Nobody would blame the Hillsborough families if they were numbed to any further pain by now. It’s 36 years and counting since the crush at the Leppings Lane end that killed 97 supporters at the Liverpool v Nottingham Forest FA Cup semi-final. Since that April Saturday in 1989, they’ve been ignored, lied to, lied about and gaslit at virtually every turn. After all this time, they are entitled to think that nobody can hurt them any more.
And yet the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) still loaded up another few rocks into the slingshot last week and started flinging wildly about the place, not particularly caring who got hit. In response to the long-awaited report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which found that if current law was in place back then, 12 police officers up to and including the chief constable would face charges, SYP spokesman Steve Kent went on the offensive.
“South Yorkshire Police Federation is aware of today’s Independent Office for Police Conduct report into the Hillsborough disaster,” said Kent. “The report is a significant waste of taxpayers’ time and taxpayers’ money. It is not fair or balanced.
“Former police officers – some of whom are very elderly and some who have sadly passed away – do not have any kind of due process or the ability to formally respond to the allegations made in this report.
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“These are opinions of the IOPC essentially being dressed up as statements of almost fact. We emphasise that these are just allegations. Our former colleagues do not have and have not had the right to reply to any accusations. They should not face trial by media.
“It is with this context that we should rightly question the value of this much-delayed report and its multi-million pound cost to the public purse. Our thoughts remain with all those affected by this terrible tragedy.”
Do they, though? Because if your thoughts genuinely remained with the 97 people who died, ranging in age from 10 years old to 67, surely you’d think of another form of words than pointing out that some of the police officers involved are now quite elderly.
As the indefatigable Margaret Aspinall pointed out on Sky News during the week, her 18-year-old boy James would love to have their problems. “My son didn’t reach the age of 85,” she said. “He died for no reason. To reach an old age like they have, how lucky are they? How dare they insult us like that.”
And as for trial by media, where do you even begin? Imagine the neck it takes to even use that phrase within earshot of the Hillsborough survivors. There’s arguably no group of people in the past century of British life whose reputation was more flagrantly abused by the media than the Liverpool fans who attended that game.
[ Report details widespread police failings over 1989 Hillsborough stadium disasterOpens in new window ]
The IOPC report is far from perfect but it is forensic and precise about the shameful stuff that made it into the press in the days that followed the disaster. And, more to the point, how it got there.
It identifies one senior policeman, a Chief Inspector Sumner, as the source of the claim in both the Daily Mail and the Sheffield Star that, “excessive drinking was a major contributory factor”. This morphed in various outlets into stories about tanked-up yobs either being one of the causes of the crush or slowing down relief efforts or both. It was all nonsense, fabricated to shift attention from police failures to blame the fans.
The IOPC report is absolutely clear on how far from reality the drunken fans claim was. “The IOPC has not found any evidence to suggest that the behaviour of supporters caused or in any way contributed to the disaster . . . The majority of third-party accounts, images and video do not support the suggestion that drinking was at unprecedented levels.”
The report further found that the South Yorkshire Police were responsible for so many of the destructive and false stories that were published in the days following the disaster. The Times had a line about officers being kicked and punched repeatedly while carrying a dead nine-year-old girl from the scene – despite the youngest female victim being 15. The Sheffield Star quoted a “high-ranking officer” to the effect that fans were “picking coins up off the floor as victims lay needing help”.
All of these stories eventually coalesced in the notorious story in The Sun, headlined ‘Hillsborough: The Truth’. According to the IOPC report, “The key difference between The Sun’s coverage and that of other papers was that, rather than couching the stories in the language of allegations, The Sun published them as facts – emphasised by its headline.”
But whether they were presented as allegations or facts, the one thing that is clear is that they originated with the South Yorkshire Police. They couldn’t logically have come from anywhere else. And they have the gall now to whinge about trial by media?
After 36 years and countless inquests and investigations costing somewhere in the region of a quarter of a billion pounds, you would think the police could just leave it now. Not a single police officer has ever been charged with an offence around Hillsborough and not a single police officer ever will be. Despite the IOPC report outlining what charges could be brought had the law as it exists now been in place back then, it just isn’t legally possible.
But instead of taking the win, the South Yorkshire Police somehow still feel the need to contest history, regardless of how hard it is for the victims of Hillsborough to have to endure it yet again. Not alone that, they have done so with the belligerence and hostility of an organisation that looks across the table and sees an opponent that needs to be quashed rather than a group of victims that needs to be helped.
The Hillsborough families would tell you it has been this way from the start.
