Hillsborough

[emilystrange]

Emotional day.
Excellent verdicts all round. Kudos to coroner and jury.
Massive, massive respect and to all the families and campaigners.
Words are not enough

[Swinnow]

Well said.

Justice starting to be done at long last.

BOOM!!!!!!

[Pista]

Absolutely.
So how long will it take for the guilty parties to get their comeuppance?

[markfiend]

I bet it will be deemed "not in the public interest" to actually put any of the coppers on trial.

[Alex66]

I bet it will be deemed "not in the public interest" to actually put any of the coppers on trial.

Well there is a claim by Theresa May that they will go for prosecutions so I guess from past observation that some totally insignificant scape goat will be found.

[EvilBastard]

I bet it will be deemed "not in the public interest" to actually put any of the coppers on trial.

Well there is a claim by Theresa May that they will go for prosecutions so I guess from past observation that some totally insignificant scape goat will be found.

I'm torn - there's part of me wants the book thrown at Duckenfield as the author of this debacle and of the subsequent smokescreen which has left the families of the victims waiting for answers for more than a quarter-century.

On the other hand, I'm not absolutely convinced that holding one officer (or several, come to that) responsible is fair - his actions were a symptom of years of SYP's heavy-handed approach to policing groups which were considered "undesirable" (witness Orgreave) - and while the behaviour of some football 'fans' during the heyday of groups like the InterCity Firm would certainly have lent support to the adoption of that approach, in this instance it had tragic consequences.

There's plenty of blame to go around - the police, the designers of the stands for putting spillover gates at the top rather than at the bottom of the terraces, the people who certified the pens for a greater capacity than they could safely hold - and to some extent the miscreants whose behaviour made the penning of football supporters a necessity. They're all part of the jigsaw.

Is making an example of Duckenfield and his team, through imprisonment or similar, really in the public interest? Would our interests not be better served in having these groups admit their errors, make some form of restitution in the form of compensation and a public apology, mandate changes in the way that stadia are designed and the way in which police address the challenges of policing events such as this (and policing as a whole - maybe there's changes that can be made in the way that they police legal demonstrations and marches, stop treating the public as an "us-v-them" proposition?).

While I totally understand the desire for vengeance and retribution, neither will help us in the long term.

Then again, if anyone is looking to have Kelvin Mackenzie's bollocks placed in a vice made of rabid ferrets and hungry piranhas, I could probably get alongside of that.

[Pista]

Then again, if anyone is looking to have Kelvin Mackenzie's bollocks placed in a vice made of rabid ferrets and hungry piranhas, I could probably get alongside of that.

I think you would need to join a rather long queue.

[emilystrange]

it may not help any of us in the long run, but it's about time people like that were jailed. they get away with stuff like this because of technicalities/public interest etc far too much. they need to be seen to actually get their just desserts instead of words being published about them. they're culpable. punish them. position is not a bar to bearing consequences. we should tolerate no more of this.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

it's about f**king time....27 years to tell us what literally thousands of people witnessed firsthand? not good enough really.

but well done to all the people who fought for the truth for so long.

love and peace to all the families of the victims, the surviviors and the city of Liverpool. L.F.C.

as for the police...if Blair can apologize for britain's role in the slave-trade without anyone thinking he was personally involved, why won't the current police commisioner apololgise for the acts of a previous administration? because there are individual officers (at whatever levels) who are accountable; and if the police force is pressured to reveal these people it will instantly try to distance itself from them, hence no blanket "corporate" apology.

neither the force nor its officers should be above the law. this should be demonstrated to both them and the public they are meant to serve.

[markfiend]

...years of SYP's heavy-handed approach to policing groups which were considered "undesirable" (witness Orgreave)...

Not that "only following orders" is any excuse, obviously, but ultimately, the responsibility for policing lies with the Home Secretary (Douglas Hurd at the time). Wider questions need to be asked. Where were the orders coming from that various police forces (not just SY[s]MM[/s]P) should treat people this way?