Hillsborough Disaster Verdict

[oaksoft]

You could say that the fans who went into the central pen after the gate was opened directly caused the deaths couldn't you?

So if you are faced with an uncomfortably crowded room do you push in, or do you stop, back up and look for an alternative place to stand?

Of course the fans coming in at 3pm knew what was in front of them. It was a densely populated pen which they crushed into regardless. Nosferatu is correct. You could easily argue that the deaths were caused by Liverpool fans who entered into that central pen despite it being overcrowded.

I can't get my head around why the inquest found that that there was nothing about the behaviour of the fans that day that caused or contributed to the disaster. Of course it contributed - whether you want to talk about the late arrival of fans to the stadium, the rush to get in once the gates had opened, or the sheep like fashion that so many took to choose the overcrowded central pen when they had alternative choices.

It looks to me like the jury bottled it and ducked out of any possible criticism from the victims families.

2 years of evidence and a full jury who made decisions based on that evidence but apparently we should just ignore that and listen to you pair of spangles?

I have had my suspicions in the past about whether the fans contributed to this or not. Todays ruling clears it up once and for all.

Why cant you accept that? its not as though either of you idiots were in attendance.

Edited April 26, 2016 by oaksoft

[The Real Zippy]

Who to believe - Lord Justice Taylor and the jurors who have categorically said on TWO separate occasions that the fans behaviour was NOT to blame for the events leading to this tragedy or an obese attention seeker who has clearly not read the jurors verdict and hasn't the earnest clue of what he is talking about.

I know who my money is on...............

And looks like said obese attention seeker shares the same brain cell as Bernard Ingham.................

[Guest TPAFKATS]

Bernard Ingham, Kelvin McKenzie, Jeremy Hunt. The attention seeking troll is keeping good company

[Hendo]

Rubbish. Fans coming into the ground at 3pm had a choice. They got to the top of the slope and had a choice of three pens. It appears most chose the middle pen despite it already being overcrowded. They contributed massively to the death of their fellow fans. How can that be argued?

Aaaarghhh!!!!!!!

[munoz]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36143891

Even the police now accept responsibility . Just a shame a certain idiot thinks it's still the Liverpool fans that are to blame .

Edited April 26, 2016 by munoz

[The Real Zippy]

Bernard Ingham, Kelvin McKenzie, Jeremy Hunt. The attention seeking troll is keeping good company

Ach, you missed out Thatcher.

Another reason why the world is a much better place without that evil witch. Party to one of the biggest cover ups in British legal history.

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Ach, you missed out Thatcher.

Another reason why the world is a much better place without that evil witch. Party to one of the biggest cover ups in British legal history.

Thatcher was complicit in the cover-up as a thank you to South Yorkshire Police for the way they handled the Battle of Orgreave 5 years earlier.

[The Real Zippy]

Yes it does - but then when you listen to Bruce Grobbelaar give his testimony in any interview he says that he told the first fans coming onto the pitch to get back in the terrace and to behave themselves. He claims he wasn't aware of the disaster happening just yards behind him. He thought it was a pitch invasion by fans intent on causing trouble. He's talking about his own support. His own fans. People who worshipped him. Sadly that was the nature of football back then, particularly in England. Everyone watching would have assumed the same at that time.

Complete and utter drivel - even by your pathetic standards. In Kenny Dalglish's book In My Liverpool Home, Grobbelaar testified at the first enquiry that he witnessed the Liverpool fans screaming for help and asked the police on two separate occasions to 'open the bloody gate'. Dalglish then went on to say that Grobbelaar was affected more than most by what he witnessed behind his goal. Hardly the actions of a man telling his own fans to behave!

Dear God, you make Bernard Ingham and McKenzie almost look fair minded in comparison!

[The Real Zippy]

Thatcher was complicit in the cover-up as a thank you to South Yorkshire Police for the way they handled the Battle of Orgreave 5 years earlier.

