| Hillsborough 18:21 - Apr 26 with 13216 views | electricblue |
Hillsborough verdict of unlawful killing is what families and friends have waited 25 yrs for...
The finger now points at the police but after just watching a report about the verdict and interviews the finger of blame also points at the FA....
Hillsborough was unfit to hold such a high profile game at the time so why did the FA deem it ok to hold such a game!....
So i my eyes dont just point the finger at the Police point it at the FA aswell...... |  |
| My all time favourite Dale player Mr Lyndon Symmonds |
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| Hillsborough on 22:37 - Apr 28 with 2322 views | pioneer |
| Hillsborough on 21:40 - Apr 28 by D_Alien |
Or whatever passes for socialist right-on patois in Camden these days. He's reading you loud and clear. |
ujumbe yametimia |  | | |
| Hillsborough on 23:50 - Apr 28 with 2253 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 22:37 - Apr 28 by pioneer |
ujumbe yametimia |
lisilowezekana |  |
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| Hillsborough on 01:34 - Apr 29 with 2197 views | tony_roch975 |
| Hillsborough on 21:05 - Apr 28 by 49thseason |
I am somewhat bemused that the Thatcher-haters on here seem to want to blame her for 27 years of waiting for an outcome that was alluded to in the original Taylor Report.
Just for accuracy, Thatcher retired from office 19 months after the event. In that time, she had ordered the Taylor Report which was delivered in record time of 4-5 months and accepted its proposals, she may well have promised that there would be no cover-up based on the Reports initial finding that the South Yorkshire Police Force was to blame but it was the Crown Prosecution service that decided there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute anyone.
The first inquest opened on the 19th November 1990, 5 days after Thatcher left office.
On the 30th June 1997 the new Labour administration ordered a new scrutiny of the official papers and discovered that 164 police officers accounts had been altered BEFORE the Taylor enquiry. Tony Blair wrote on Jack Straw's suggestion for a new enquiry"What's the Point?". According to Andy Burnham, Tony Blair refused to re-open the enquiry "as a favour to Rupert Murdoch". Tony Blair was in power for 11 of the 27 years and decided to do nothing yet I don't hear any so-called "Socialists" throwing the same sort of gratuitous opprobrium at him that they so gleefully throw at Margaret Thatcher.
Some of you may find this Guardian timeline of events interesting when apportioning blame.:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-inquest-timeline-the |
I'll try once more. Thatcher is not being blamed for Hillsborough. Thatcher is being blamed for establishing over 13 years a culture in which any and all working class people were condemned as responsible for any & all the world's ills (to quote her -"drunken Liverpool fans caused Hillsborough") whilst at the same time bribing the police & conspiring with them to beat, crush & destroy the major representatives of the working class (miners) using whatever illegal methods they chose. The argument goes that having set the police above the law it's hardly surprising those same police forces have for the subsequent 27 years broken all rules of morality, decency & legality. Thatcher created that culture & is therefore to blame for the Hillsborough cover-up. Ps Blair was a messianic neo-liberal (Tory) who'd give the Crusaders a bad name! | |
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| Hillsborough on 07:53 - Apr 29 with 2137 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 01:34 - Apr 29 by tony_roch975 |
I'll try once more. Thatcher is not being blamed for Hillsborough. Thatcher is being blamed for establishing over 13 years a culture in which any and all working class people were condemned as responsible for any & all the world's ills (to quote her -"drunken Liverpool fans caused Hillsborough") whilst at the same time bribing the police & conspiring with them to beat, crush & destroy the major representatives of the working class (miners) using whatever illegal methods they chose. The argument goes that having set the police above the law it's hardly surprising those same police forces have for the subsequent 27 years broken all rules of morality, decency & legality. Thatcher created that culture & is therefore to blame for the Hillsborough cover-up. Ps Blair was a messianic neo-liberal (Tory) who'd give the Crusaders a bad name! |
" Thatcher created that culture & is therefore to blame for the Hillsborough cover-up"
This is becoming laughable. Where have you been for the past half century? (I'm assuming you were born before 1966?) The police were notorious for their culture of thinking themselves above the law way, way before Thatcher became prime minister.
Did you ever watch an episode of Life on Mars? (Yep, it was a tv series, but rooted in how things were back in the day.)
Thatcher-bashing is clear to me - it stems from a feeling of being emasculated. The tyranny of union power nearly brought the country to its knees. Football hooligans ran riot every weekend, causing havoc in communities. It needed sorting, and she sorted it. That's what the people of this country voted for; not once, not twice, but three times.
Get over it.
[Post edited 29 Apr 2016 7:55]
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| Hillsborough on 08:34 - Apr 29 with 2097 views | tony_roch975 |
| Hillsborough on 07:53 - Apr 29 by D_Alien |
" Thatcher created that culture & is therefore to blame for the Hillsborough cover-up"
This is becoming laughable. Where have you been for the past half century? (I'm assuming you were born before 1966?) The police were notorious for their culture of thinking themselves above the law way, way before Thatcher became prime minister.
Did you ever watch an episode of Life on Mars? (Yep, it was a tv series, but rooted in how things were back in the day.)
Thatcher-bashing is clear to me - it stems from a feeling of being emasculated. The tyranny of union power nearly brought the country to its knees. Football hooligans ran riot every weekend, causing havoc in communities. It needed sorting, and she sorted it. That's what the people of this country voted for; not once, not twice, but three times.
Get over it.
[Post edited 29 Apr 2016 7:55]
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Yes I agree - The police were notorious for their culture of thinking themselves above the law way, way before Thatcher became prime minister - Thatcher made that thought a reality. Indeed, if you are suggesting that all power corrupts and as the ultimately powerful group (can use force) the Police are particularly susceptible ... again I agree and it is why the powerless (us) need the power of our collective unity to protect against the power of the state. That power of unity is exactly what gave the Hillsborough families the strength to finally win. As to your obsession that election victories vindicate policies..... in 1932 a certain Adolf Hitler won a democratic election! Emasculation is when folk let the system oppress without question - mirror & look! | |
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| Hillsborough on 08:53 - Apr 29 with 2085 views | mingthemerciless |
The road to Hillsborough was a long one but without a doubt it began with the election of the 1979 Tory Government. The Tories immediately started to make plans to crush the trade union movement in general and the miners in particular.
During the miners strike the Police were encouraged to go beyond the law in dealing with the strikers. A blind eye was turned to these illegal actions, indeed they were cravenly supported by the judiciary/establishment of the time.
Another worrying aspect of all this is the role of the media. 90 % of the print media spouted the Government line throughout and it appears our national broadcaster, the BBC, actually edited film footage to make it look like the strikers attacked the police when the reality the miners had been attacked first and were defending themselves.
The result of all this was the Police, who I agree were no angels previously, developed an attitude were they thought they were above and beyond any criticism or scrutiny and they could do as they pleased especially regarding working people be they football fans or striking miners. Senior officers, especially in Yorkshire the scene of most of the picketing, developed an over weaning sense of their importance and infallibility.
