Hillsborough
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="SidBarret" data-cid="578859" data-time="1462976340">
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<p>Maybe I made my point poorly, but I'd bet my left nut that the none of the club chairman, safety officer or senior police officers that attended the safety briefings had watched a game at the lepping lane end in the twenty years leading up to the disaster. The point being that there is disconnect between the people making the decisions and the people living with the consequences. Part of this disconnect was caused by class issues I feel. </p>
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<p> Sid, read this link and then you can see what went wrong.</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades'>https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades</a></p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">Wright’s high-handed rule was at the root of the disaster, the inquests heard. Just 19 days before the semi-final, he abruptly moved his seasoned, expert, popular commander at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium, Ch Supt Brian Mole. In Mole’s place, Wright promoted Duckenfield, who had never commanded a match at Hillsborough before, nor even been on duty there for 10 years.<br>
A trail of former officers bleakly confirmed the farce behind the switch: a bullying prank played on a probationary constable by officers in Mole’s division the previous October. Reportedly to teach him a lesson because they felt he was making radio distress calls too readily, the officers put on balaclavas and terrified the probationer with a mock armed holdup. On 20 February 1989, Wright personally sacked four officers and disciplined four more for this excessive internal prank. But Wright’s disastrous decision to move Mole was never questioned by senior officers.<br><br>
Peter Hayes, deputy chief constable in 1989, and Stuart Anderson, assistant chief constable in charge of personnel, came as old men to these inquests, and denied Mole was moved because of the prank, saying it was for “career developmentâ€. Anderson said Mole needed experience outside Sheffield and the force was having problems policing Barnsley, which could be “extremely hostile†after the miners’ strike, in a climate of “social disintegration†and the impending closure of 14 pits.<br>
Walter Jackson, assistant chief constable for operations, however, told the inquests that he did believe Mole was moved for not having dealt with the indiscipline firmly.<br>
Within F division’s base at Hammerton Road station, the Guardian has been told, rank-and-file officers believed that Mole, their popular “gafferâ€, was moved because of the prank. If it had been career development, there was no explanation as to why it had to be so sudden or so close to the semi-final, the force’s biggest operation of the year, nor why Mole was said by several witnesses, including Duckenfield, to have been disappointed. Nor was it clear why the force organised no professional handover: Mole cleared his desk and left. A dispute still rattles down the years about whether he offered to help Duckenfield with the match, which, in his evidence, Duckenfield denied.<br>
Jackson and Anderson still stood by their belief that Duckenfield could handle the semi-final, given experienced officers and the operational plan in place from the previous year when, under Mole’s command, an identical match between the same two clubs was played at Hillsborough.<br>
It was revelatory to hear F division officers recount Duckenfield’s heavy-handed manner on his arrival, how unpopular he made himself. William West, a constable, remembered Duckenfield telling officers “we were useless, we were no good, we had been doing it all wrong … He got us into the briefing room and he basically spoke at us for 20 minutes, telling us how the district was a disgrace, it had been badly run, it was going to be his way now.†Duckenfield, said West, “wasn’t a pleasant manâ€. He imagined he would be a bully, and “look for scapegoatsâ€.<br>
Duckenfield told the inquests that he did inherit disciplinary problems from Mole, that he believed this was a reason why Mole was moved, and that he himself was from the force’s “disciplinarian†wing. After taking over on 27 March 1989, Duckenfield found time to lay down the law to his officers, but he admitted to Christina Lambert QC, for the coroner, Sir John Goldring, that he failed to do basic preparation for the semi-final. He did not study relevant paperwork, including the force’s major incident procedure, and signed off the operational plan two days after taking over, before he had even visited the ground.<br>
He turned up to command the semi-final, he admitted, knowing very little about Hillsborough’s safety history: about the crushes at the 1981 and 1988 semi-finals, or that the approach to the Leppings Lane end was a “natural geographical bottleneck†to which Mole had carefully managed supporters’ entry.<br>
Duckenfield admitted he had not familiarised himself in any detail with the ground’s layout or capacities of its different sections. He did not know the seven turnstiles, through which 10,100 Liverpool supporters with standing tickets had to be funnelled to gain access to the Leppings Lane terrace, opened opposite a large tunnel leading straight to the central pens, three and four. He did not even know that the police were responsible for monitoring overcrowding, nor that the police had a tactic, named after a superintendent, John Freeman, of closing the tunnel when the central pens were full, and directing supporters to the sides. He admitted his focus before the match had been on dealing with misbehaviour, and he had not considered the need to protect people from overcrowding or crushing.<br>