Spot on. And no better opportunity presented itself in treating two entities she despised with a passion with utter contempt - Liverpudlians and football fans.

[Stuart Dickson]

Those who think the decision exonerate fans behaviour should read the question the jury was asked.

"Was there any behaviour on the part of the football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles."

The jury answered no. They weren't asked to consider whether fans pushing into an already over crowded pen caused deaths. Had they been asked that the response would have been different obviously, because ultimately that was the cause of the crushing that led to all 96 deaths.

[The Real Zippy]

Those who think the decision exonerate fans behaviour should read the question the jury was asked.

"Was there any behaviour on the part of the football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles."

The jury answered no. They weren't asked to consider whether fans pushing into an already over crowded pen caused deaths. Had they been asked that the response would have been different obviously, because ultimately that was the cause of the crushing that led to all 96 deaths.

What bit of unlawful killing can't you get to grips with?

[Mr Optimistic]

Those who think the decision exonerate fans behaviour should read the question the jury was asked.

"Was there any behaviour on the part of the football supporters which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles."

The jury answered no. They weren't asked to consider whether fans pushing into an already over crowded pen caused deaths. Had they been asked that the response would have been different obviously, because ultimately that was the cause of the crushing that led to all 96 deaths.

Would anyone entertain this moron in the wokplace or the pub? Why do we do it on here? Like a few other clowns he is now on my ignore and wouldn't it be great if everyone on this forum did the same!?

Life is to short to waste time on pathetic losers like you. Bye

[Stuart Dickson]

Complete and utter drivel - even by your pathetic standards. In Kenny Dalglish's book In My Liverpool Home, Grobbelaar testified at the first enquiry that he witnessed the Liverpool fans screaming for help and asked the police on two separate occasions to 'open the bloody gate'. Dalglish then went on to say that Grobbelaar was affected more than most by what he witnessed behind his goal. Hardly the actions of a man telling his own fans to behave!

Dear God, you make Bernard Ingham and McKenzie almost look fair minded in comparison!

Watch the footage if you get the chance. At 3.05 Liverpool fans are getting out onto the pitch through the gate. Grobbelaar can be seen telling fans to get off the pitch. Stevie Nicol can be seen telling fans to get back in the terraces. He's told there is no room.

At the time players, police, first aiders, even Liverpool fans sitting in the stand all thought it was crowd trouble. Don't believe me? Watch the testimony of Jenni Hicks on the BBC programme ""How they buried the truth".

There's a lot of revisionary nonsense been written since and the police aren't the only ones that tried to hide their failings.

[Stuart Dickson]

What bit of unlawful killing can't you get to grips with?

Well 2 of the 9 jurors said it wasn't unlawful killing so it's not as clear cut as you'd like to have us believe.

[munoz]

Meaning - the majority did . What's your point ?

[The Real Zippy]

Watch the footage if you get the chance. At 3.05 Liverpool fans are getting out onto the pitch through the gate. Grobbelaar can be seen telling fans to get off the pitch. Stevie Nicol can be seen telling fans to get back in the terraces. He's told there is no room.

At the time players, police, first aiders, even Liverpool fans sitting in the stand all thought it was crowd trouble. Don't believe me? Watch the testimony of Jenni Hicks on the BBC programme ""How they buried the truth".

There's a lot of revisionary nonsense been written since and the police aren't the only ones that tried to hide their failings.

Well if that is to be believed, then Grobbelaar must have lied on oath. He gave a completely different version of events to Lord Justice Taylor.

There's only one piece of revisionary nonsense being spouted on here.....................................

[The Real Zippy]

Well 2 of the 9 jurors said it wasn't unlawful killing so it's not as clear cut as you'd like to have us believe.

Lord Justice Goldring said he would accept a majority verdict. 7 out of 9 is just about near unanimous.

Stuart, I'd honestly stop digging here. Seriously. You are making an utter c**t of yourself.

