Hillsborough

[Patrick Dixon]

Many public figures have expressed shock and surprise at the findings released earlier this week, but pretty much all of it has been public knowledge for a good while, and only the perpetrators and their accomplices in the grand cover-up have been in denial.

This article (http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/apr/13/hillsborough-disaster-police-south-yorkshire-liverpool?cat=football&type=article) published 3 &1/2 years ago gives a potted summary.

Makes all the 'shocked' apologies from The Sun, Kelvin McKenzie, various politicians, The South Yorkshire Police, The FA etc seem rather hollow I think - if they didn't already know what had gone on, they sure as hell should have done a long time ago.

Two-faced liars the lot of them.

Justice for the 96.

[DaveK]

Wot 'e said ^ +1 but I don't think the whole truth is 'out' yet.

[Macca]

My father and one of my brothers were there. They arrived about 40 minutes from kick-off, went through the turnstile and straight down into the pen that would be the scene of the later tragedy. About ten minutes from kick-off my father said to my brother : 'This pen is already crowded and everyone who turns up late will come straight down here as it is the first pen from the entrance. Look at the pens at the sides - they are amost empty, lets move round there.'

So they did - otherwise they would both quite likely have died that day.

[bobbasrah]

Makes all the 'shocked' apologies from The Sun, Kelvin McKenzie, various politicians, The South Yorkshire Police, The FA etc seem rather hollow I think - if they didn't already know what had gone on, they sure as hell should have done a long time ago.

Two-faced liars the lot of them.

Justice for the 96.

I could not agree more...
The way the FA and Police tried (and largely succeeded) to sweep their own culpability under the carpet, compounded by subsequently rigging of statements and evidence to the enquiries, was abuse of office and dereliction of duty, of the highest order.
Considering the steam-roller politics of the time, it is highly likely that the political establishment knew damned well what had happened, but colluded in hushing the whole thing up with help from friends in the press.
The political rhetoric rings as hollow now as it did all those years ago from HMG.

Whatever justice is now belatedly delivered is due entirely to the determination, passion and obstinacy of a small group of campaigners, who should be roundly applauded.