Hooptedoodle #311 - The Unbeatable Strategy - Do Nothing

There are few things more pathetic than the rage of an old man, so I'll spare you any tantrums this morning. I have to say, though, that I am saddened - though not really surprised - to observe that all charges against Sir Norman Bettison in connection with the Hillsborough disaster (1989) have now been dropped by the UK Crown Prosecution Service.

Given time, everything will pass away

If anyone feels suddenly weary, or stifles a yawn at mention of Hillsborough after all these years then I understand, but thereby lies the central theme. It was a very long time ago. That has always been the last hope of those with something to hide, or those who are already known to be responsible. It was a long time ago - if this can be spun out for long enough, there will be no-one left alive with any accurate recollection or any cause to pursue. I always knew this would be the last remaining strategy, it's just a bit of a shock when you see it in the papers, after all the noise and hypocrisy.

To remind ourselves (all right - myself), 96 football fans died at the Hillsborough soccer ground, in Sheffield, at a match in 1989 - crushed to death - killed by a combination of poor safety provision, bad crowd management on the part of the authorities and (allegedly) inadequate emergency support on the day. I wasn't involved, I wasn't there, I didn't lose any friends or relatives in the accident (though, like everyone with connections with the City of Liverpool, I know a number of people who were directly affected). Subsequently there were a number of enquiries into the matter, none of which seemed to clear up very much. As I understand it, in 1997 the then UK Home Secretary, Jack Straw, advised Prime Minister Tony Blair that digging up Hillsborough again for yet another investigation was unwise, since (in effect) everyone was getting a bit fed up with the whole business. Work to set up another public enquiry at that time appears to have been hamstrung by a directive that enough time had been spent on this, and everyone would lose credibility if it found anything new.

The whole thing seems to have stunk to high heaven right from the beginning. From a completely personal point of view, I don't find that much of a surprise. Over my lifetime, I have sort of grown used to things which stank to high heaven, of cover-ups at all levels of officialdom to suit the political ends of the day. If in your heart you have a little light which believes that justice and truth will win in the end then I am glad for you and I envy you. My little light went out many years ago.

I have lived in a state of disbelief since September 2012, when an independent enquiry into Hillsborough overturned much of the previous work, and produced a stack of evidence which changed the earlier findings - there had been incompetence, there had been a massive cover-up and there were people who would be held accountable. It wasn't, after all, simply the dead fans' own fault.

I was actually in Liverpool on the day the report was published, and I saw crowds of people singing hymns in the rain outside St George's Hall - it felt unreal - a bit like when the Berlin Wall came down. The beginnings of the idea that there might, somehow, still be some Justice for the 96 was very strange, and yet it was really happening - there were apologies from the Prime Minister in the House of Commons (by this time it was David Cameron) for the previous failure of the legal system and of the Establishment. Good Lord, even the bloody Sun apologised (which somehow redefines, and cheapens, the whole concept of contrition). Whatever next?

Well, I guess I always knew what would happen next. We would enter a stage of official foot-dragging. A few token (lightweight) sacrifices would be lined up to carry the can, and then the system would wait until the passage of time washed away the case against the rest. Things proceeded, shall we say, very slowly. The identified bad guys came in various categories - those who had done their job badly at the time, and those who orchestrated the terrifying cover-up - including falsification of evidence and witness statements. Six years later, a couple of days ago, it still seemed unbelievable that we had got to the point where six prime suspects were now charged and sentence would proceed, but it was, apparently, going ahead (if we lived long enough).

Five of those now charged and held to be accountable are to return to the court in Preston - I'm not sure when, and I'm not sure if this next session will actually get as far as sentencing - my confidence in that is not helped by yesterday's news

Put this in perspective. Bettison was not directly involved in the tragedy, but has been a high-profile prime mover in the (alleged) blame-shifting and misrepresentation which has followed. Also - let's face it - he is an easy guy to dislike, but it's necessary to remember that he is a minor player in this. In the week the Independent Enquiry delivered in 2012, Bettison was in the papers and on TV, re-stating the original police version of events. Now that the charges have been dropped against him, he has the lack of grace to claim publicly that he is vindicated. No he bloody isn't. He is a very lucky boy indeed. The official foot-dragging paid off for him; he got off on a technicality. The case against him (telling lies in a public office, which in theory is more serious than it sounds) finally collapsed because it relied on three chief witnesses - one has died, and one of the others (now 85) shows some inconsistency in her evidence. Time up - the CPS says that's enough, the charges are dropped, and Sir Norman can go back to his public speaking and selling his justificatory books. If he has any integrity at all, he will go and sit in a very quiet, dark corner, and have a good think about himself.

What next? One theory is that dropping the Bettison charges is just a try-out. If the world doesn't erupt, and God doesn't strike us all down for this, then we can expect any subsequent sentences on the other five to be very trivial indeed. Well, if I were a betting man, I would risk a small punt that the lawyer who fiddled with the evidence and the then-secretary of Sheffield Wednesday (whose ground it is) might be the fall guys. I suspect the senior police officers will walk out of there with a stern warning. It's hardly going to affect their careers now, is it?

You see, it was a very long time ago, and the world has got pretty fed up with us lot from the Self-Pitying City of Liverpool. Move on - nothing to see here.