They also became adapt at covering their tracks, colluding with each other and expert in managing the media.
All this led to a climate that made Hillsborough possible.
I expect the pressure for a public enquiry in Police behaviour during this period will grow as a result of the Hillsborough verdict and the truth will out eventually.
You may have your views but if you live long enough you will find that history will have a more realistic take on it. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 12:22 - Apr 29 with 1982 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 08:34 - Apr 29 by tony_roch975 |
Yes I agree - The police were notorious for their culture of thinking themselves above the law way, way before Thatcher became prime minister - Thatcher made that thought a reality. Indeed, if you are suggesting that all power corrupts and as the ultimately powerful group (can use force) the Police are particularly susceptible ... again I agree and it is why the powerless (us) need the power of our collective unity to protect against the power of the state. That power of unity is exactly what gave the Hillsborough families the strength to finally win. As to your obsession that election victories vindicate policies..... in 1932 a certain Adolf Hitler won a democratic election! Emasculation is when folk let the system oppress without question - mirror & look! |
"Miirror & look" ? Anyone who's followed this forum for the past decade would know I'm a questioner of everything - sometimes to a fault!
That's one thing can't be levelled at me. I also see you're going down the Ken Livingstone route of quoting conditions in Nazi Germany. Trying to equate it with the UK in the Thatcher years is precisely what makes your socialist blinkers so ridiculous.
The type of arguments you're putting forward could be heard all through my teenage & student years among the kids who fancied they were going to change the world and bring forth a socialist utopia. It was amusing to witness it then, it's faintly comical to hear mature adults still clinging to the rhetoric.
[Post edited 29 Apr 2016 12:47]
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| Hillsborough on 12:43 - Apr 29 with 1944 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 08:53 - Apr 29 by mingthemerciless |
The road to Hillsborough was a long one but without a doubt it began with the election of the 1979 Tory Government. The Tories immediately started to make plans to crush the trade union movement in general and the miners in particular.
During the miners strike the Police were encouraged to go beyond the law in dealing with the strikers. A blind eye was turned to these illegal actions, indeed they were cravenly supported by the judiciary/establishment of the time.
Another worrying aspect of all this is the role of the media. 90 % of the print media spouted the Government line throughout and it appears our national broadcaster, the BBC, actually edited film footage to make it look like the strikers attacked the police when the reality the miners had been attacked first and were defending themselves.
The result of all this was the Police, who I agree were no angels previously, developed an attitude were they thought they were above and beyond any criticism or scrutiny and they could do as they pleased especially regarding working people be they football fans or striking miners. Senior officers, especially in Yorkshire the scene of most of the picketing, developed an over weaning sense of their importance and infallibility.
They also became adapt at covering their tracks, colluding with each other and expert in managing the media.
All this led to a climate that made Hillsborough possible.
I expect the pressure for a public enquiry in Police behaviour during this period will grow as a result of the Hillsborough verdict and the truth will out eventually.
You may have your views but if you live long enough you will find that history will have a more realistic take on it. |
I agree with much of that. Let me be clear - I couldn't stand Margaret Thatcher as a person. The sound of her voice was enough to make my stomach lurch. I'm also pretty much anti-establishment, but I simply reach different conclusions and regard her time in office as a hugely important turning point for the UK. We'd all be much worse off now if she hadn't become prime minister. In many areas of policy, Thatcher had to fight the establishment herself - something many people tend to forget. She was up against the "old boys network" and looked down upon by many of her colleagues.
I've said time and again that the police need to be brought to book for their cover up of the events at Hillsborough - of their incompetence. I still see incompetence in their handling of much smaller football crowds at Spotland, and dislike the way the club seem to simply kowtow to their demands when other clubs seem to be treated differently.
None of this bears any relation to the government of the day - indeed the current Home Secretary seems pretty determined to stand up to police forces - and then they start getting shirty with her and get the Police Federation (their union) involved and barrack her at conferences. That's one union issue some leftwingers might have trouble reconciling! But back to the point - the police were no different during the Thatcher era than they'd been in earlier or later years. I'm in no doubt as to their overweaning sense of their own corporate importance either then, or now. Look how they tried to frame a government minister (forget his name, the one who tried to cycle through the gates at Downing Street) not long since.
In short, they didn't need the Thatcher years to create an environment in which they felt able to cover up their mistakes. It's still happening, and she's been dead a few years. | |
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| Hillsborough on 12:52 - Apr 29 with 1919 views | SuddenLad |
Andrew Mitchell |  |
| “It is easier to fool people, than to convince them that they have been fooled†|
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| Hillsborough on 13:37 - Apr 29 with 1862 views | mingthemerciless |
An another tack- I was out in Manchester one Saturday dinner time a few years back with my son. We called into one of the pubs along Deansgate for a pint. Could have been the old " Hogshead ". City were playing Wigan at Maine Rd that day so you can see it's a whole ago.
When we arrived in the pub at about 1.00 there were a few Wigan fans already in there. Not causing any trouble. As time went by quite a few more Wigan fans came into the pub. The were fine, singing songs etc but again no trouble.
At about 2.00 the riot squad complete with dogs arrived and began emptying the pubs of fans very roughly and rudely. Treating them like shit.I saw one copper take a full pint a lad had just paid for and give it back to the barmaid !
Foolishly my son and I decided to leave at the same time. As we went out of the door and tried to turn left back up Deansgate one copper said " Not that way, go to the right with the rest ".
I said " But we aren't going to the football ". He said " You are now ! Get walking ".
So we were made to march along with about 60 Wigan fans in the general direction of Maine Road.
Luckily for us before we'd gone too far a gang of ' City fans gathered on the other side of the road making threatening gestures to the Wigan lads and the police. This distracted the riot squad. There was a little ginnel leading off Deansgate right behind us so I said to my son" Get down there, run and don't look back ".
So we legged it down the ginnel and managed to get away.
What would have happened to us if we hadn't got away I don't know but that incident re-in forced my dislike of the police.
It also made me wonder about ever going to an away game that I actually wanted to attend in the future. [Post edited 29 Apr 2016 13:41]
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| Hillsborough on 17:36 - Apr 29 with 1744 views | tony_roch975 |
| Hillsborough on 12:22 - Apr 29 by D_Alien |
"Miirror & look" ? Anyone who's followed this forum for the past decade would know I'm a questioner of everything - sometimes to a fault!
That's one thing can't be levelled at me. I also see you're going down the Ken Livingstone route of quoting conditions in Nazi Germany. Trying to equate it with the UK in the Thatcher years is precisely what makes your socialist blinkers so ridiculous.
The type of arguments you're putting forward could be heard all through my teenage & student years among the kids who fancied they were going to change the world and bring forth a socialist utopia. It was amusing to witness it then, it's faintly comical to hear mature adults still clinging to the rhetoric.
