It seems like yesterday, but it is now more than 30 years since that dreadful Saturday afternoon when a grandstand at Royal Ascot partially collapsed, crushing nearly a hundred spectators to death and injuring many more.
There is no real consolation to be had after such a disaster, it still makes my heart ache to think of it, but at least we know that the behaviour of the emergency and medical services on the day was heroic and could not be faulted, and that so much energy was put subsequently into pursuing a full enquiry, which very quickly identified what had happened, drew up failings and recommendations for improvements in safety regulations and - not least in importance - identified all the areas of accountability and proceeded to bring those responsible to justice.
It can have been of little comfort to the friends and families of the deceased, but it is pleasing that fair compensation was made in almost all of the cases, that all individuals or organisations who contributed to the accident by their own actions or errors were brought to very public account, and legislation was enacted to ensure that such a thing could never happen again. Of that much we can be proud.
Also, it is reassuring to recall that there was never any attempt to distort the story of what happened, nor to shift responsibility to the victims themselves, and - as I recall - no national newspapers or politicians were involved in a widespread campaign to cover up the facts, and no-one accused the families involved of being whining bin-dippers. At least I didn't hear of it.
Of course, it didn't really happen - not like that anyway. Around the same time, there was a crowd disaster involving Northern football fans, and it didn't go like that at all.
Even I am tired of this now. Having exonerated the crowd and the victims, the legal processes following the disaster which did take place - and they have moved with the speed and energy of a moth in treacle - have never been intended to deliver anything meaningful, ever. It has always been clear that eventually, if they held their breath for long enough, the people who caused the Hillsborough shambles and subsequently tried to change the narrative would never be answerable. It is surprising, but it still appears that no-one was at fault.
Not quite true - a former secretary of the football club at whose ground the accident occurred was fined a couple of years ago for not having his safety paperwork up to date. He was the token fall-guy, and he did not have to fall very far.
The latest - possibly the last - in a series of farcical legal non-events was a trial in Salford, involving three individuals - two former senior police officers and a lawyer who had acted on their behalf - who were accused of falsifying or amending police statements taken at the time. It ended a few days ago - a mistrial. It was a mistrial because the statements which were changed were for submission to the Taylor inquiry, which was not a court of law, so - on a technicality - VAR ruled it all offside. Case dismissed.
I expected nothing else, but I am more than a little cross to note that the lawyer who represented the lawyer (if you follow me) - a pip-squeak of a QC who has built a reputation on successfully defending crooks against all the odds (this is my interpretation, rather than the gentleman's actual wording in his promotional blurb) - also felt obliged to add the following comment to the BBC afterwards:
He said: “My client was accused of covering up criticism of the police. What he in fact did was cut out criticism of the Liverpool fans, whose behaviour was perfectly appalling on the day, causing a riot that led to the gate having to be opened, that unfortunately let the people in and crushed to death the innocents as they were – complete innocents – who were at the front of the pens, who had arrived early and were not drunk and were behaving perfectly well.”
So, it seems, the crowd behaved badly and were (by implication) drunk, and this was a major contributor to the event. He has also said a few other things elsewhere, but my blood pressure is not up to reading them again. His job for the day was to defend individuals accused of falsifying statements; the world does not wish to hear his personal views on the original disaster. The world, I believe, does not give a shit.
Whoever drummed up the crowd-funding necessary to get a 2nd Division QC to defend the case, it looks rather as though they didn't raise enough to get him to read through its archives. The alternative history version involving a rioting crowd was blown away in 2016. Old news. No good.
I don't know what happens next - probably nothing - but it would be nice to think that the QC in question might live to regret his words. Back in the day, Northern soccer fans were near enough to striking miners for Mrs Thatcher to be unable to tell the difference. I don't think that is going to wash now.
I refuse to get worked up about it, but I shall keep an eye open. God is listening. So is Mr Rees Mogg, apparently. That's a midfield to make anyone tremble.
***** Very Late Edit *****
It's been brought to my attention that, after the latest attempt at a trial was aborted (on, let us remind ourselves, a legal technicality), the defence lawyers expressed the views that the continuing persecution of the police offers involved was a "witch hunt" and a huge waste of public money, but that the dismissal of the case should put an end to suggestions of a cover-up.
