Hillsborough Disaster

[scaramanga]

Can we at least change the Liverpool thread title back from being "Victimpool" please?
I think that title in itself sullies this site; by all means moan about Liverpool and their fans, but that title shows full disrespect for the 96 given what has happened this week.
Any arguments about Hillsborough, Heysel etc can be kept here imo

As soon as they drop the victim culture, I'll change the title.

 

[Libero]

People dying isn't the crime, it's the result. The crime is making a mistake - not something that should usually be punished with the prison sentences that imbalanced halfwits keep shrieking for.

People are given prison sentence's for making a mistake that ends in the death of someone though. It happens all the time. If you knock someone down on a road because you were slightly distracted and kill them you will more than likely go to prison. It will be for a short period to reflect that fact it was totally unintended and not at all what was expected but you will go to prison nonetheless to reflect the gravity of the fact someone is no longer here.

 

[glasgowspur]

And after your private action had been laughed at and thrown out, I ask again, would you remain content for your family to have been vilified in the press?

I must admit that this is something I'm not clear on, so who can answer me this?

As far as I have seen it wasn't the dead that were vilified. The support that turned up early and did everything proper are the ones that ultimately suffered.
It was the ones behind who were either misdirected or forcing their way in who were be vilified.

The outrage of the grieving families over the sun headline baffled me, how could their dead relatives be guilty of any of those actions. They weren't being accused it was other supporters.
The implication from all this is that the 96 were innocent of any wrong doing, therefore every Liverpool supporter there was innocent.
Some of the guilty are hiding behind the 96 IMO.

 

[glorygloryeze]

I must admit that this is something I'm not clear on, so who can answer me this?

As far as I have seen it wasn't the dead that were vilified. The support that turned up early and did everything proper are the ones that ultimately suffered.
It was the ones behind who were either misdirected or forcing their way in who were be vilified.

The outrage of the grieving families over the sun headline baffled me, how could their dead relatives be guilty of any of those actions. They weren't being accused it was other supporters.
The implication from all this is that the 96 were innocent of any wrong doing, therefore every Liverpool supporter there was innocent.
Some of the guilty are hiding behind the 96 IMO.

Yep - they're called the South Yourkshire Police Constabulary and their chums in the media and in the Government of the day

 

[scaramanga]

People are given prison sentence's for making a mistake that ends in the death of someone though. It happens all the time. If you knock someone down on a road because you were slightly distracted and kill them you will more than likely go to prison. It will be for a short period to reflect that fact it was totally unintended and not at all what was expected but you will go to prison nonetheless to reflect the gravity of the fact someone is no longer here.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, in order to gain a conviction there is usually a need for negligence to be "wilful" - the person being negligent has to know that what they are doing is likely to cause harm.

For example, a business owner who fails to replace equipment that has been reported as dangerous is wilfully negligent and will probably face prison is someone dies as a result. If that same owner employs a H&S Officer, follows all the correct procedure and just wasn't told about the danger then they're still negligent but wouldn't face jail time. I don't think anyone outside the North West is suggesting that those in charge were wilfully negligent here, and that's a very important point.

 

[Grays_1890]

Someone told me once that to every action there is a reaction which I think applies here. I take the "can you prove there were ticketless at the game" but then lets change the view slightly.

If there were ticketless at the game, their actions by going to a game with the sole intention of getting in without a ticket would be a huge contributing factor to this whole disaster.

Like I said earlier, and I take for arguments sake that the police were probably crap on the day, but if there were ticketless their job and judgement was made harder than needed.

Overcrowding was in the 80s a huge problem, I went to Spurs v Arsenal and we paid on the gate, the turnstyle guy kept his foot on peddle and was doing 2-1s and taking a cut, it was evident, tough to say without it actually happening to me, but if something had happened at that game I would have to be pretty silly to think it wasnt mine or the turnstyle guys fault to some extent...

 

[mudshark]

This is totally my sticking point on it all

Its gone from "its the fans fault" to "Its the Police fault" and there seems to be no middle ground to actually say anything else and I am with you, its not just black and white.

The point, which you seem to be absolutely determined to miss, so I don't really know why I'm bothering, is that fans weren't charged with managing the crowd and didn't have an official duty of care to fail in. The crowd just did what crowds do. Fans didn't subsequently swing a media machine into action in order to rubbish victims' characters, lie, doctor statements, spy on victims' families and all the rest of it, in order to divert blame from themselves and forestall the emergence of the truth, either.