[Post edited 29 Apr 2016 12:47]
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DAlien - forensic interrogator, yet happy to misrepresent (like Thatcher). Where do I "equate.. the UK with Nazi Germany"?? You were the one claiming democratic election victories for Thatcher "prove" her policies were right. I merely gave you a fact from history to show that democratic election victories can prove exactly the opposite. Some of the (mature) people can be fooled all of the time; all of the (mature) people can be fooled some of the time. Luckily, as the Hillsborough inquests show, all the people can't be fooled all of the time. You apparently support Thatcher (& her acolyte, Blair) in their destruction of communities on the altar of profit, their lauding of greed & selfishness, prejudice and intolerance and their use of whatever lies and armed force is needed to get their own way. I didn't, I don't and if your measure of success is surrender of values over time, thank the stars you weren't on the Hillsborough Families committee. | |
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| Hillsborough on 17:49 - Apr 29 with 1722 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 17:36 - Apr 29 by tony_roch975 |
DAlien - forensic interrogator, yet happy to misrepresent (like Thatcher). Where do I "equate.. the UK with Nazi Germany"?? You were the one claiming democratic election victories for Thatcher "prove" her policies were right. I merely gave you a fact from history to show that democratic election victories can prove exactly the opposite. Some of the (mature) people can be fooled all of the time; all of the (mature) people can be fooled some of the time. Luckily, as the Hillsborough inquests show, all the people can't be fooled all of the time. You apparently support Thatcher (& her acolyte, Blair) in their destruction of communities on the altar of profit, their lauding of greed & selfishness, prejudice and intolerance and their use of whatever lies and armed force is needed to get their own way. I didn't, I don't and if your measure of success is surrender of values over time, thank the stars you weren't on the Hillsborough Families committee. |
Rubbish, from start to finish. You've either not read or not understood previous posts.
After complaining earlier in the thread about my not being willing to engage in the debate, there's your answer as to why I won't engage with you, in particular. | |
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| Hillsborough on 18:07 - Apr 29 with 1702 views | robbowood |
| Hillsborough on 18:44 - Apr 26 by nordenblue |
What made Hillsborough unfit to host a football match,there was many many games held there before this happened without similar consequences and many after?
There are still lots of grey areas for me from what I've read on the story |
SOME FACTS
Hillsborough hosted five FA Cup semi-finals in the 1980s. A crush occurred at the Leppings Lane end during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers after hundreds more spectators were permitted to enter the terrace than could safely be accommodated, resulting in 38 injuries, including broken arms, legs and ribs.
Police believed there had been a real chance of fatalities had swift action not been taken, and recommended the club reduce its capacity. In a post-match briefing to discuss the incident, Sheffield Wednesday chairman Bert McGee remarked: "Bollocks–no one would have been killed".
The incident prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the layout at the Leppings Lane end, dividing the terrace into three separate pens to restrict sideways movement. The terrace was divided into five pens when the club was promoted to the First Division in 1984, and a crush barrier near the access tunnel was removed in 1986 to improve the flow of fans entering and exiting the central enclosure. Its capacity remained unaltered and the safety certificate was not updated. After the crush in 1981, Hillsborough was not chosen to host an FA Cup semi-final for six years until 1987
Serious overcrowding was observed at the 1987 quarter-final between Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry City and again during the semi-final between Coventry City and Leeds United. A Leeds fan described disorganisation at the turnstiles and no steward or police direction inside the stadium, resulting in the crowd in one enclosure becoming so compressed he was at times unable to raise and clap his hands Other accounts told of fans having to be pulled to safety from above
When Liverpool and Nottingham Forest met in the semi-final at Hillsborough in 1988, fans reported crushing at the Leppings Lane end. Liverpool lodged a complaint before the match in 1989. One supporter wrote to the Football Association and Minister for Sport complaining, "The whole area was packed solid to the point where it was impossible to move and where I, and others around me, felt considerable concern for personal safety". After changes to the ground's layout in 1981, its safety certificate became invalid and was not renewed.
At the time of the disaster, the ground had no safety certificate
Nottingham Forest supporters were allocated the South and East ends (Spion Kop) with a combined capacity of 29,800, reached by 60 turnstiles spaced along two sides of the ground
Liverpool supporters were allocated the North and West ends (Leppings Lane), holding 24,256 fans, reached by 23 turnstiles from a narrow concourse. Ten turnstiles (numbered 1 to 10) provided access to 9,700 seats in the North Stand; a further 6 turnstiles (numbered 11 to 16) provided access to 4,456 seats in the upper tier of the West Stand.
Finally, 7 turnstiles (lettered A to G) provided access to 10,100 standing places in the lower tier of the West Stand. Although Liverpool had more supporters, Nottingham Forest was allocated the larger area, to avoid the approach routes of rival fans crossing.
As a result of the stadium layout and segregation policy, turnstiles that would normally have been used to enter the North Stand from the east were off-limits and all Liverpool supporters had to converge on a single entrance at Leppings Lane.
People entering pens 3 and 4 were unaware of the problems at the fence; police or stewards usually stood at the entrance to the tunnel and, when the central pens reached capacity, directed fans to the side pens, but on this occasion, for reasons not fully explained, did not.
A BBC TV news report conjectured that if police had positioned two police horses correctly, they would have acted as breakwaters directing many fans into side pens, but on this occasion, it was not done.
In the half-hour before kick off, the approach to the Leppings Lane end quickly became congested. The 10,100 fans with standing tickets were expected to enter the ground through just seven turnstiles and by 14.30, fewer than half were inside. As more and more fans arrived, the crush at the front of the queue became worse - leading to the fateful decision to open the gates. The inquests heard this was the result of a number of failings.
Firstly, there was no police cordon on the approaches to the stadium to ensure fans formed "orderly queues or only those with tickets came near the ground". At the previous year's FA Cup semi final at the stadium, police cordons were in place regulating the entry of supporters. However, there were 172 fewer officers on duty on the day of the disaster. The police match commander, Chief Supt David Duckenfield, admitted in evidence that he should have given "serious consideration to cordons".
Police had also closed some turnstiles to keep Liverpool and Nottingham Forest fans apart. This decision - and the design of the approach to the stand - combined to make the congestion worse. The number of fans passing through each turnstile was three times higher than at other turnstiles in the stadium, an HSE investigation found in 1990. The Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), set up to oversee the release of documents relating to the disaster, concluded there was "clear evidence in the build-up to the match, both inside and outside the stadium, that turnstiles serving the Leppings Lane terrace could not process the required number of fans in time for the kick-off."
The area outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles was described as a "death trap" by former South Yorkshire Police inspector Gordon Sykes. He told the inquest the layout of the turnstiles had previously caused problems and the access route outside the ground meant fans would get "trapped" in corners or against fences and gates. "Up to 1989, I'm going to put it bluntly - we got away with it," he said.
Criticism of the turnstiles was rejected by Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell who said the number of turnstiles for the Leppings Lane terrace had proved "satisfactory" at previous games.