The families of the people who were ushered into that terrifyingly unsafe situation and died read shattering personal statements, many remembering their loved ones’ casual goodbyes. Irene McGlone recalled her husband, Alan, 24, skipping with their daughters, Amy, then five, and two-year-old Claire, before driving to Hillsborough with three friends including Joseph Clark, 29, another father of two, who also died. That night, Amy asked if her dad could wake them up when he came home.<br>
“I am still waiting to wake my girls up from this nightmare, and send their daddy in to them,†McGlone wrote.<br>
The control room at Hillsborough in 1989. Photograph: Inquest handout<br>
Having failed to prepare, Duckenfield admitted 26 years later that he also failed profoundly at the match itself. He did not know what he was doing. While Mole used to be driven all over Sheffield before a big match to check on traffic flows, then, closer to the 3pm kickoff, patrol around the ground, Duckenfield said he still could not remember at all what he did in more than two hours between concluding his briefing of officers and arriving in the control box at 2pm. Once in the small control room, he stayed there.<br>
Supt Roger Marshall, put in charge outside, was new to the role. In his evidence, he accepted the police had no plan to filter people’s entry into the Leppings Lane bottleneck, using police horses or cordons, beyond “some random ticket checking and … some checks for drunkennessâ€. Repeatedly played footage of the mass congestion that developed, Marshall admitted that it was a problem starting at 2.15pm, with thousands more people still arriving, and by 2.35pm, police had “completely lost controlâ€.<br>
Marshall conceded he did not make any decisions of his own to alleviate the developing crisis, or give orders to his officers, who he agreed became “inoperative†and “ineffective†at the turnstiles, despite doing their best. He was seen forlornly asking people in his sight, with thousands behind them, to move back. Challenged that he failed to deal with the situation, Marshall said: “Well not really, because I was active in the middle of the crowd … waving my arms about.â€<br>
Asked if he should have called for a delay to the 3pm kickoff, to relieve the pressure of people anxious to be in for the start, Marshall said: “That is one of the most profound regrets … that I did not do so.â€<br>
By 2.48pm, the crowd at the turnstiles had compacted into a dangerous crush, and Marshall radioed the control room, asking if the large exit gate C could be opened. Duckenfield did not respond until Marshall said somebody would die outside if he did not open the gate. At 2.52pm, Duckenfield ordered it open.<br>
Reaching this notorious moment on his second day in the witness box, Duckenfield made more landmark admissions that went far beyond what he had confessed previously, to Lord Justice Taylor’s official 1989 inquiry, the first 1990-91 inquest in Sheffield, and the families’ private prosecutions of him and Supt Bernard Murray in 2000, when Duckenfield exercised his right to stay silent.<br>
At these inquests, he admitted he had given “no thought†to where the people would go if he opened the gate. He had not considered the risk of overcrowding. He had not foreseen that people would naturally go down the tunnel to the central pens right in front of them. He had not realised he should do anything to close off that tunnel. The majority of the 2,000 people allowed in through gate C went straight down the tunnel to the central pens, and gross overcrowding there caused the terrible crush. Of the 96 people who died, 30 were still outside the turnstiles at 2.52pm. They went in through gate C when invited by police, and were crushed in the central pens barely 10 minutes later.<br>
Paul Greaney QC, representing the Police Federation – who on behalf of the rank and file principally sought to emphasise senior officers’ lack of leadership – took his turn on Duckenfield’s sixth day. Standing three rows of lawyers back, he elicited from Duckenfield admissions that he lacked competence and experience, that his knowledge of the ground was “wholly inadequateâ€.<br>
In tense, charged exchanges, Greaney asked Duckenfield if he had frozen in the crucial minutes when making the decision to open the gate. Duckenfield denied this four times. Then Greaney asked again: “Mr Duckenfield, you know what was in your mind. I will ask you just one last time. Will you accept that, in fact, you froze?â€<br>
Slumped in his seat, “Yes, sir,†Duckenfield replied.<br>
Then Greaney put to him: “That failure [to close off the tunnel] was the direct cause of the deaths of 96 persons in the Hillsborough tragedy?â€<br>
“Yes, sir,†Duckenfield said.</blockquote> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="SidBarret" data-cid="578859" data-time="1462976340">
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<p>Maybe I made my point poorly, but I'd bet my left nut that the <strong>none of the club chairman, safety officer or senior police officers that attended the safety briefings had watched a game at the lepping lane end in the twenty years leading up to the disaster</strong>. The point being that there is disconnect between the people making the decisions and the people living with the consequences. Part of this disconnect was caused by class issues I feel. </p>
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<p>Almost certainly true, the bold bit Sid but not relevant IMO. The examples had already been seen of how unfit for purpose many stadia were and definitely in the case of Hillsborough. The decisions made to both hold the tie there and the policing of the game had no bearing laid on them by lack of experience of such events. The experience was already far to obvious to anyone that had anything to do with crowd safety or the putting on of a public event. Sod all to do with class and all to do with greed, incompetence and lack of care.</p> -