 

[Baleforce]

The point, which you seem to be absolutely determined to miss, so I don't really know why I'm bothering, is that fans weren't charged with managing the crowd and didn't have an official duty of care to fail in. The crowd just did what crowds do. Fans didn't subsequently swing a media machine into action in order to rubbish victims' characters, lie, doctor statements, spy on victims' families and all the rest of it, in order to divert blame from themselves and forestall the emergence of the truth, either.

Crowds doing what crowds do isn't being questioned anywhere, it should be.

Bank robbers just do what bank robbers do, paedophiles just do what paedophiles do.

The excuse of "crowds doing what crowds do" could equally be applied as "football riot police treat fans the way football riot police treat fans". It's just the way it is.

You have a duty of care to those around you all the time whoever you are and whoever it is, the barista in starbucks, the bloke next to you on the tube, personal responsibility is not a la cart.

 

[Libero]

Someone told me once that to every action there is a reaction which I think applies here. I take the "can you prove there were ticketless at the game" but then lets change the view slightly.

If there were ticketless at the game, their actions by going to a game with the sole intention of getting in without a ticket would be a huge contributing factor to this whole disaster.

Like I said earlier, and I take for arguments sake that the police were probably crap on the day, but if there were ticketless their job and judgement was made harder than needed.

Overcrowding was in the 80s a huge problem, I went to Spurs v Arsenal and we paid on the gate, the turnstyle guy kept his foot on peddle and was doing 2-1s and taking a cut, it was evident, tough to say without it actually happening to me, but if something had happened at that game I would have to be pretty silly to think it wasnt mine or the turnstyle guys fault to some extent...

Ok, lets discuss that point then. On a terrace where it should have had an overall capacity of around 8,000 but was given a capacity overstated at 10,100, you don't even need 1 ticketless fan to make it overcrowded and that is if those 10,100 are evenly distributed. The fact that 2 central pens had a capacity stated at 2,200 combined between 3 and 4 in 1979 and hadn't been changed despite alterations to the layout. It is suspected that well over 3,000 were spread across those two pens so 800 over capacity. So take that into account, with evenly distributing over 10,000 people for an 8,000 capacity you would still have had problems, when it is not evenly distributed and you allow near to half of the suspected real capacity into two pens that house half that number then you have problem before taking into account anyone who shouldn't be there.

My point is that you didn't need any of them for this disaster to happen, it would have happened anyway given the way it all played out so the ticketless factor is something that cannot be gauged.

 

[Grays_1890]

The point, which you seem to be absolutely determined to miss, so I don't really know why I'm bothering, is that fans weren't charged with managing the crowd and didn't have an official duty of care to fail in. The crowd just did what crowds do. Fans didn't subsequently swing a media machine into action in order to rubbish victims' characters, lie, doctor statements, spy on victims' families and all the rest of it, in order to divert blame from themselves and forestall the emergence of the truth, either.

Im not determined to miss anything at all, we just see life different and thats acceptable, I respect your view, I just dont agree.

The Police have an official duty of care, I agree however I also believe everyone has a duty of care to life, life comes with responsibility to us all and just because there are people out there to police does not mean we all get the right to just give up any responsibility to life and rules. That point is what I extend to those without tickets...

People lost their lives at Hillsborough and they are the only victims regardless, I lived in this era and it was grave, like Bradford fire.

There is no excuse and I make none for the governments media and police cover ups, I really don't, and that was a MASSIVE example of people in power flexing their muscle and squashing a problem, again something common in the 70's and 80s.

To coin a tennis phrase I just get the feeling its 15-15 because yesterday was equally a witch hunt to give blame a face where as I think blame as many faces

 

[mudshark]

Why would that happen? It didn't happen to this silly little inquest and its "Now go away and STFU" conclusions.


I'm not sure what I'd do if that happened. One thing I wouldn't do is bring shame upon my entire family by making our grief a public spectacle.

I assume you're a member of the younger generation for whom this public grieving thing is normal?

Lack of evidence, dear boy. Sorry and all that, but we have the official statements here.

You assume wrongly.

 

[Libero]

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, in order to gain a conviction there is usually a need for negligence to be "wilful" - the person being negligent has to know that what they are doing is likely to cause harm.

For example, a business owner who fails to replace equipment that has been reported as dangerous is wilfully negligent and will probably face prison is someone dies as a result. If that same owner employs a H&S Officer, follows all the correct procedure and just wasn't told about the danger then they're still negligent but wouldn't face jail time. I don't think anyone outside the North West is suggesting that those in charge were wilfully negligent here, and that's a very important point.

I think Duckenfield will have a very hard time given his testimony, showing that he failed to foresee what could happen in the event of failing crowd control. You have crowd control because you envisage what can happen if you don't so that would be to foresee the danger. That is the whole point of crowd control or you would just leave people to get on with it. They had measures ready to be put in place because they could see the danger of not having any in place and that is what ended up happening because proper measures that had been discussed, used in previous years, were not implemented.