The inquest jury blamed police failures before and on the day of the tragedy. It noted that a road closure in the area had exacerbated the situation. No contingency plans were made for the sudden arrival of a large number of fans and attempts to close the stadium's perimeter gates, before fans reached the turnstiles, were made too late.
As the congestion grew worse near the turnstiles and mounted officers struggled to keep control, a radio request was made for reinforcements at 14.44. Some 2,000 Liverpool supporters were still outside and Ch Supt Duckenfield gave the fateful order to "open the gates", letting fans into the ground.
As Gate C was opened, most of the 2,000 fans headed straight down a tunnel towards the full central pens, creating the fatal crush. However, if the tunnel had been closed, fans would have been diverted towards the relatively emptier side pens, the inquests were told. This was a recognised method of restricting access to the central pens and had previously been used during the 1988 FA Cup semi-final.
Mr Duckenfield agreed his failure to close the tunnel "was the direct cause of the deaths of 96 people". The jury heard he had at least three minutes to "consider the consequences" of opening the gates. However, Mr Duckenfield admitted he did not think about closing the tunnel but "froze" because of the pressure he was under. In mitigation, he said he was working from a "deficient" set of police orders, which made no reference to closing the tunnel.
Lord Taylor, in his 1990 report into the disaster, considered it "unfortunate" the 1988 closure "seems to have been unknown to the senior officers on duty at the time". However, statements seen by HIP suggested that both Ch Supt Duckenfield and his predecessor, Ch Supt Brian Mole, were aware that the tunnel could be used to prevent overcrowding.
Lord Justice Taylor concluded the failure to close the tunnel was "a blunder of the first magnitude". The original investigation by West Midlands Police also concluded "failure to anticipate" that fans entering through exit Gate C and down the tunnel would lead to a sustained crush had a "direct bearing on the disaster".
The inquest jury said commanding officers should have ordered the closing of the central tunnel and their failure to do so caused, or contributed to, the fatal crush on the terrace.
Duckenfield also admitted at the inquests that even as the event was descending into horror and death, he had infamously lied, telling Graham Kelly, then secretary of the Football Association, that Liverpool fans were to blame, for gaining unauthorised entry through a large exit gate.
Duckenfield had in fact himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush in the bottleneck approach to the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
The chief constable, Peter Wright, had to state that evening that police had authorised the opening of the gate, but as these inquests, at two years the longest jury case in British history, heard in voluminous detail, Duckenfield’s lie endured. It set the template for the South Yorkshire police stance: to deny any mistakes, and instead to virulently project blame on to the people who had paid to attend a football match and been plunged into hell.
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.
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.
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 development”. 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.
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.
Within F division’s base at Hammerton Road station, rank-and-file officers believed that Mole, their popular “gaffer”, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 drunkenness”. 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 control”.
Duckenfield admitted quite readily in court that as people were suffering this terror, he told his lie to Kelly. This fiction, that fans without tickets had forced the gate, had already found its way to the BBC, reported as a version by John Motson, the television match commentator, at 3.13pm. Alan Green, commentator for BBC Radio 2, broadcast an unconfirmed report of “a broken-down door” at 3.40pm, then at 4.30pm he reported that police had said “a gate was forced” — the police story of misbehaviour settling on the initial public consciousness.
Jackson, the assistant chief constable who was at the ground as a guest of Sheffield Wednesday, was in the control room and heard Duckenfield say it. It took an hour for Jackson to learn the truth, when Marshall told him, at 4.15pm, that Duckenfield himself had ordered the gate opened.
Yet half an hour before that, when Jackson still believed — as he said in his evidence — that fans had “stormed” the gate, he had ordered Ch Supt Terence Addis, head of CID, to set up an investigation into the deaths. Addis, under questioning, said he had arrived at Hillsborough and talked to Jackson at 4pm but repeatedly said he could not remember what Jackson had told him; Addis said he did not think he had even asked Jackson for an initial view of what had caused the unfolding disaster.
Addis also denied that he had instructed his CID officers in the gymnasium to ask relatives about alcohol, but his account did furnish the families with an explanation for how they were questioned. The Hillsborough gymnasium was designated as the place to house bodies in a fatal emergency. With only four ambulances making it on to the pitch, 82 bodies were taken by supporters and police officers to the gymnasium, using advertising hoardings and even a stepladder as makeshift stretchers. Addis set up the gymnasium, he revealed, not just as a place of identification, but as the CID “incident room” — the centre for his investigation — “to try to identify the cause of the incident”.
I first stood on the Leppings Lane end (behind the nets) in 1974 - make no mistake the whole stand should have been bulldozed out of existence immediately after what happened in 1981
The FA also have a lot to answer for as there was no safety certificate at the time
All the bodies not only had blood tests to check for alcohol (the youngest was 10 the oldest 67) but they also had criminal record checks done on them as well
The police checked every off licence in the area and all the waste bins in the vicinity of the ground - they found not a scrap of evidence to suggest what happened was due to drunken hooligans which Duckenfield set out to maintain was the case
His lies to Graham Kelly and the media that the gates had been "forced open" (implying by Liverpool supporters) - when he gave the order to open them himself - should, if there is any justive, see him in jail for many years to come
If nothing else after 27 years we are finally getting the truth | | | |
| Hillsborough on 18:07 - Apr 29 with 1699 views | CamdenDale |
| Hillsborough on 17:49 - Apr 29 by D_Alien |
Rubbish, from start to finish. You've either not read or not understood previous posts.
After complaining earlier in the thread about my not being willing to engage in the debate, there's your answer as to why I won't engage with you, in particular. |
You don't agree with the inquest findings do you?
After all this time, when the facts have put under the microscope, you'd sooner judge on your own prejudice. You'd sooner believe a QC, a Chief Constable, a national newspaper editor because this is the natural order of things. Isn't that right? |  | | |
| Hillsborough on 19:03 - Apr 29 with 1612 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 18:07 - Apr 29 by CamdenDale |
You don't agree with the inquest findings do you?
After all this time, when the facts have put under the microscope, you'd sooner judge on your own prejudice. You'd sooner believe a QC, a Chief Constable, a national newspaper editor because this is the natural order of things. Isn't that right? |
Wrong.
It's really difficult to engage with people who can't follow admittedly complex arguments. | |
| |
| Hillsborough on 19:15 - Apr 29 with 1599 views | CamdenDale |
| Hillsborough on 19:03 - Apr 29 by D_Alien |
Wrong.
It's really difficult to engage with people who can't follow admittedly complex arguments. |
Not so complex D_Alien. Oh how we try your intellect though. Just address the inquest findings.
If your idea of complex is to conjure up Edmund Burke style defence of awful rotten practice as mysterious and good, then that will not stand. [Post edited 29 Apr 2016 19:20]
| | | |
| Hillsborough on 19:25 - Apr 29 with 1563 views | TalkingSutty |
| Hillsborough on 18:07 - Apr 29 by robbowood |
SOME FACTS
Hillsborough hosted five FA Cup semi-finals in the 1980s. A crush occurred at the Leppings Lane end during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers after hundreds more spectators were permitted to enter the terrace than could safely be accommodated, resulting in 38 injuries, including broken arms, legs and ribs.
