HILLSBOROUGH : A CATALOGUE OF INCOMPETENCE, LIES AND DECEIT.

Back in April 1989 I had only recently moved from the northwest London area of Pinner to Hinckley in the midlands. I did not support either of the teams involved and was not a fanatical football supporter anyway; I had no particular connection with or knowledge of Sheffield.

However, when I heard that 2 of the victims of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster were teenage sisters from Pinner, it made the tragedy much more personal to me than it would otherwise have been. As the horror story unfolded the news was full of reports blaming anyone and everyone for the events of that day, 15th April, though what I remember most is the tragic story of the 2 girls, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, girls who had trodden the same streets that I did.

The publication of an independent report yesterday finally seems to have shed some real light on the tragedy. The Hillsborough Independent Panel has reviewed a vast amount of documentation and its findings are damning indeed:

Crowd safety was compromised at every level;

The response of the emergency services was slow and inadequate;

There was poor co-ordination and leadership of the rescue attempts;

Many of those who died may have had a chance of survival if the emergency response had been better;

Some authorities attempted to create an unjust account of events that sought to blame fans for the disaster;

The police spread "despicable untruths" about the behavious of some fans as part of an effort to "develop and publicise a version of events that focused on allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence";

Police officers carried out PNC ('Police National Computer') checks on those who died in an attempt "to impugn the reputations of the deceased";

 

Additionally, it's said that police officers 'doctored' statements in order to create a picture of events which supported their claims about the causes of the disaster and have continued to stand by these falsified documents ever since.

 

That our police service is far from perfect is something which many people know only too well. The often overbearing and aggressive manner in which some officers behave even when dealing with the most minor of situations has no doubt been experienced by many of us, although I've also experienced the other side of this coin - friendly, helpful and supportive officers who engender confidence and trust. However, the Hillsborough disaster seems to have brought out the worst in many of the officers who attended the stadium on that day; the Panel's findings indicate examples of lying, deceit, falsification of evidence and perverting the course of justice. It is a shocking report.

 

Many are now calling for new inquests to be held on the victims and for any implicated police officers who can be identified to be appropriately charged. To these calls, I can only say "Hear, hear!", and hope that those 2 girls from my small town, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, will finally receive some form of justice.