Hillsborough – Police Officer accepts responsibility.

Obviously, hindsight is always 20-20

The decision to release the outer gate to relieve the crush outside the gates was clearly the wrong decision, made for the right reasons – obviously the tragedy flowed from that fateful decision. I dare say that, putting ourselves in his shoes, knowing what was known then, many of us may have made the same call.

There were clearly lots of other factors involved, like the labelling on the tickets not matching the stands etc.

of course, none of that excuses the failure to see the following unfolding disaster and lack of action, or the cover up that followed.

the wrong decision, made for the right reasons

actually he’s already admitted it was the wrong reason made for the wrong reasons.

He hadn’t looked at the layout of the ground so thought the fans were going elsewhere when the gate was opened, they had no way of knowing how full the stands were bar looking at cctv which he couldn’t see and wasn’t functioning properly…the list goes on.

I meant more that the decision to open the gate was out of (what seems to have been genuine) concern about what was happening outside the turnstiles

It’s clear that they didn’t think about what happened next.

I am getting feed up with this. It feels like the people of Liverpool at look to be able to blame someone for it all. And god forbid its the fans.

There are lots of different people at fault
The fans – a number turned up without tickets (and some where climbing walls and jumping gates to get in) and they did push.
The Police – they didn’t have enough to handle the fans that where there. Also had do plan B or a good emergency plan. A poor gold commander
The FA/Ground – not fit for use and no rules for grounds.

But what about justest for the 39?

I am getting feed up with this. It feels like the people of Liverpool at look to be able to blame someone for it all. And god forbid its the fans.

Steady on there Kelvin…

I meant more that the decision to open the gate was out of (what seems to have been genuine) concern about what was happening outside the turnstiles

This +1, psycopath/sociopathy aside, people make decisions to do what they thought was the right thing. As long as he thought that opening the gate was the best thing to protect those fans being crushed outside the ground then that’s the only thing he could do.

Not excusing for the coverup, but that almost an inevitability with the blame culture in public service/the media. If the FA (and Police, media etc) acted more like the CSB (Chemical Safety Board in the US) and spent more time trying to figure out what happened and why without apportioning blame for it then we’d have figured all this out years ago.

that is why people in jobs of responsibility are paid better than those who put things in boxes all day.

presumably this guy will be going to jail at some point for this right?

What about surgeons, firemen, mountain rescue, paramedics, etc. Should every mistake at work be penalized with jail time? There’s a difference between a MD being jailed for corporate manslaughter as he cut back on the maintenance budget and something going wrong and someone making a mistake. You’re not paid more as some insurance/compensation for potential jailtime, you’re paid more as you’re in an ever narrowing pool of talent for a given role.

h1jjy – is Lanesra

spent more time trying to figure out what happened and why without apportioning blame for it then we’d have figured all this out years ago.

I sort of agree with the sentiment, and I believe that if more ‘leaders’ said right from the get go: “Yep, I did what I thought was the right thing, turned out it was wrong, horribly wrong, and the fault lies with me alone” the juries would have sympathy with that, and if the police had actually learned from this and other tragedies, we’d be getting somewhere. But time and again we find that we have to prosecute just to get the improvements required.

If I kill someone at work because I’ve not followed procedure, I will be prosecuted.

He didn’t even know the layout of the ground.
He was responsible for the lives of everyone attending that day.
He failed because he couldn’t be arsed to do his job properly.
Then he lied and blamed, amongst others, those whose deaths he was responsible for.

Not just a simple error, but an abjugation of responsibility and a casual disregard for the safety of those in his care.

If I kill someone at work because I’ve not followed procedure, I will be prosecuted.

What was the procedure for a match commander in the 1980’s? Was there a SOP for him to refer to like there is for everything nowadays? I don’t know?

He didn’t even know the layout of the ground.
He was responsible for the lives of everyone attending that day.
He failed because he couldn’t be arsed to do his job properly.