Police believed there had been a real chance of fatalities had swift action not been taken, and recommended the club reduce its capacity. In a post-match briefing to discuss the incident, Sheffield Wednesday chairman Bert McGee remarked: "Bollocks–no one would have been killed".
The incident prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the layout at the Leppings Lane end, dividing the terrace into three separate pens to restrict sideways movement. The terrace was divided into five pens when the club was promoted to the First Division in 1984, and a crush barrier near the access tunnel was removed in 1986 to improve the flow of fans entering and exiting the central enclosure. Its capacity remained unaltered and the safety certificate was not updated. After the crush in 1981, Hillsborough was not chosen to host an FA Cup semi-final for six years until 1987
Serious overcrowding was observed at the 1987 quarter-final between Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry City and again during the semi-final between Coventry City and Leeds United. A Leeds fan described disorganisation at the turnstiles and no steward or police direction inside the stadium, resulting in the crowd in one enclosure becoming so compressed he was at times unable to raise and clap his hands Other accounts told of fans having to be pulled to safety from above
When Liverpool and Nottingham Forest met in the semi-final at Hillsborough in 1988, fans reported crushing at the Leppings Lane end. Liverpool lodged a complaint before the match in 1989. One supporter wrote to the Football Association and Minister for Sport complaining, "The whole area was packed solid to the point where it was impossible to move and where I, and others around me, felt considerable concern for personal safety". After changes to the ground's layout in 1981, its safety certificate became invalid and was not renewed.
At the time of the disaster, the ground had no safety certificate
Nottingham Forest supporters were allocated the South and East ends (Spion Kop) with a combined capacity of 29,800, reached by 60 turnstiles spaced along two sides of the ground
Liverpool supporters were allocated the North and West ends (Leppings Lane), holding 24,256 fans, reached by 23 turnstiles from a narrow concourse. Ten turnstiles (numbered 1 to 10) provided access to 9,700 seats in the North Stand; a further 6 turnstiles (numbered 11 to 16) provided access to 4,456 seats in the upper tier of the West Stand.
Finally, 7 turnstiles (lettered A to G) provided access to 10,100 standing places in the lower tier of the West Stand. Although Liverpool had more supporters, Nottingham Forest was allocated the larger area, to avoid the approach routes of rival fans crossing.
As a result of the stadium layout and segregation policy, turnstiles that would normally have been used to enter the North Stand from the east were off-limits and all Liverpool supporters had to converge on a single entrance at Leppings Lane.
People entering pens 3 and 4 were unaware of the problems at the fence; police or stewards usually stood at the entrance to the tunnel and, when the central pens reached capacity, directed fans to the side pens, but on this occasion, for reasons not fully explained, did not.
A BBC TV news report conjectured that if police had positioned two police horses correctly, they would have acted as breakwaters directing many fans into side pens, but on this occasion, it was not done.
In the half-hour before kick off, the approach to the Leppings Lane end quickly became congested. The 10,100 fans with standing tickets were expected to enter the ground through just seven turnstiles and by 14.30, fewer than half were inside. As more and more fans arrived, the crush at the front of the queue became worse - leading to the fateful decision to open the gates. The inquests heard this was the result of a number of failings.
Firstly, there was no police cordon on the approaches to the stadium to ensure fans formed "orderly queues or only those with tickets came near the ground". At the previous year's FA Cup semi final at the stadium, police cordons were in place regulating the entry of supporters. However, there were 172 fewer officers on duty on the day of the disaster. The police match commander, Chief Supt David Duckenfield, admitted in evidence that he should have given "serious consideration to cordons".
Police had also closed some turnstiles to keep Liverpool and Nottingham Forest fans apart. This decision - and the design of the approach to the stand - combined to make the congestion worse. The number of fans passing through each turnstile was three times higher than at other turnstiles in the stadium, an HSE investigation found in 1990. The Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), set up to oversee the release of documents relating to the disaster, concluded there was "clear evidence in the build-up to the match, both inside and outside the stadium, that turnstiles serving the Leppings Lane terrace could not process the required number of fans in time for the kick-off."
The area outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles was described as a "death trap" by former South Yorkshire Police inspector Gordon Sykes. He told the inquest the layout of the turnstiles had previously caused problems and the access route outside the ground meant fans would get "trapped" in corners or against fences and gates. "Up to 1989, I'm going to put it bluntly - we got away with it," he said.
Criticism of the turnstiles was rejected by Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell who said the number of turnstiles for the Leppings Lane terrace had proved "satisfactory" at previous games.
The inquest jury blamed police failures before and on the day of the tragedy. It noted that a road closure in the area had exacerbated the situation. No contingency plans were made for the sudden arrival of a large number of fans and attempts to close the stadium's perimeter gates, before fans reached the turnstiles, were made too late.
As the congestion grew worse near the turnstiles and mounted officers struggled to keep control, a radio request was made for reinforcements at 14.44. Some 2,000 Liverpool supporters were still outside and Ch Supt Duckenfield gave the fateful order to "open the gates", letting fans into the ground.
As Gate C was opened, most of the 2,000 fans headed straight down a tunnel towards the full central pens, creating the fatal crush. However, if the tunnel had been closed, fans would have been diverted towards the relatively emptier side pens, the inquests were told. This was a recognised method of restricting access to the central pens and had previously been used during the 1988 FA Cup semi-final.
Mr Duckenfield agreed his failure to close the tunnel "was the direct cause of the deaths of 96 people". The jury heard he had at least three minutes to "consider the consequences" of opening the gates. However, Mr Duckenfield admitted he did not think about closing the tunnel but "froze" because of the pressure he was under. In mitigation, he said he was working from a "deficient" set of police orders, which made no reference to closing the tunnel.
Lord Taylor, in his 1990 report into the disaster, considered it "unfortunate" the 1988 closure "seems to have been unknown to the senior officers on duty at the time". However, statements seen by HIP suggested that both Ch Supt Duckenfield and his predecessor, Ch Supt Brian Mole, were aware that the tunnel could be used to prevent overcrowding.
Lord Justice Taylor concluded the failure to close the tunnel was "a blunder of the first magnitude". The original investigation by West Midlands Police also concluded "failure to anticipate" that fans entering through exit Gate C and down the tunnel would lead to a sustained crush had a "direct bearing on the disaster".
The inquest jury said commanding officers should have ordered the closing of the central tunnel and their failure to do so caused, or contributed to, the fatal crush on the terrace.
Duckenfield also admitted at the inquests that even as the event was descending into horror and death, he had infamously lied, telling Graham Kelly, then secretary of the Football Association, that Liverpool fans were to blame, for gaining unauthorised entry through a large exit gate.