<p>I think the point Sid is trying to make, which I've slightly missed, is that the FA in its ivory tower, the club chairmen looking at their balance sheets and the police chiefs surveying their patch had no direct experience of what it was like to be an average fan in danger of being crushed to death in a decrepit stadium, so they couldn't see what the problem was. But worse still, they wouldn't take an expert's view as gospel and do anything about it until it was too late.</p>
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<p>TBH, I don't really expect them to stand in the stands to get a feeling for what its like, but they should have taken notice of someone who knows what they're on about.</p> -
<p>100% agree Lui.</p>
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<p>Great stuff lads</p>
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<p>To me, there are almost 2 stories at play - the dreadful avoidable loss of life is one thing and history and indeed our own lives are marked by what I'll callously call "learning experiences"</p>
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<p>But by christ the thing that gets on my wick is the efforts those fluffybunnies went to to cover all this up and the terrible response to the victims and their families, for so long. Jesus that winds me up. Like the fiddlers at the BBC, examples need to be made and standards need to be set.</p>
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<p>Fucken 3rd world shit all that nonsense by authorities since 1989. That Coroner Popper seems to have escaped some scrutiny I think</p> -
About time
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Be prepared. Watch for the political cockroaches come out to lay blame for this.
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Listening to the Daniel Morgan Murder podcast. From the same era, but London based. Major part of that is the links between the corrupt cops and the murdoch press. In that case using crime writer from News of the World to spread misinformation.
Can easily imagine similar colluding in this case using The Sun.
I wonder how much the merseyside boycott has cost News Ltd over the years?
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@Rapido said in Hillsborough:
Listening to the Daniel Morgan Murder podcast. From the same era, but London based. Major part of that is the links between the corrupt cops and the murdoch press. In that case using crime writer from News of the World to spread misinformation.
Can easily imagine similar colluding in this case using The Sun.
I wonder how much the merseyside boycott has cost News Ltd over the years?
Can you post a link to the podcast?
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@Catogrande said in Hillsborough:
Be prepared. Watch for the political cockroaches come out to lay blame for this.
And cover their arses.
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@jegga said in Hillsborough:
@Rapido said in Hillsborough:
Listening to the Daniel Morgan Murder podcast. From the same era, but London based. Major part of that is the links between the corrupt cops and the murdoch press. In that case using crime writer from News of the World to spread misinformation.
Can easily imagine similar colluding in this case using The Sun.
I wonder how much the merseyside boycott has cost News Ltd over the years?
Can you post a link to the podcast?
I listen via iTunes.
It's called Untold.But can listen here:
http://www.untoldmurder.com/eps/Technically. The podcast is a bit disjointed. Some things they couldn't reveal in series 1.
Some more stuff coming out now in series 2.
There are links to all sorts of shady stuff;
The Stephen Lawrence murder.
The fake sheik. -
I'm sure the Juventus fans would have a lot to say about all this after Liverpool fans murdered a large number of them in Heysel Stadium. Where are the criminal charges there?
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@Wreck-Diver said in Hillsborough:
I'm sure the Juventus fans would have a lot to say about all this after Liverpool fans murdered a large number of them in Heysel Stadium. Where are the criminal charges there?
There were lots prosecuted in that one including cops, justice was swift in comparison to Hillsborough
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@Wreck-Diver said in Hillsborough:
I'm sure the Juventus fans would have a lot to say about all this after Liverpool fans murdered a large number of them in Heysel Stadium. Where are the criminal charges there?
Not sure if you're taking the piss, but a bunch served time as a result.
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At the risk of going over many of these arguments again, the Taylor report and subsequent reports provide pretty good summaries of the events and where the blame lay (i.e. the Police and their management of the event) and these latest charges are more around the actions of the Police post-incident that have contributed to the suffering of the families.
In terms of blame, Sheffield Wednesday FC (the stadium had major issues and had had capacity reduced due to previous issues that were never properly addressed), the local Police (signed off the event and the capacity in addition to providing crowd management at the event), the Council (signing off the event and capacity) and the FA (ignoring the previous incidents at Hillsborough when arranging the event and not delaying the start of the match) all contributed to running an unsafe event.
The fans actions were largely in response to the situation presented - while I have no doubt there was some bad behaviour (based on attending games in modern UK grounds and seeing footage of historical games) it wasn't found to be a significant proportion of the crowd or beyond a level expected at that time, and if the Police had had an effective crowd management plan in-place, this tragedy could have been avoided.