Five things we learned from Cameron's Hillsborough statement
Could some of the victims have been saved?
By George Eaton Published 12 September 2012 14:33
David Cameron's statement on the Hillsborough tragedy has rightly been praised by all sides for its dignified and heartfelt character. As when the Bloody Sunday report was published, the Prime Minister spoke for the nation, declaring that he was "profoundly sorry" that this injustice had been "uncorrected for so long".
You can read the 395 page report in full here, but here are five of the key points from Cameron's statement.
1. Crowd safety was "compromised at every level"
A series of new documents reveal the extent to which the disaster was foreseeable. As Cameron said,"The turnstiles were inadequate. The ground capacity had been significantly over-calculated. The crush barriers failed to meet safety standards. There had been a crush at exactly the same match the year before. And today’s report shows clearly that lessons had not been learnt."
2. 164 police statements were doctored
In an attempt to divert the blame onto the fans, 164 police statements were "significantly amended", while 116 explicitly removed negative comments about the policing operation, including its leadership.
3. Police carried out computer checks on the dead
Perhaps most shockingly, police officers carried out national computer checks on those who had died in an attempt, as the report puts it, "to impugn the reputations of the deceased." In addition, the Coroner took blood alcohol levels from all of the deceased including children, a decision for which there was no reasonable justification. The attempt of the original inquest to draw a link between blood alcohol and late arrival was "fundamentally flawed".
4. The original inquest was wrong
The original coroner's inquest was wrong to suggest that beyond 3.15pm there were no actions that could have changed the fate of the 96 victims. Cameron announced that the independent panel found that "28 did not have obstruction of blood circulation and 31 had evidence of heart and lungs continuing to function after the crush." Individuals in those groups could have had potentially reversible asphyxia beyond 3.15pm.
5. A new inquest?
Cameron announced that the Attorney General would examine the new evidence immediately and "reach a decision as fast as possible", although it was ultimately for the High Court to decide. The Commons will have the opportunity to debate the report in full when it returns after the party conference season in October.
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6 comments
Two of these comments are either disappointing or unpleasant in the extreme after a thoughtful article by George Eaton correctly analysing a very sincere statement by David Cameron.
I hope the ones that follow show some more respect for the situation.
John woods, I always thought you were a particular nasty piece of excrement and there you go and prove me so right.
DAVIDALINDSAY, you are nearly as bad to try and have a pop on today of all days.
Look, apologising for something which is not your fault is just ludicrous: posture politics. Call me Dave was still in college at the time, as was I. Maybe he ought to be making an apology to the people of Belgium and Italy for the Heysel massacre.
I was at the Arsenal game the day of Hillsborough, and the initial thought of both home and away fans when the initial reports came through on the radio was an automatic assumption that the Liverpool fans had attacked the opposition a la Brussels (the fact that it wasn't true does not alter the fact that this was the automatic reaction, given their previous record)
You could look up the charming songs which Liverpool fans sing about the Munich air crash ("Who's that dying on the runway") and also the fact that they bring Steuer Bucharest flags to the Everton game -(this one is a bit historically complex for you younger readers - Steuer Bucharest won the European Cup the yr after Heysel: Everton were the favourites that year but were unable to compete becausue of the ban on English clubs following Heysel. How bloody funny.
Can this really have happened: a Prime Minister who identifies as the heir both of Thatcher and of Blair has hung The Sun, of which Murdoch is not only proprietor but also Editor-in-Chief, out to dry? Yes. Yes, it has. This is what France must have felt like on the eve of the Liberation.
"The Panel has quite simply found “no evidence” in support of allegations of “exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans”….
God, don't you just lurrrve the word "exceptional" here. In other words the levels of drunkenness ticketlessness and violence were only roughly what you'd expect from Liverpool fans.
Look, before the Scousers go off on another decade long self pity bout of the type they seem to excel at, let's get a few things straight here: these people died because of security fences that were put into football stadia throughout the 80s: these were there because of the appalling behavious of football fans during that period, of which the Liverpool fans were among the worst offenders, and because a large number of people DID turn up without tickets, something which the Bishop will no doubt continue to obscure. Supt Duckinfield has always been held up as the scapegoat here, but again, no one is asking the inconvenient question: what would have happened if he had NOT given the order to open the gates, and a similar incident had occurred at the gates: the gates were opened because of the crush caused by impatient (and yes, frequently ticketless) fans who were causing a crush at the gates.
Anyone who attended a game during the eighties which attracted large numbers of Liverpool away fans will realise that their reputation for unpleasantness was entirely merited
Point 4. No. The report specifically emphasises that the 31 and 28 figures shouldn't be added together as some fell into both groups. The Panel were also careful to say that the potential to save their lives was there, but stop short of saying they could have been saved.