Did he fail to familiarise himself with the layout of the ground because he didn’t give a shit about what might happen, or because he was too arrogant to think he might need to know it, or did he intend to do it but got distracted by something else that needed doing, or due to his inexperience of this role did he not know that this was what he should do, or did it never cross his mind to do it, or was it in fact not something that any match commanders did in the 80’s?

With hindsight we know what the terrible outcome of that omission was, and looking back at the incident it seems so obvious that he should have known to do that, but did he know that at the time? Maybe he did, and couldn’t be arsed to do so, in which case it is fair to say he failed because he couldn’t be arsed to do his job properly. But maybe he didn’t, for whatever reason, and, incorrectly but genuinely, thought he had prepared thoroughly for his duty?

GA, It’s a reasonable point

But the evidence he has given this week makes it clear that his predecessors had detailed knowledge of potential for such a situation to develop.
Previous incidents at Wednesday had made this obvious.

But Dukinfield didn’t bother to ask or to make sure he was fully briefed.
Then lied.

I think binners has it spot on. The length of time the families have waited for this is disgraceful. Kelvin Mackenzie is amongst the lowest of the low, and in my eyes cannot look anyone from Liverpool in the face with any shred of dignity.

I stopped watching QT after one of his appearances on the show. I complained to the BBC that I would rather see my licence fee money spent sending him up the Mersey on a barge to wearing an ‘I love Margaret Thatcher’ t-shirt.

I hope that this inquest can give some shred of comfort to the families. It is far too long overdue.

I’m amazed we need an inquest, stw could have sorted it much quicker.

I’ve paraphrased the official BBC news reports and Dukinfields own admissions.

Which bits do you have an issue with?

No part in particular and not entirely aimed at you rusty. But perhaps once the inquest is over and the report is delivered definite conclusions can be drawn and things brought to a close.

GA, It’s a reasonable point

But the evidence he has given this week makes it clear that his predecessors had detailed knowledge of potential for such a situation to develop.
Previous incidents at Wednesday had made this obvious.

But Dukinfield didn’t bother to ask or to make sure he was fully briefed.
Then lied.

Yes, that’s true.

+1 for thegreatape & tinas

time to move away from blame culture, police don’t need castigation for action or inaction on the day but they do need stringing up for the cover up & spreading of miss information that followed, doubt that we will see that though 🙁

I don’t agree with this supposed “blame culture” against the police, if anything the media have a track record of just repeating any press release they make without question. The media will not question the polices actions at all until hard evidence has become widely available through other means.

It is used as an excuse for completely unacceptable behaviour by people who are given positions of trust and abuse them, and them blame everyone else instead of taking responsibility, as individuals or as an organisation.

If I kill someone at work because I’ve not followed procedure, I will be prosecuted

Depend what you did though?

I work in HSE in petrochemicals so there’s a fairly realistic chance that I will have a hand in designing something that will kill someone. But everything I’ve designed will have been checked and scrutinised to the Nth degree in review after review, done to inernational standards, corperate standards and then probably tweeked a bit better on top of that. The plant will be designed to opperate safely automaticaly, if that fails dangerous bits will be intirinsically safe (design pressures higher than any concievable upset case for example), then the automatic systems will be designed to fail safe, if that fails then relief and blowdown valves take away excess material and pressure, etc, in most situations credit for the guy in the controll room actualy being awake to follow the procedure isn’t even given (we give them 20 minutes to notice an alarm and carry out a simple task like pressing a shutdown button, anything more than that we assume they’ll mess up under pressure regardless of how much training they were given)! But it will kill someone.

I met the Malcolm Brinded (ex CEO of Shell, bizzarely on an MTB holliday not at work) and he knew exactly how many people had died as a result of projects he’d worked on, sanctioned, etc. That doesn’t make him criminal (we’ll ignore the cloud he left Shell under as a seperate matter).

It’s the difference between killing someone in a car accident whilst driving at an apropriate speed, following distance etc etc, against killing someone whilst doing 100mph past a school at 3:15, agaisnt deliberately driving a car at someone. His being in charge on the day doesn’t make him guilty, it’s possible that anyone else in that situation may have made exactly the same decisions, it’s possible that not making that decision may have caused other (maybe lesser, with hindsight hard to envisage worse though) problems.

