Hillsborough Disaster | The 96 Finally Get the Justice They Deserve
27 years ago, 94 people lost their lives at Hillsborough Stadium. April 5th 1989 saw hundreds of people either killed or seriously injured at a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest when a human crush was caused by improper police action and defective stadium design. The following week, the number of those dead rose to 95, and again to 96 in 1993 when hospital treatment was removed on request from 22 year old Tony Bland – a Liverpool supporter who had been in a vegetative state for almost four years following the Hillsborough disaster.
In the 27 years since the tragedy, victims, family members, and supporters have been consistently denied justice for the 96 who died and the 766 others who were injured in the crush. That was, until, this Tuesday when it was announced that an inquest had finally ruled that those who lost their lives had been “unlawfully killed” and that absolutely no blame rested with the fans who attended the match. The verdict incited scenes of emotional celebration as families and fans were seen embracing and singing You’ll Never Walk Alone outside the courts on Tuesday morning.
The verdict was finalised by a jury at the inquest, who found that it was the dangerous construction and layout of Hillsborough stadium, as well as misconduct by the South Yorkshire police force, that led to the deaths and injuries of so many people. The jury were required to agree or disagree with 14 statements made by the courts including questions concerning the management of the stadium itself, emergency service responses, and the actions of the fans. The jury answered ‘Yes’ to every statement except that which asked whether “there (was) any behaviour on the part of football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles?” To this, and to a follow up question, the jury answered ‘No.’[pullquote]The verdict incited scenes of emotional celebration as families and fans were seen embracing and singing You’ll Never Walk Alone outside the courts on Tuesday morning.[/pullquote]
The court’s conclusion finally marks a victory for those who have spent years refuting the initial inquests – and the gross inaccuracies spread by certain press agencies – after the disaster. In 1989, the Taylor Report found that the majority of the blame rested with police failings and a lack of turnstiles within the grounds themselves. Although a follow up report in 1990 did lead to a serious overhaul concerning all stadium safety regulations in the UK, nobody was ever prosecuted.
And similar to newspapers like The Sun – who took it upon themselves to print ‘The Truth’ about the tragedy that wasn’t actually the truth at all but a comprehensive list of outright lies that presented football fans urinating on police officers and even stealing from the dead – the inquiry still managed to place some blame on the fans. According to Lord Justice Taylor, the supporters were “not drunk,” but their actions had “aggravated” the circumstances.
The 20th anniversary of the disaster, and the continued belief that much information about April 5th 1989 was being purposefully hidden from the public, saw the formation of the Hillsborough Independent Panel. It was after reports of the panel’s findings in 2012 that apologies were finally issued on behalf of the British government, the emergency services, and the police. Even The Sun’s former editor Kelvin MacKenzie has since claimed that publishing what he published was “a fundamental mistake” – a statement which many victims and families see as less of an apology, and more an attempt to shift the blame to a Tory MP, who MacKenzie claims had supported a lot of the lies the paper reported.[pullquote]When asked whether “there (was) any behaviour on the part of football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles?” the jury answered ‘No.’[/pullquote]
Tuesday’s verdict has confirmed that if it hadn’t been for a severe lack of police control and a poor stadium structure, so many innocent lives would not have been lost at Hillsborough. It was not the fault of the fans – so many of whom remained inside the stadium to help the critically injured – or ‘football hooliganism’ that led to this human crush, but an inadequate structure and an absence of police planning. In his book Hillsborough – The Truth, Phil Scranton carefully examines this link between so-called hooliganism and the violence it supposedly incites. In a passage that is easily comparable to the blame placed upon football fans after the Hillsborough disaster, Scranton says:
…‘Hooligan’ hysteria, however, continued unabated. After the 1985 Heysel tragedy, earlier calls for a return of the stocks, public flogging and spraying with dye were resumed on a wave of righteous indignation (…) Such instances were projected as mass civil disorder at all football matches (…) In making arrests, sometimes for the most innocuous reasons, the police often meted out arbitrary and violent punishments. If a ‘football hooligan’ took a beating, who cared?
Except this wasn’t just a beating. It was the loss of 96 lives – every single one of whom are finally being granted the justice they deserve after 27 long years. Speaking outside the courts on Tuesday, Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham made it clear how necessary this verdict was to those who had been affected by the tragedy.
“This has been the greatest miscarriage of justice of our times. But, finally, it is over,” he said. “The survivors of this tragedy can finally be remembered for what they were on that day – the heroes of Hillsborough who tried to help their fellow fans.”