Duckenfield had in fact himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush in the bottleneck approach to the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
The chief constable, Peter Wright, had to state that evening that police had authorised the opening of the gate, but as these inquests, at two years the longest jury case in British history, heard in voluminous detail, Duckenfield’s lie endured. It set the template for the South Yorkshire police stance: to deny any mistakes, and instead to virulently project blame on to the people who had paid to attend a football match and been plunged into hell.
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.
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.
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 development”. 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.
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.
Within F division’s base at Hammerton Road station, rank-and-file officers believed that Mole, their popular “gaffer”, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 drunkenness”. 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 control”.
Duckenfield admitted quite readily in court that as people were suffering this terror, he told his lie to Kelly. This fiction, that fans without tickets had forced the gate, had already found its way to the BBC, reported as a version by John Motson, the television match commentator, at 3.13pm. Alan Green, commentator for BBC Radio 2, broadcast an unconfirmed report of “a broken-down door” at 3.40pm, then at 4.30pm he reported that police had said “a gate was forced” — the police story of misbehaviour settling on the initial public consciousness.
Jackson, the assistant chief constable who was at the ground as a guest of Sheffield Wednesday, was in the control room and heard Duckenfield say it. It took an hour for Jackson to learn the truth, when Marshall told him, at 4.15pm, that Duckenfield himself had ordered the gate opened.
Yet half an hour before that, when Jackson still believed — as he said in his evidence — that fans had “stormed” the gate, he had ordered Ch Supt Terence Addis, head of CID, to set up an investigation into the deaths. Addis, under questioning, said he had arrived at Hillsborough and talked to Jackson at 4pm but repeatedly said he could not remember what Jackson had told him; Addis said he did not think he had even asked Jackson for an initial view of what had caused the unfolding disaster.
Addis also denied that he had instructed his CID officers in the gymnasium to ask relatives about alcohol, but his account did furnish the families with an explanation for how they were questioned. The Hillsborough gymnasium was designated as the place to house bodies in a fatal emergency. With only four ambulances making it on to the pitch, 82 bodies were taken by supporters and police officers to the gymnasium, using advertising hoardings and even a stepladder as makeshift stretchers. Addis set up the gymnasium, he revealed, not just as a place of identification, but as the CID “incident room” — the centre for his investigation — “to try to identify the cause of the incident”.
I first stood on the Leppings Lane end (behind the nets) in 1974 - make no mistake the whole stand should have been bulldozed out of existence immediately after what happened in 1981
The FA also have a lot to answer for as there was no safety certificate at the time
All the bodies not only had blood tests to check for alcohol (the youngest was 10 the oldest 67) but they also had criminal record checks done on them as well
The police checked every off licence in the area and all the waste bins in the vicinity of the ground - they found not a scrap of evidence to suggest what happened was due to drunken hooligans which Duckenfield set out to maintain was the case
His lies to Graham Kelly and the media that the gates had been "forced open" (implying by Liverpool supporters) - when he gave the order to open them himself - should, if there is any justive, see him in jail for many years to come
If nothing else after 27 years we are finally getting the truth |
Excellent post. It wasn't unusual for Matchday commanders to suddenly have the role thrust upon them with very little experience even after the Hillsborough disaster. The Matchday Commander would often lean on the expertise of the regular Police Constable/ football liaison officer who made it his business to know every aspect of what was involved in policing a Football match, we had a good one at Rochdale.
The Matchday commander invariably would position himself in the Police Control Room and drink tea, sometimes oblivious of the Matchday set up, he relied on those of a lesser rank to advise him. I wouldn't be surprised if that still happens today at a lot of grounds up and down the Country. Many a Matchday Commander must look at Duckenfield and say 'there for the grace of God'. [Post edited 29 Apr 2016 19:43]
|  | | |
| Hillsborough on 19:36 - Apr 29 with 1551 views | CamdenDale |
| Hillsborough on 18:07 - Apr 29 by robbowood |
SOME FACTS
Hillsborough hosted five FA Cup semi-finals in the 1980s. A crush occurred at the Leppings Lane end during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers after hundreds more spectators were permitted to enter the terrace than could safely be accommodated, resulting in 38 injuries, including broken arms, legs and ribs.
Police believed there had been a real chance of fatalities had swift action not been taken, and recommended the club reduce its capacity. In a post-match briefing to discuss the incident, Sheffield Wednesday chairman Bert McGee remarked: "Bollocks–no one would have been killed".
The incident prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the layout at the Leppings Lane end, dividing the terrace into three separate pens to restrict sideways movement. The terrace was divided into five pens when the club was promoted to the First Division in 1984, and a crush barrier near the access tunnel was removed in 1986 to improve the flow of fans entering and exiting the central enclosure. Its capacity remained unaltered and the safety certificate was not updated. After the crush in 1981, Hillsborough was not chosen to host an FA Cup semi-final for six years until 1987
Serious overcrowding was observed at the 1987 quarter-final between Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry City and again during the semi-final between Coventry City and Leeds United. A Leeds fan described disorganisation at the turnstiles and no steward or police direction inside the stadium, resulting in the crowd in one enclosure becoming so compressed he was at times unable to raise and clap his hands Other accounts told of fans having to be pulled to safety from above
When Liverpool and Nottingham Forest met in the semi-final at Hillsborough in 1988, fans reported crushing at the Leppings Lane end. Liverpool lodged a complaint before the match in 1989. One supporter wrote to the Football Association and Minister for Sport complaining, "The whole area was packed solid to the point where it was impossible to move and where I, and others around me, felt considerable concern for personal safety". After changes to the ground's layout in 1981, its safety certificate became invalid and was not renewed.
At the time of the disaster, the ground had no safety certificate
Nottingham Forest supporters were allocated the South and East ends (Spion Kop) with a combined capacity of 29,800, reached by 60 turnstiles spaced along two sides of the ground
Liverpool supporters were allocated the North and West ends (Leppings Lane), holding 24,256 fans, reached by 23 turnstiles from a narrow concourse. Ten turnstiles (numbered 1 to 10) provided access to 9,700 seats in the North Stand; a further 6 turnstiles (numbered 11 to 16) provided access to 4,456 seats in the upper tier of the West Stand.
Finally, 7 turnstiles (lettered A to G) provided access to 10,100 standing places in the lower tier of the West Stand. Although Liverpool had more supporters, Nottingham Forest was allocated the larger area, to avoid the approach routes of rival fans crossing.
As a result of the stadium layout and segregation policy, turnstiles that would normally have been used to enter the North Stand from the east were off-limits and all Liverpool supporters had to converge on a single entrance at Leppings Lane.
People entering pens 3 and 4 were unaware of the problems at the fence; police or stewards usually stood at the entrance to the tunnel and, when the central pens reached capacity, directed fans to the side pens, but on this occasion, for reasons not fully explained, did not.
A BBC TV news report conjectured that if police had positioned two police horses correctly, they would have acted as breakwaters directing many fans into side pens, but on this occasion, it was not done.
