walked down the 1-in-6 gradient into the already packed central pens. There was no way out to the sides or the front and no way back up the tunnel.
'I don't remember seeing any stewards,' another fan said. 'We went down the tunnel and into the area right of the fence. It was really packed.' The central pens now held twice their capacity.
As the teams came out on to the pitch, the crowd was excited, cheering the names of the players. But in central pens 3 and 4 people were screaming. Others fell silent, unconscious. 'I couldn't believe what was going on. No one could move, not an inch. People around me were contorted in whatever position they'd been compressed. Heads were locked between arms and shoulders, the faces gasping in panic.'
'I was bent forward, from the waist, my full weight pressing down on people in front of me. At first the pain in my back was sharp but then it was in my chest. Suddenly, I knew I was going to die.'
In pen 3 the pressure was so great that the fans at the front were squashed into the perimeter fencing, their faces distorted by the mesh. 'I realised that the guy next to me was dead, his eyes were bulging and his tongue out. It was sheer horror.'
'I saw a young boy go down and knew that was it for him. He went under people's feet but no one could do anything about it. The pressure was so great.' Fans screamed at the police on the perimeter track to open the small evacuation gates on to the pitch, 'but they just seemed transfixed. They did nothing.' As fans tried to climb the overhanging perimeter fence, officers on the track pushed them back into the crowd.
In the police control box, Duckenfield and his colleagues had a perfect view of the central pens. Having opened the exit gate, he had failed to seal off the tunnel. Later, he stated his confidence that officers 'were patrolling the concourse area' and, acting 'on their own initiative… would have taken some action in the tunnel.'
From the control box Duckenfield saw fans trying to climb out of the pens. It did not strike him, he said later, that they were trying to escape a crush. Then he saw a perimeter gate open, apparently without authority.
'My perception is… it was a pitch invasion.' This was the message radioed to officers around the ground as they rushed to the Leppings Lane perimeter track. They thought they were dealing with crowd disorder. Duckenfield and his senior officers failed to anticipate disaster. The collective mindset was hooliganism.
Throughout the previous two decades 'football hooliganism' featured regularly in political debates. This led directly to the strategy of policing by segregation and containment. The 1977 McElhone Report on football crowd behaviour recommended lateral fences within terraces to prevent sideways movement. Perimeter fencing, high and overhanging, should be 'not less than 1.8m in height', designed to make access to the pitch impossible. Terraces were divided into pens – as many as six pens behind the goal.
The South Yorkshire police 'operational order' for the semi-final identified drunkenness as a priority. Much of the policing outside the ground, from random coach searches through to the monitoring of pubs, was supposed to be directed against drinking. What the operational order failed to address was as striking as its priorities. There were no contingencies for the inevitable build-up outside the ground immediately before kick-off. There was nothing about the bottleneck at the Leppings Lane turnstiles. There were no contingency plans for coping with over-full pens or for closing the tunnel leading into the central pens. Committed to containment, it neglected safety.
As the officers arrived at the perimeter fence the full realisation of the situation was immediately apparent. 'This was not a pitch invasion,' one officer said later. 'There were a large number of dead, dying and injured persons in the crowd. Some crushed against the fence were blue violet in colour, others had glazed eyes, apparently dead, others were covered in vomit.'
Another officer saw a young boy close to the front of pen 3. 'He was still alive and had his fingers on the steel mesh. He was turning purple and looking straight into my eyes. I was totally helpless and could not reach [him]. I jumped down… and attempted to push my hands through the metal fence to pull him clear. It was futile. I spoke to him and told him to hang on and held his hands.'
Not long after 3.15pm, after the match had been abandoned, Duckenfield told representatives of the Football Association, including the chief executive, Graham Kelly, that Liverpool fans had forced Gate C, causing an inrush into the stadium, down the tunnel, into the backs of those already in the central pens. Duckenfield stated later that, 'The blunt truth [was] that we had been asked to open a gate. I was not being deceitful… we were all in a state of shock.' He continued, 'I just thought at that stage that I should not communicate fully the situation… I may have misled Mr Kelly.' He did.
Kelly unwittingly and in good faith repeated Duckenfield's lie to the waiting media. Within minutes it was broadcast around the world: an appalling disaster was happening, and Liverpool fans were to blame.
The medical assistance officially on call at Hillsborough was provided by 30 St John Ambulance officers, five of whom were young cadets. As fans were pulled from the pens through the two narrow perimeter track gates they were laid out close by. As bodies multiplied there was congestion on the pitch.
It was clear that those dying had suffered asphyxiation and needed proper medical care. To get them to hospital it was necessary to carry them the length of the pitch where they could be transferred to ambulances. Realising the urgent need for paramedical attention and hospital treatment, fans tore down advertising hoardings to use as makeshift stretchers. Bodies were placed on the hoardings and, running, fans carried them to the other end of the pitch. When they got there they were directed to lay people down in the club gymnasium.