It’s the need to pin the blame on someone that results in them closing ranks and covering up. At some point after the event he was in a situation to chose between the truth and the cover up, at that point he made a moral error of judgement, but:

1) I don’t believe he should be held responsible for the events on the day, that would be a dangerous precedent, we’d never find out what caused any disaster as no one would ever come forward with information for fear of being held responsible for their actions/mistakes. Reductio ad absurdium, we’d have to hold his police coleagues resposnible for the actions of a serial killer they didn’t catch as inevitably there would have been mistakes in that.

2) As a result of 1 being unlikley to happen he protected himself/the police. That was moraly and legaly reprihensible (but we can all understand why he did it).

The thing is with the police cover up over Hillsborough is that you can’t view it in isolation. You have to look at it as part of the prevailing culture within the force at the time. So its also worth looking at the Battle of Orgreave, which is very relevant. It shows all the same behaviours as Hillsborough. Complacency, and incompetence, followed by judgemental heavy handed tactics (massive understatement there), then blaming the victims (though at least they did’t try to prosecute the people who died – progress of sorts), then a familiar story of a cover up involving industrial scale fabrication of evidence, and a wall of lies, that went all the way to the top. Then feeding an entirely manufactured narrative to a complicit right wing press, that suited the political agendas of them all.

They most definitely thought they were above the law, or that the law didn’t apply to them, as long as they were following an agenda that politicians were definitely giving them tacit approval for.

Ninety-five picketers were charged with riot, unlawful assembly and similar offences after the battle. A number of these were put on trial in 1987, but the trials collapsed, all charges were dropped and a number of lawsuits were brought against the police for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. South Yorkshire Police later agreed to pay £425,000 compensation and £100,000 in legal costs to 39 pickets in an out of court settlement. Nevertheless, no officer was disciplined for misconduct.

Michael Mansfield QC described the evidence given by South Yorkshire Police as “the biggest frame-up ever”. He said that the force had a culture of fabricating evidence, which was not corrected by the time of the Hillsborough disaster. After the 2012 report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, NUM leader Chris Kitchen called for the investigation into the force’s practices to be widened to cover the Orgreave clashes.[3]

Unfortunately for the Hillsborough victims they came up against an organisation that was not only violent, confrontational and incompetent, but more importantly; well versed in doing what it damn well liked, with total impunity, and had a completely nonchalant attitude to organised, wide-scale fabrication of evidence, and casually fitting people up.

And thats why we are where we are, all these years down the line

Is anybody ever going to be held accountable for hillsborough, or Orgreave, or god knows what else the South Yorkshire force was up to at the time?

What do you think?

In relation to the soon to be closed (may already be!) thread, Ton is entirely entitled to his opinion. In many ways he’s right as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster

To quote Binners,

you can’t view it in isolation.

Also just want to say I do right bike …

I just stopped for a while due to lower back pain and work commitments.

I will start riding again may be with Raleigh Classic gent bike.

Christ, have you no taste?

At a time for those that were really affected by it, finally hear the truth spoken out loud and lay just a few of their horrors to bed, and a few internet big shots on Singletrack can’t wait to get in on the action.

Pathetic.

So thats it? All his fault?

He made the wrong decision however (for me) there were also other factors at play. This isn’t going to go down as blaming one man is it? Surely.

One day I’ll be taking my lad to his first game.

R.I.P.

Nobody is saying its one mans fault. What we’re saying is that one man has finally, after all this time, fessed up to what they’ve always denied. That they ****ed up, big time!!

Everyone makes mistakes. Some cost lives. However; that isn’t the point. The subsequent cover up, which was organised and malicious (and illegal), and sought to pin the blame squarely on the victims, is the point

Up until now South Yorkshire Police have doggedly maintained the ‘drunken ticketless fans’ charade, despite it being utterly discredited. Now someone has broken ranks and exposed this for the lie that it is.