In the half-hour before kick off, the approach to the Leppings Lane end quickly became congested. The 10,100 fans with standing tickets were expected to enter the ground through just seven turnstiles and by 14.30, fewer than half were inside. As more and more fans arrived, the crush at the front of the queue became worse - leading to the fateful decision to open the gates. The inquests heard this was the result of a number of failings.
Firstly, there was no police cordon on the approaches to the stadium to ensure fans formed "orderly queues or only those with tickets came near the ground". At the previous year's FA Cup semi final at the stadium, police cordons were in place regulating the entry of supporters. However, there were 172 fewer officers on duty on the day of the disaster. The police match commander, Chief Supt David Duckenfield, admitted in evidence that he should have given "serious consideration to cordons".
Police had also closed some turnstiles to keep Liverpool and Nottingham Forest fans apart. This decision - and the design of the approach to the stand - combined to make the congestion worse. The number of fans passing through each turnstile was three times higher than at other turnstiles in the stadium, an HSE investigation found in 1990. The Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), set up to oversee the release of documents relating to the disaster, concluded there was "clear evidence in the build-up to the match, both inside and outside the stadium, that turnstiles serving the Leppings Lane terrace could not process the required number of fans in time for the kick-off."
The area outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles was described as a "death trap" by former South Yorkshire Police inspector Gordon Sykes. He told the inquest the layout of the turnstiles had previously caused problems and the access route outside the ground meant fans would get "trapped" in corners or against fences and gates. "Up to 1989, I'm going to put it bluntly - we got away with it," he said.
Criticism of the turnstiles was rejected by Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell who said the number of turnstiles for the Leppings Lane terrace had proved "satisfactory" at previous games.
The inquest jury blamed police failures before and on the day of the tragedy. It noted that a road closure in the area had exacerbated the situation. No contingency plans were made for the sudden arrival of a large number of fans and attempts to close the stadium's perimeter gates, before fans reached the turnstiles, were made too late.
As the congestion grew worse near the turnstiles and mounted officers struggled to keep control, a radio request was made for reinforcements at 14.44. Some 2,000 Liverpool supporters were still outside and Ch Supt Duckenfield gave the fateful order to "open the gates", letting fans into the ground.
As Gate C was opened, most of the 2,000 fans headed straight down a tunnel towards the full central pens, creating the fatal crush. However, if the tunnel had been closed, fans would have been diverted towards the relatively emptier side pens, the inquests were told. This was a recognised method of restricting access to the central pens and had previously been used during the 1988 FA Cup semi-final.
Mr Duckenfield agreed his failure to close the tunnel "was the direct cause of the deaths of 96 people". The jury heard he had at least three minutes to "consider the consequences" of opening the gates. However, Mr Duckenfield admitted he did not think about closing the tunnel but "froze" because of the pressure he was under. In mitigation, he said he was working from a "deficient" set of police orders, which made no reference to closing the tunnel.
Lord Taylor, in his 1990 report into the disaster, considered it "unfortunate" the 1988 closure "seems to have been unknown to the senior officers on duty at the time". However, statements seen by HIP suggested that both Ch Supt Duckenfield and his predecessor, Ch Supt Brian Mole, were aware that the tunnel could be used to prevent overcrowding.
Lord Justice Taylor concluded the failure to close the tunnel was "a blunder of the first magnitude". The original investigation by West Midlands Police also concluded "failure to anticipate" that fans entering through exit Gate C and down the tunnel would lead to a sustained crush had a "direct bearing on the disaster".
The inquest jury said commanding officers should have ordered the closing of the central tunnel and their failure to do so caused, or contributed to, the fatal crush on the terrace.
Duckenfield also admitted at the inquests that even as the event was descending into horror and death, he had infamously lied, telling Graham Kelly, then secretary of the Football Association, that Liverpool fans were to blame, for gaining unauthorised entry through a large exit gate.
Duckenfield had in fact himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush in the bottleneck approach to the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
The chief constable, Peter Wright, had to state that evening that police had authorised the opening of the gate, but as these inquests, at two years the longest jury case in British history, heard in voluminous detail, Duckenfield’s lie endured. It set the template for the South Yorkshire police stance: to deny any mistakes, and instead to virulently project blame on to the people who had paid to attend a football match and been plunged into hell.
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.
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.
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 development”. 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.
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.
Within F division’s base at Hammerton Road station, rank-and-file officers believed that Mole, their popular “gaffer”, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 drunkenness”. 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 control”.
Duckenfield admitted quite readily in court that as people were suffering this terror, he told his lie to Kelly. This fiction, that fans without tickets had forced the gate, had already found its way to the BBC, reported as a version by John Motson, the television match commentator, at 3.13pm. Alan Green, commentator for BBC Radio 2, broadcast an unconfirmed report of “a broken-down door” at 3.40pm, then at 4.30pm he reported that police had said “a gate was forced” — the police story of misbehaviour settling on the initial public consciousness.
Jackson, the assistant chief constable who was at the ground as a guest of Sheffield Wednesday, was in the control room and heard Duckenfield say it. It took an hour for Jackson to learn the truth, when Marshall told him, at 4.15pm, that Duckenfield himself had ordered the gate opened.
Yet half an hour before that, when Jackson still believed — as he said in his evidence — that fans had “stormed” the gate, he had ordered Ch Supt Terence Addis, head of CID, to set up an investigation into the deaths. Addis, under questioning, said he had arrived at Hillsborough and talked to Jackson at 4pm but repeatedly said he could not remember what Jackson had told him; Addis said he did not think he had even asked Jackson for an initial view of what had caused the unfolding disaster.
Addis also denied that he had instructed his CID officers in the gymnasium to ask relatives about alcohol, but his account did furnish the families with an explanation for how they were questioned. The Hillsborough gymnasium was designated as the place to house bodies in a fatal emergency. With only four ambulances making it on to the pitch, 82 bodies were taken by supporters and police officers to the gymnasium, using advertising hoardings and even a stepladder as makeshift stretchers. Addis set up the gymnasium, he revealed, not just as a place of identification, but as the CID “incident room” — the centre for his investigation — “to try to identify the cause of the incident”.
I first stood on the Leppings Lane end (behind the nets) in 1974 - make no mistake the whole stand should have been bulldozed out of existence immediately after what happened in 1981
The FA also have a lot to answer for as there was no safety certificate at the time
All the bodies not only had blood tests to check for alcohol (the youngest was 10 the oldest 67) but they also had criminal record checks done on them as well
The police checked every off licence in the area and all the waste bins in the vicinity of the ground - they found not a scrap of evidence to suggest what happened was due to drunken hooligans which Duckenfield set out to maintain was the case
His lies to Graham Kelly and the media that the gates had been "forced open" (implying by Liverpool supporters) - when he gave the order to open them himself - should, if there is any justive, see him in jail for many years to come
If nothing else after 27 years we are finally getting the truth |
Thanks man. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 19:38 - Apr 29 with 1544 views | CamdenDale |
| Hillsborough on 19:25 - Apr 29 by TalkingSutty |
Excellent post. It wasn't unusual for Matchday commanders to suddenly have the role thrust upon them with very little experience even after the Hillsborough disaster. The Matchday Commander would often lean on the expertise of the regular Police Constable/ football liaison officer who made it his business to know every aspect of what was involved in policing a Football match, we had a good one at Rochdale.