No. Sorry. Everyone knows there was a cover-up. We haven't seen the full extent of it, but the solicitors should try to maintain some sense of reality. Give us a break.
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And here I at first thought this was an allegory to the insurrection in Washington DC in January...
ReplyDeleteIn the sense that my guess is that the Republicans will never allow anything to be done about it, there are definitely similarities! I doubt if my story travels well - my message is merely that if a disaster of similar dimensions had taken place in a different location within the UK, with different social implications, the subsequent investigations might have achieved something after all this time.
DeleteThe post title threw me for a minute there Tony, but then I got it (well it's still early). I can fully understand your anger, I could not believe it either when I saw it on the news. Hillsborough is etched into my memory as we were shopping in the CoOp store electrical section on the day and the disaster was playing out on multiple TV screens which was quite surreal, the volume was down, presumably to demonstrate the picture quality, and everyone was watching in disbelief, it was shocking to see.
ReplyDeleteAs for the QC, does not live in the real world of passionate and proud working class football fans, disgusting comments.
Eventually everyone will have died or become senile, and I think that will be mission accomplished. The only satisfaction - something I think we have to hang on to, is that creatures like Bettison [spit] may have got away with it, but the world knows him for what he really is. If some idiot QC stands up and adds any weight at all to the original lies, it helps to restore Bettison's credibility a little, and he might even sell a few more books on the strength of it...
DeleteThere is a special place in hell waiting for some of these guys - it seems important that they should spend the rest of their lives despised, even if they are not punished.
It still makes my blood boil Tony. I still come across people who still believe the lies that the Liverpool fans were a drunken mob who effectively killed the 96. In these things the original lies play to people’s prejudices and stick. And I’m not talking about posh southern types either. I’ve recently come across followers of my own football club repeating them. People who ought to know better. People who have probably stood on packed crumbling terraces with fences at the front.
ReplyDeleteOne small crumb of comfort about the recent court case is the CPS should be able to charge the same defendants with a different crime since. A police officer falsifying records has got to be a crime right?
That would be good, certainly - how funny would it be if the replacement charge turns out to be more serious?
DeleteTony,
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head, this farce of holding to account the real people responsible for this tragedy will never be allowed to come to a conclusion. Through legal process, delays whatever you wish to call it it will never reach a conclusion. I am aware of stories circulating within the Police service at the time as to what happened and how Officers statements were ‘ amended’ on instruction of senior officers.
One thing I did learn in all my time as a Police Officer and a pretty senior one at that is that Judges, Barristers etc are reluctant to see their own profession brought into disrepute and once you enter the legal world any real sense of reality, common sense and real justice ceases to exist. It’s their world and we humblies don’t count for much. I could go on and on as it makes my blood boil that the legal system is nought but a game for those who hold the power. A closed shop.
Hillsborough portrays this to perfection, if the truth is close to being exposed then delay, stall, look for legal challenge until it is either forgotten or it’s too old to make it worthwhile.
I can see the face-saving thing for the legal bods, though Mr Goldberg QC may have damaged his rep a little. I think there has also been a reluctance - especially back in the 1980s - to undermine the sanctity of the police themselves. The police, I have always thought, do a decent job in the most thankless of circumstances, but when it got political I fear that there may have been a tendency to cover-up rather than risk loss of public confidence. Bettison is a favourite demon of mine - when he moved to work in Liverpool he made some positive changes in community policing and with juvenile liaison, but he was always above criticism - people feared for their jobs, sometimes for their personal safety [allegedly]. My uncle was a policeman in Liverpool in the 90s, and he took early retirement rather than put up with the regime. And don't get me started on Freemasonry...
DeleteI still believe that the Royal Ascot Inquiry would have gone rather better!
DeleteDon't hold your breath. They say the law is an ass. An ass is a herd animal that always clings together to protect its own.
ReplyDeleteI think that's right. As time passes, I'm getting more confused about what they can be protecting. Are they waiting for the prime suspects to die, so they can be officially blamed - a bit like Jimmy Saville (did I write that out loud?).
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