This changes everything. There should now be criminal charges for perverting the course of justice, for a start. Will there be? Well the form isn’t good on this. We don’t really hold power to account in this country.

But I would imagine that the wheels of a lot of private prosecutions against South Yorkshire Police are getting into motion, and that given that admission, there are going to be some pretty hefty awards of damages to the families of the 96. And not before time too.

It still won’t be justice, of course. That would involve those who conspired so vindictively to obscure the truth, being held to account in a court of law, and sentenced accordingly. But like I said…. I’m not going to hold my breath

Has flashy used the phrase “association football” yet and explained that it’s where the word “soccer” comes from yet?

Pretty tasteless post IMO.

EDIT: it’s wort pointing out that both Liverpool and the rest of what was then the first division were heavily sanctioned after the Heysel disaster. But hey, it’s soccer, I wouldn’t expect certain forum members to see beyond the end of their noses when it comes to a chance to label the whole thing as a big hooligan escapade. Whereas in the case of Hillsborough…

Would the commander not be making decisions based on the feedback he was getting from his various sargents? So he could have had the suggestion made to him to open the Leppings lane turnstiles and gone with trusting the guy there.

Amazing that the policeman in charge has come out and admitted it was his fault but some internet experts still think they know best.

And CFH – what is your point exactly?

Far right groups have been known to cause a few problems with fisticuffs over the years. If the police march the next pegida rally into an alleyway from which there’s no escape, in which they know there’s a reasonable possibility of a serious crush and then not only don’t they take steps to avert the pressure when it builds up, they actively take steps to actively prevent aid coming to those who desperately need it – I assume you’d demand that everyone be mindful of the central importance of the murder of Stephen Lawrence to the issue at hand?

If people still want to believe the ‘drunken ticketless thugs’ narrative, despite all the evidence pointing to it being a conveniently manufactured smoke-screen, then I think it tells us all we need to know about their lazy, reactionary,ill-informed right wing prejudices

binners, I think people know that the police tried to cover their wrong doings. or anyone with any sense does, even me.
but, if stadiums had not been caged, the tragedy would not have happened, would it? anyone with sense must see this also.

he has to now be held accountable for his actions (or lack of) on that day. if he’d have been honest about that, at the time the families would have got some form of closure albeit it wouldnt have really eased their pain much.
however what he did do following the tragedy was to spin a web of lies. these lies were then backed up by yorkshire police. statements and evidence altered. these lies were continuously defended by all those involved in the cover up.
they were supported by the tory government. it was well known that thatcher had a strong hatred of liverpool due to her run ins with the trade unions etc. this was the establishments way of getting one over the people of merseyside.
i’m pretty sure i read somewhere that the government may have been in on the cover up and used this tragedy to try paint the victims as the perpetrators and therefore remove the blame from the police.
the sun newspaper also played a massive role in how the dead and the surviving fans were depicted. accusing them of being drunk and disorderly, then saying that the survivors were going round robbing from the dead and urinating on them….this was despicable.
where did the sun gets its information from? and who encouraged it to spin the lies? they were all in on it. i recall there was also a senior local politician who was also implicated in the cover up but he has since died.
yes i agree that its not down to one man and he should not be the only one punished for this. there were other players involved, but he was one of the key players and ultimately his decisions or lack of led to the tragedy that unfolded.
now that he has admitted to his part in the cover up…the rest of them now need to be brought to justice too.

Everyone makes mistakes. Some cost lives. However; that isn’t the point. The subsequent cover up, which was organised and malicious (and illegal), and sought to pin the blame squarely on the victims, is the point

Up until now South Yorkshire Police have doggedly maintained the ‘drunken ticketless fans’ charade, despite it being utterly discredited. Now someone has broken ranks and exposed this for the lie that it is.

This changes everything. There should now be criminal charges for perverting the course of justice, for a start. Will there be? Well the form isn’t good on this. We don’t really hold power to account in this country.