By 3.45pm a doctor who had been treating people on the pitch was asked by a senior police officer to go to the gymnasium to examine bodies and certify death. On arriving in the gymnasium he found four or five rows of bodies and, with a GP, began examining them: 'We were accompanied by a police officer who made a note of every body… I performed a normal examination on each body and pronounced life extinct in turn.' In an estimated 25 minutes, he examined and certified 20 bodies.
Each body was given a number, put in a bodybag and allocated a police officer, who wiped the face with a sponge or rag. Polaroid photographs were taken, numbered and posted on a board close to the entrance of the gymnasium.
Doreen and Les Jones arrived in Sheffield late in the evening. Relatives were held at a disused boys' club and bused to the ground. At about 2.15am, a police officer announced that they 'were being taken to the ground to look at some photographs'. Doreen shouted out, 'Why? What are we going to look at photographs for? Why aren't we being taken to a hospital?'
She continued, 'He knew what the photographs were and I suppose I did… but I didn't know what was going on, possibly I didn't want to accept what was going on.'
Once at the ground, they were shown the full horror of the gymnasium. Surrounded by gym equipment, and what looked like 'curtains hanging', they watched 'a guy standing there punching a brick wall… people screaming and God knows what… nobody even taking a blind bit of notice.'
Les then saw the photographs, 'pinned on to the divider… any old way'. Doreen said, 'They were only small Polaroids and we seemed to go along loads of them. And then Les pointed out Richard without telling anybody that it was Richard…
And then he said he couldn't find Trace. I said this was Trace… Les didn't recognise her at first.'
They were taken through a door, 'and they brought us two trolleys together, pulled one out – unzipped it, just showed you the head and you just said, "Yes" and they pulled the next one forward.' Doreen bent down, 'to cuddle Richard', but she never made it. 'I don't know who it was but… they hawked me up and told Les that they [the bodies] were the property of the coroner and we couldn't touch him.'
Of the 96 Liverpool supporters who eventually died, only 14 made it to hospital and, of those, 12 were pronounced 'dead on arrival'.
Extensive press coverage the following morning carried explicit, close-up photographs and graphic descriptions of the dead and injured. Media coverage rushed to judgment, and unqualified blame was directed against Liverpool fans.
Police sources and a local MP continued to allege that Liverpool fans were drunk and violent, attacked rescue workers, urinated on police officers while abusing and stealing from the dead. This led to the Sun's infamous front page three days after the disaster: 'THE TRUTH: some fans picked pockets of victims; some fans urinated on the brave cops; some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life'. Eight newspapers carried the allegations, consolidated by senior police officers in 'off-the-record' briefings. Consequently, Hillsborough became synonymous with soccer-related violence and hooliganism.
In the immediate aftermath Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to 'inquire into the events at Sheffield Wednesday football ground on April 15, 1989, and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events.' On May 15, a month after the disaster, at Sheffield's town hall, the Taylor Inquiry hearings opened. The West Midlands police investigation had been gathering evidence since April 24 – 2,666 phone calls were evaluated by West Midlands officers, who eventually took 3,776 statements.
On August 1, 1989, less than four months after the disaster, Taylor published his interim report. For those expecting the South Yorkshire police to be vindicated, his findings were stunning. He established that the immediate cause of the disaster was the police failure to cut off access to the central pens once Gate C had been opened. Effectively, this caused the overcrowding which, in turn, caused the deaths and injuries. Lack of leadership, together with the restricted size and small number of perimeter fence gates, hampered the rescue.
Taylor considered that the dangerous congestion at the turnstiles should have been anticipated. While accepting that there was a minority of fans the worse for drink, Taylor found that 'hooliganism' played no part in the disaster. Yet, the 'fear
of hooliganism' led to an undue 'influence on the strategy of the police' creating an 'imbalance between the need to quell a minority of troublemakers and the need to secure the safety and comfort of the majority'. The 'real cause' of the disaster 'was overcrowding'; the 'main reason… was the failure of police control'.
Taylor went on to castigate senior officers. He was emphatic that once Duckenfield acceded to the request to open Gate C, the tunnel should have been closed. Worse still, Duckenfield 'gave Mr Kelly and others to think that there had been an inrush due to fans forcing open a gate.' Taylor continued, 'This was not only untruthful', but 'set off a widely reported allegation against the supporters which caused grave offence and distress.'
Taylor concluded that Duckenfield had failed 'to take effective control of the disaster situation. He froze.' He also recognised that there had been a police-led campaign of vilification against Liverpool fans. Listing the allegations published in the Sun he concluded, 'not a single witness' supported any of them.
