After 23 years, the families of the Hillsborough disaster victims finally start to find out the truth behind the cover-up which has denied them justice for so long.
Today, the Hillsborough Independent Panel Report showed that the South Yorkshire police had covered up evidence that it was their own failings that led to the death of 96 men, women and children. Not only did they lie, but they sought to sully the names of the dead by claiming that the Liverpool fans were to blame, that they were all drunk and ticketless and trying to force their way into Hillsborough football ground.
They did blood tests on the dead to see if any of them had been drinking. When the tests came back negative, they did criminal records checks on them in an attempt to blame those who could not fight back.
From the
BBC website:
Quote:
The Hillsborough disaster occurred when 96 Liverpool fans died after they were crushed within Sheffield Wednesday's stadium during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final with Nottingham Forest.
The fans who died had been in two pens of the Leppings Lane terrace. Each pen was separated by fences, including an overhanging barrier designed to prevent pitch invasions. Each pen had a small locked gate that opened onto the pitch.
[...]
"It is evident… that the safety of the crowd admitted to the terrace was compromised at every level: access to the turnstiles from the public highway; the condition and adequacy of the turnstiles; the management of the crowd by South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and the Sheffield Wednesday FC (SWFC) stewards; alterations to the terrace, particularly the construction of pens; the condition and placement of crush barriers; access to the central pens via a tunnel descending at a 1 in 6 gradient; emergency egress from the pens via small gates in the perimeter fence; and lack of precise monitoring of crowd capacity within the pens.
"These deficiencies were well known and further overcrowding problems at the turnstiles in 1987 and on the terrace in 1988 were additional indications of the inherent dangers to crowd safety. The risks were known and the crush in 1989 was foreseeable."
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It goes on.
The report also stated that 41 of the 96 victims could have been saved. How utterly heartbreaking for those families.
As a Liverpool fan, this is 23 years too late but at least its now coming to light.
But, I now want to see those involved in the cover-up brought to justice. That includes the vile piece of scum that is Kelvin McKenzie for his part in slandering the Liverpool fans, claiming that they pissed on the police and robbed from the dead.