A million tomes this

the Points Gretape make re blameless enquiries also has a point

the Police covered their own arses after the event – we can proabbly all see why they did this and we can all see why it was wrong and indefensible [ but many of us would have done the same

It’s fear of being blamed/made a scapegoat that tempts people into telling lies and cover ups, and/or hasty public announcements.

I wholeheartedly agree that there should be appropriate consequences for those that give in to that temptation.
So this as well with a view to using a TJ style court to make sure we learn the mistakes so much quicker than we have here [ though everyone has know the police lied since the time anyway]

For me the worrying thing is how long it take to get justice [ for the 96] when the Police are criminals and involved in perverting justice. We still have not had a prosecution and I will be surprised if we do.

I do not know how we remedy this as the copper probably did make a split second judgement, in good faith, that ended very very badly.
It was his [ and i assume many other members of the forces] subesquent actions after this event hat were criminal IMHO

if stadiums had not been caged, the tragedy would not have happened, would it?

And if Liverpool did not have fans to attend it would not have happened
What is your point?

but, if stadiums had not been caged, the tragedy would not have happened, would it? anyone with sense must see this also.

you might have a point there Ton….but the FA and the club were well aware that the stadium was inadequate for a match of that magnitude. there were serious safety concerns that had already been highlighted from previous big games held there but the FA decided to ignore this and went ahead with sanctioning the game to go ahead.

It’s true to say that fan behaviour led to caged grounds. It’s also something of a red herring when examining what went wrong at Hillsborough. Yes, no one would have did if the cages weren’t there, but if the police had managed the crowd competently nobody would have died with them there (probably).

If the police had done everything right in terms of crowd control/movement/access and people had still died, then you could attribute the tragedy to the presence of the cages (or the stadium design or whatever).

If people still want to believe the ‘drunken ticketless thugs’ narrative, despite all the evidence pointing to it being a conveniently manufactured smoke-screen

Without even being there, it’s fair to assume there were a fair proportion of fans not forming an orderly que at the turnstiles, and a proportion of those weren’t sober.

Consider it as a swiss cheese model of disaster avoidance. For something to go wrong the disaster has to pass through several holes in order to occour.

The fans had to be unruly
The police had to make the wrong decision
The stadium had to be inadequate

If any one of those things hadn’t happened then it would be just another football game.

The police coverup was (IMO) and inevitablility of their lack of independance from the enquiry, turkey’s don’t vote for christmas. It doesn’t make it right, it just explains why they did it.

The fans had to be unruly

they were trying to get in and the safety concern was a crush not the behaviour.

Leppings Lane stand,[2] entry to which was possible only via one of seven decrepit turnstiles,[2] a restriction that led to dangerous overcrowding outside the ground before kick-off.

As a result of the stadium layout and segregation policy, turnstiles that would normally have been used to enter the North Stand from the east were off-limits and all Liverpool supporters had to converge on a single entrance at Leppings Lane.

The gun had to be there
there had to a bullet in it
I had to pick it up and shoot them

take any one of those three[ or the victim] away and I did not shoot them.
It would be false to say they were all equally responsible just because they all had to occur .

There being a crowd at a football match is the reason why the police had to do their job – not an excuse for not doing it.

I’m still unsure what this new admission adds. The original Taylor report in 1989 found the failure of Police control as the main cause.

Reality is we’ve know for years the main causes, which is why stadium were changed.

I’m still unsure what this new admission adds.

Its an admission. No matter what has happened so far, including the Taylor report, South Yorkshire Police have vehemently stuck to their story, and totally refused to accept any responsibility whatsoever for the deaths of 96 people. Continually claiming that their story of events – drunken ticketless fans – was the accurate one.

Now the officer in charge has admitted in totally unambiguous terms, repeatedly answering ‘yes sir’ when asked if he was responsible.

This changes absolutely everything. The legal representatives of South Yorkshire Police are about to be very, very, very busy ndeed. Thats if they bother to dispute it legally. Which would be stupid, given this admission

It also opens up pretty much everyone involved to criminal prosecutions for perverting the course of justice

Here hoping the CPS carry that through