Whilst we – the British – as a nation yet bask in the glow of satisfaction engendered by the successful organisation of games Olympic and Paralympic – at having rediscovered ourselves as a race – at having regarded ourselves in the mirror and, to our surprise, having rather liked what we saw…
…comes a shocking revelation of the truth concerning a scandalous incident from our recent history, on the subject of which all of us (with a very few exceptions) should feel deeply and profoundly ashamed.
The independent report into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 in which 96 Liverpool Football Club fans lost their lives has concluded that not only were the fans in no way to blame for the disaster – as had been strenuously suggested over an extended period – but that the South Yorkshire police and the emergency services had done their very best to divert attention away from their own culpability and their failings on the day, to the extent of having altered more than 160 critical witness statements from their own members in order that they might obfuscate the truth.
Had it not been for an obdurate 23 year campaign by the relatives of the dead the independent enquiry would not have been set up – the more than 400,000 pages of previously suppressed documentation would not have been released – and the appalling truth would not have been laid bare.
This has been a day of apologies – from the Prime Minister on behalf of the government and the nation – from the South Yorkshire police, whose crowd control failure has long been held to be the primary cause of the disaster – from the Sheffield ambulance service, whose failure to get other than a single ambulance into the ground contributed to the deaths that occured long after the initial crush – from Sheffield Wednesday football club, at whose then substandard ground the fixture was held – from the Sun newspaper which, at the promptings of the police and briefed by a member of the then Conservative government, printed a scrurilous story claiming that that tragedy had been caused by drunken, ticketless fans – under the banner headline (insisted upon by the editor at that time, Kelvin MacKenzie) which read – “The Truth”…
The coroner who refused to accept that any of the deaths occured after 3:15pm – thus precluding at the inquest consideration that more than 40 of the fatalities might have been avoided by prompt action from the emergency services – has not yet apologised.
Now that the truths have finally been revealed – and widely acknowledged – some belated attempt at justice might perhaps be made. There should be no sense however – other than for those who have campaigned so long against apparently insuperable odds – of satisfaction at the outcome. All of us should perhaps feel a deep sense of shame – shame that our nation was capable of perpetrating and perpetuating this appalling cover-up – shame that we continued to vote for the politicians who, in spite of their knowledge of the existence and, in some cases, of the contents of the suppressed documentation, continually refused to take any action or to criticise the police – shame that we continued to purchase the offending tabloid newspapers – shame that we grumbled at the repeated efforts of the campaigners to achieve recognition of their case – shame that we did not shout loud enough and long enough that the truth must be revealed, thus failing the bereaved for two long decades.
I still recall watching the terrible events of that day unfolding on the live TV coverage, and being horrified even then that such a thing was possible in the United Kingdom. Each time the tragedy has been revisited in documentaries or articles throughout the intervening years the horror and sadness has come back to me, frequently moving me to tears. Now that sense of horror and incomprehension is edged with shame and anger.
What took place on 15th April 1989 was an avoidable tragedy – what happened subsequently is unforgivable.
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