At the end of November 1989 the South Yorkshire Chief Constable, Peter Wright, and his Police Authority offered 'to open negotiations with the aim of resolving all bona fide claims against him for compensation arising out of the Hillsborough disaster.'
Eventually, over several years, out-of-court settlements led to compensation payments. By early 1998 there had been 36 settlements for loss of financial dependency, 50 fatal claims (restricted to funeral expenses and/or statutory bereavement payments) and 1,035 personal injury claims.
Yet families sought answers to the specific circumstances of the deaths of their loved ones. The failure to identify and respond to the protracted crush in the pens coupled with the lack of immediate medical aid to the dying raised serious questions over whether more lives could have been saved. That resuscitation was successful in some cases, that some placed with the dead actually recovered, left lingering doubts about the adequacy of much of the spontaneous treatment.
Added to this, cursory examinations, often no more than feeling for a pulse, were conducted in the heat of the moment by inexperienced, non- medical people. With certainty of death often so difficult to establish in asphyxiated victims, the deeply disturbing possibility remained: that some people were taken into the gymnasium, laid out on the floor, their faces covered by clothes and bin-liners, solely on the assumption of death.
There was an expectation within the families' lawyers that specific circumstances, particularly relating to appropriate medical care and attention, would be unveiled and cross-examined at the inquests. Between November 1990 and March 28, 1991, the inquests took place at Sheffield's town hall. Evidence was heard from 230 witnesses, and were the longest inquests in history.
On the evening of the disaster, the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, took the unprecedented decision to record the blood alcohol levels of all who died, including children. This was portrayed as further confirmation that drunkenness was a primary cause. It implied that fans had contributed to their own deaths and to the deaths of others.
At the inquests Popper announced that while evidence would be extensive, there would be no consideration of events after 3.15pm on April 15. He reflected that the 'damage that caused [each] death was due to crushing', that 'each individual death' was 'in exactly the same situation', that once 'real damage' had occurred, each individual was beyond help or rescue. In other words, all of those who died would have received fatal injuries by 3.15. He concluded: 'The fact that the person may survive an injury for a number of… hours or even days, is not the question which I as a coroner have to consider.'
The only conclusion to be drawn from Popper's ruling was that those who died did so regardless of medical attention received or denied. Equally, by this logic, those who lived did so regardless of medical attention.
Within days a tide of allegations accompanied the inquests. Again the newspapers had a field day, as fans were portrayed as drunk and violent. The police again claimed it had been an orchestrated attempt to create mayhem outside the ground to force mass entry. Officers spoke of the 'unruly' behaviour of fans, their unacceptable and insulting responses, and their wilful rejection of reasonable police requests.
A typical police statement concluded, 'the overall demeanour of the crowd was… quite evil'. One officer had 'never seen [such] a quantity of a crowd in possession of drink'; another considered it was 'as if everyone had delayed the time that they were coming to the ground and all decided to come later.'
Lord Justice Taylor had already rejected these allegations yet his findings were now in question. Survivors were cross-examined at the inquests by multiple lawyers representing different police interests and working as a team, coordinating cross-examination. This was in marked contrast to the cross-examination of police witnesses when one barrister represented the interests of 43 families.
Survivors who gave evidence felt they were blamed for the disaster, that they were 'on trial'. 'They didn't know what I'd been through,' one said. 'I'd lost someone dear to me, fought to survive and others died around me. People died before my eyes and no one helped. It was chaos and I know some could have been saved. They didn't want to know at the inquest. No questions about the first aid on the pitch, about carrying people on hoardings, about the police in the gymnasium. They didn't want to know.'
On March 28, 1991, after a long deliberation the jury reached a majority verdict on all who died at Hillsborough: 'accidental death'. Bereaved families, survivors and witnesses, exhausted from the months of travelling, listening and waiting, broke down and cried.
The optimism following the Taylor Report had evaporated. The Director of Public Prosecutions had already ruled out private prosecutions against the police. Eddie Spearritt, who survived the disaster while his 14-year-old son Adam died, commented, 'It was as if every door was closing on us. To tell the truth I didn't expect anything else. It was too big an issue, too many top people, too much to lose.'
Yet, the families' tenacious campaign for justice continued, individually and collectively. Anne Williams, whose son Kevin died at Hillsborough, has campaigned for two decades following disclosure that a Special Police Constable suggested Kevin was alive at 4pm and had mumbled, 'Mum'. Another officer stated that after 3.15pm, while attempting to resuscitate Kevin on the pitch, he located a pulse and Kevin convulsed. As Anne Williams has argued consistently and tirelessly, the case for due consideration of the evidence and medical opinions concerning Kevin's death was, and remains, compelling. Having exhausted all domestic legal remedies, her case was submitted to the European Court of Human Rights on August 12, 2006. She is still awaiting a response.