Then it is to discuss why they were not implemented. Was it because he was inexperienced? If so, why was the previous years Match commander moved weeks before the event? All very valid questions that should be answered.

 

[mudshark]

Crowds doing what crowds do isn't being questioned anywhere, it should be.

Bank robbers just do what bank robbers do, paedophiles just do what paedophiles do.

The excuse of "crowds doing what crowds do" could equally be applied as "football riot police treat fans the way football riot police treat fans". It's just the way it is.

You have a duty of care to those around you all the time whoever you are and whoever it is, the barista in starbucks, the bloke next to you on the tube, personal responsibility is not a la cart.

Unfortunately for your argument, it's not possible to exert control over several thousand other individuals by emitting pheromones or some such, especially when being funnelled into a bottleneck by mounted police.

 

[Libero]

Im not determined to miss anything at all, we just see life different and thats acceptable, I respect your view, I just dont agree.

The Police have an official duty of care, I agree however I also believe everyone has a duty of care to life, life comes with responsibility to us all and just because there are people out there to police does not mean we all get the right to just give up any responsibility to life and rules. That point is what I extend to those without tickets...

People lost their lives at Hillsborough and they are the only victims regardless, I lived in this era and it was grave, like Bradford fire.

There is no excuse and I make none for the governments media and police cover ups, I really don't, and that was a MASSIVE example of people in power flexing their muscle and squashing a problem, again something common in the 70's and 80s.

To coin a tennis phrase I just get the feeling its 15-15 because yesterday was equally a witch hunt to give blame a face where as I think blame as many faces

I don't think that is entirely fair tbh. I agree that they have shouted the loudest regarding possible covering up and the like but Bradford fire victims are still trying to establish whether the chairman at the time was actually responsible for Arson. He had three previous suspect fires on his record of businesses about to fail and he recouped the insurance money and went again. It is rumoured and debated that he didn't want Bradford to get promoted because he would have had to renovate the stand that subsequently caught fire.

Setting it alight on a non match day may have raised far too much suspicion given his previous issues and match day was a convenient and less fishy opportunity to implement the bruning down of the stand, get the insurance money and build from new.

Not necessarily my opinion but certainly stacks up when you read a bit into the former chairman's background. People are campaigning for another look at the case today but its just that numerous people don't neccassrily want to believe there was foul play.

 

[Grays_1890]

I don't get what you are saying, I am not comparing them, I am saying both were grave and people losing their lives are the victims...

 

[Baleforce]

Unfortunately for your argument, it's not possible to exert control over several thousand other individuals by emitting pheromones or some such, especially when being funnelled into a bottleneck by mounted police.

thats not my argument, my argument is that people should control themselves

their behaviour was conditioned, so was the response, if its an allowance on one side surely its an allowance on the other?

 

[Libero]

I don't get what you are saying, I am not comparing them, I am saying both were grave and people losing their lives are the victims...

Apologies. I thought you were referring to a victim mentality. Misread the tone of the post.

 

[Grays_1890]

thats not my argument, my argument is that people should control themselves

their behaviour was conditioned, so was the response, if its an allowance on one side surely its an allowance on the other?

Yeh a huge factor of how I feel, and thats not a pop at Livepool fans or a vendetta, thats for life in general.

The thing is in life you have the ability to form opinion based on what you see, I saw enough of the football in the 80s to form a pretty educated opinion that for Liverpool fans to be totally free of any blame the game on 15 April 1989 must have been pulled through some vortex and totally against anything I saw in that era.

 

[scaramanga]

Lack of evidence, dear boy. Sorry and all that, but we have the official statements here.

You assume wrongly.

There is evidence - that's what this enquiry was about.

 

[Jurgen the German]

You're right. They're clams, they deserve to be sacked in some cases and heavily reprimanded in others. They don't deserve prison though, nor do they deserve having to hear 30 years of yapping, chippy scousers - nobody deserves that.

As for lumping all fans in together, how do you find out which ones are violent until they're violent? The target number for injured fans, police and bystanders has to be zero. The number of innocent fans treated like hooligans has to be as low as possible, but it's of secondary concern.

It's a difficult situation for the police, but as I said previously, I believe you are more likely to illicit a more positive response out of people by engaging with people. If you are aggressive from the outset, chances are the hooligan element will take it upon themselves to react aggressively. If the situation calls for it, then the police have to take a firmer stance, but from experience attending football matches, the fans are more likely to cooperate if the police if they don't treat them like thugs.