The Matchday commander invariably would position himself in the Police Control Room and drink tea, sometimes oblivious of the Matchday set up, he relied on those of a lesser rank to advise him. I wouldn't be surprised if that still happens today at a lot of grounds up and down the Country. Many a Matchday Commander must look at Duckenfield and say 'there for the grace of God'. [Post edited 29 Apr 2016 19:43]
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Another excellent post TS. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 19:54 - Apr 29 with 1518 views | pioneer |
| Hillsborough on 19:25 - Apr 29 by TalkingSutty |
Excellent post. It wasn't unusual for Matchday commanders to suddenly have the role thrust upon them with very little experience even after the Hillsborough disaster. The Matchday Commander would often lean on the expertise of the regular Police Constable/ football liaison officer who made it his business to know every aspect of what was involved in policing a Football match, we had a good one at Rochdale.
The Matchday commander invariably would position himself in the Police Control Room and drink tea, sometimes oblivious of the Matchday set up, he relied on those of a lesser rank to advise him. I wouldn't be surprised if that still happens today at a lot of grounds up and down the Country. Many a Matchday Commander must look at Duckenfield and say 'there for the grace of God'. [Post edited 29 Apr 2016 19:43]
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In the case of Duckenfield, all indications are he wasn't very good at taking advice and to his shame at the first sight of things going wrong as a result of his poor decisions and lack of preparation his reaction was to lie and place blame on others, oh, and call for more police dogs. Id like to think other match day commanders would not have behaved in this way.
Clearly good character was not a requirement for leadership positions at SYP. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 20:09 - Apr 29 with 1495 views | TalkingSutty |
| Hillsborough on 19:54 - Apr 29 by pioneer |
In the case of Duckenfield, all indications are he wasn't very good at taking advice and to his shame at the first sight of things going wrong as a result of his poor decisions and lack of preparation his reaction was to lie and place blame on others, oh, and call for more police dogs. Id like to think other match day commanders would not have behaved in this way.
Clearly good character was not a requirement for leadership positions at SYP. |
The good bosses utilise the expertise of those around them,irrespective of rank. Some rise quickly to the top having hardly done any practical policing, fast tracked if you like. That's not a problem if they recognise their limitations and don't let their ego get in the way, manage the troops respectfully and let them get on with it. Like all jobs,good man management is key. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 20:11 - Apr 29 with 1492 views | CamdenDale |
| Hillsborough on 19:54 - Apr 29 by pioneer |
In the case of Duckenfield, all indications are he wasn't very good at taking advice and to his shame at the first sight of things going wrong as a result of his poor decisions and lack of preparation his reaction was to lie and place blame on others, oh, and call for more police dogs. Id like to think other match day commanders would not have behaved in this way.
Clearly good character was not a requirement for leadership positions at SYP. |
Aye on that. Duckenfield not up to job. That's that. It happens.
It's the herculean effort to hide this, use all kind of slurs as a political football, and to rubbish individuals and families in the press as somehow criminal and deserving. | | | |
| Hillsborough on 21:27 - Apr 29 with 1411 views | tony_roch975 |
| Hillsborough on 17:49 - Apr 29 by D_Alien |
Rubbish, from start to finish. You've either not read or not understood previous posts.
After complaining earlier in the thread about my not being willing to engage in the debate, there's your answer as to why I won't engage with you, in particular. |
And there's the rub, as the Bard put it. Every time someone refuses to engage in the debate but (as Camden rightly puts it) descends to their prejudice and unquestioning acceptance of the 'natural order', fascism is given permission to thrive. Robbowood's excellent factual reiteration of the failures and inevitability of the Hillsborough tragedy requires a full and careful reading - not giving up after a couple of lines. Yes it's a complex argument & most on this Board I'm sure are quite capable of coping with it, mainly because whilst you "didn't read any further" they do. You may see this forum as a bit of fun for you to toss about the odd crack but I'm afraid for me ensuring the rights of all human beings are protected against those in power over them is far more important. You throw around these insults and dismissals on this board with gay abandon as if they don't matter. But, as Bonhoeffer wrote, before the Nazis murdered him, if you aren't eternally vigilant against the abuse of power of the state (not the incompetence or negligence of Duckinfield or Sheffield Wednesday et al, but the fascist oppression of the weak by the Thatchers of this world) there will be no one there when they come for my children, grandchildren or you!!!! | |
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| Hillsborough on 22:57 - Apr 29 with 1329 views | R17ALE |
| Hillsborough on 21:27 - Apr 29 by tony_roch975 |
And there's the rub, as the Bard put it. Every time someone refuses to engage in the debate but (as Camden rightly puts it) descends to their prejudice and unquestioning acceptance of the 'natural order', fascism is given permission to thrive. Robbowood's excellent factual reiteration of the failures and inevitability of the Hillsborough tragedy requires a full and careful reading - not giving up after a couple of lines. Yes it's a complex argument & most on this Board I'm sure are quite capable of coping with it, mainly because whilst you "didn't read any further" they do. You may see this forum as a bit of fun for you to toss about the odd crack but I'm afraid for me ensuring the rights of all human beings are protected against those in power over them is far more important. You throw around these insults and dismissals on this board with gay abandon as if they don't matter. But, as Bonhoeffer wrote, before the Nazis murdered him, if you aren't eternally vigilant against the abuse of power of the state (not the incompetence or negligence of Duckinfield or Sheffield Wednesday et al, but the fascist oppression of the weak by the Thatchers of this world) there will be no one there when they come for my children, grandchildren or you!!!! |
I read that whilst imagining an Islington accent. You're good. I can't believe Jezzer has time to post on this forum! What with Ken and them Jews.
Hillsborough was called by all fans years ago. Shit police, shit cover up, shit treatment of fans.
It's taken all these years to prove what football fans knew all along. |  |
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| Hillsborough on 00:08 - Apr 30 with 1273 views | D_Alien |
| Hillsborough on 22:57 - Apr 29 by R17ALE |
I read that whilst imagining an Islington accent. You're good. I can't believe Jezzer has time to post on this forum! What with Ken and them Jews.
Hillsborough was called by all fans years ago. Shit police, shit cover up, shit treatment of fans.
It's taken all these years to prove what football fans knew all along. |
I wouldn't bother R17
All he's interested in is rubbishing Thatcher and regurgitating a simplistic, long-discredited socialist agenda, then starts typing furiously when someone posts an alternative point of view to lifelong illusions. I've tried, but after several attempts there's just nothing going in.
Jezzer's had the effect of bringing them all out of the woodwork, for one last gasp before their utopian dreams expire. I'm hoping for a few goals tomorrow! | |
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