After more than a decade, a private prosecution brought by the families against Duckenfield and his assistant, Bernard Murray, finally came to court in 2000. The fact that the trial lasted seven weeks seemed to show there was a case to answer. Yet the trial judge's direction of the jury, the failure to reach a verdict on Duckenfield and the acquittal of Murray brought dismay.
Families felt that, in directing that a guilty verdict would send the 'wrong message… to those who have to act in an emergency of this kind', the judge confused the actual circumstances of the case against the officers with broader policy implications of a guilty verdict.
Given that the jury requested guidance from the judge, Doreen Jones considers his comments 'daunting and seemingly impossible to overcome'. Peter Joynes, whose 27-year-old son Nick died at Hillsborough, remains astounded that, 'given all the evidence, it's impossible to believe or bear' that '20 years on no one is held responsible for one of sport's biggest disasters'.
The campaign on Merseyside against the Sun and its former editor Kelvin MacKenzie continues. In July 2004, after securing an interview with Liverpool-born Wayne Rooney, at the time an Everton player, the Sun published an editorial stating that its coverage of Hillsborough had been the 'most terrible mistake in its history'.
Indeed, soon after the disaster the Press Council described the Sun's front page as 'insensitive, provocative and unwarranted'. The newspaper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, was contrite – the coverage had been 'uncaring and deeply offensive to relatives
of the victims'. On radio MacKenzie accepted that 'with hindsight… most of the newspaper coverage of Hillsborough had been a mistake.' It was assumed that MacKenzie had been instructed by Murdoch to make a statement as the Sun had lost nearly 40 per cent of its regional circulation, which has never recovered. In November 2006, speaking at a business lunch in Newcastle, MacKenzie reportedly stated, '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. I went on 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.'
On January 7, 2007, Liverpool played Arsenal in an FA Cup game at Anfield. The BBC broadcast the game at peak viewing time. Agreed by the club, the Liverpool fans' group Reclaim the Kop organised a protest directed at MacKenzie and the BBC for employing him as a presenter. At the kick-off the entire Kop, approximately 12,000 fans, held a mosaic above their heads in red and white. It spelt the truth. For six minutes, precisely the length of time played at Hillsborough before the match was abandoned, the Kop chanted 'Justice for the 96'.
Jenni Hicks, whose two teenage daughters Sarah and Victoria died, regrets that 'after all that has been established it is that one deceitful article in the Sun that's remembered – that's the myth that's believed.'
It is a myth that was supported by South Yorkshire Police. It is clear that major questions remain about the adequacy of the investigations and inquiries and the accountability of the police at the highest level. On the day of the tragedy, officers were instructed not to make entries in pocketbooks but submit handwritten 'recollections' to a team of senior officers. Working with police solicitors, the team administered a process of 'review and alteration'. Officers were taken for a drink by a chief superintendent who said, 'Unless we get our heads together and straighten this out, there are heads going to roll.' The transformation of officers' recollections into evidential statements, with sentences and passages significantly changed, was known and accepted by the West Midlands Police investigators, the coroner, Lord Justice Taylor and the Home Office.
Experiencing a disaster on the scale of Hillsborough, through bereavement or survival or both, generates mixed, deeply felt emotions of loss, anger, guilt, failure, inadequacy.
Coping should not be confused with recovering. Doreen Jones, 'just a mum who tried desperately to get some kind of justice for Rick and Trace and all the victims of Hillsborough', has 'no desire to be seen as a sad or angry person… I get on with my life'. But 'how are you supposed to feel when it all gets raked up? I have a smouldering anger, we all have it, you only have to scratch the surface and I erupt. It shouldn't be like this, I should be able to mourn.'
As Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James died, states, 'They took away our children and they took away our grandchildren, what they would have become… you can't stop that hurt or that anger.'
Dolores Steele feels that the loss of her 15-year-old son Philip is a constant. Yet 'you learn to live a different life',accommodating but not recovering from grief. She states, 'The authorities all thought we were after money, big claims, but all we wanted was the truth and for someone to say, "We made a terrible mistake, 96 died and we are sorry." And it never came.'
Peter Joynes considers that families are 'pushed towards "getting over it" or "building a new life" while we have been through the pain barrier so many times and we continually hope that one day someone will stand up and admit their mistakes.'
Sue Roberts, whose 24-year-old brother Graham died, also emphasises lack of acknowledgement and its consequences for families: 'Personally, I'm just upset that so many parents and other family members are passing away without ever having had an apology or any other form of justice. The names of our loved ones remain tarnished, with some members of the public still believing it was other fans that caused their deaths. The insight we've had over the past 20 years into the cover-ups that have gone on is appalling and still needs addressing. They say time heals… but in our case, it hasn't.'
Adapted from Phil Scraton's book 'Hillsborough: The Truth' (Mainstream). Phil Scraton is professor of criminology at Queen's University, Belfast