[The Real Zippy]

I lived in England from the mid 80s and attended a large number of games across the country watching various teams who my friends supported. I stood in some grounds that were feckin death traps where there was literally no escape from crowd surge no matter how you tried. There are not many grounds in the top two tiers I have not been to including Hillsborough.

White Hart Lane with Newcastle Utd fans in a cup match around 86/87 was possibly the worst crushing and policing I've ever experienced. The police treated you like animals in the 80s down south. Crowd control was with dogs, horses and batons.

Professor Phil Scattons book goes into great detail as to why that disaster happened and helped to shape the case.

Thanks goodness there are people out there like him capable of dealing in The Truth rather than a warped agenda.

Crowd control still continues to be an issue. Especially when you have large crowds trying to enter a stadium through a small number of turnstyles. I remember going to see Scotland in Belgium at the rebranded Heysel and the crushing outside the ground was horrendous. Football fans in this country invariably turn up as late as possible. Modern stadium deal with crowd flow outside and inside far better than the old ones.

I hope we never see a repeat of Ibrox, Heysel, Hillsborough or Bradford.

Finally those 96 football supporters can Rest In Peace. I can't even imagine the pain they went through that day as the life was literally pushed out of them.

The thing that pisses me off time and again about the Liverpool fans turning up late was the severe congestion on the approach roads to Sheffield, in particular the M62 and M1. The police knew fine well about this as Kenny Dalglish commented in the book I mentioned above that three separate police forces had to help escort the Liverpool team coach to Sheffield due to the roadworks. Traffic congestion played a major factor in Liverpool fans arriving in the city later than anticipated. This was relayed back to the powers that be at Hillsborough yet they still rejected the opportunity to delay the kick off.

[Guest TPAFKATS]

Thatcher was complicit in the cover-up as a thank you to South Yorkshire Police for the way they handled the Battle of Orgreave 5 years earlier.

Orgreave - Another multi agency cover up

[The Real Zippy]

Taken from the BBC website.

Think this is pretty conclusive. Even Duckenfield himself conceded he should have thought about utilising the cordons at the turnstiles that were successfully used at the previous years semi. And further warnings by Sheffield Wednesday's stadium engineers and a senior SYP officer about the layout of the turnstile areas at the Leppings Lane end.

But why let the facts laid bare at the inquests get in the way of BAWA's version of Bernard Ingham's warped crusade in blaming Liverpool fans for what happened.

1. Failure to prevent crowd congestionImage caption As fans arrived at the Leppings Lane end, congestion quickly grew and police lost control of the crowd

In the half-hour before kick off, the approach to the Leppings Lane end quickly became congested. The 10,100 fans with standing tickets were expected to enter the ground through just seven turnstiles and by 14.30, fewer than half were inside. As more and more fans arrived, the crush at the front of the queue became worse - leading to the fateful decision to open the gates. The inquests heard this was the result of a number of failings.

Firstly, there was no police cordon on the approaches to the stadium to ensure fans formed Jump media player

Media player help

Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.

Media captionHillsborough inquests: Jury shown 1981 footage

In 1989, Hillsborough was deemed to be one of most advanced stadiums in the UK. It had been chosen to host FA Cup semi-finals in 1981, 1987 and 1988. It boasted state-of-the-art CCTV and a turnstile counter system to monitor fan numbers entering the ground. Yet it had been the scene of dangerous crushes on a number of occasions. The jury were told one incident, in 1981, was a "near miss". However, lessons about the unsafe nature of the stand were not learned.

According to John Cutlack, an expert stadium engineer, the seeds of the 1989 disaster were sown 10 years previously when a safety certificate overestimated the capacity of the Leppings Lane standing area at 7,200. He said the true safe figure was in fact 5,425. Pen three, where many Liverpool fans died, could only safely hold 678 fans but on the day of the disaster there were up to 1,430 people inside. The club's engineer, Dr Eastwood, agreed "with hindsight" the total figure of 10,100 - which allowed for an additional 2,900 standing fans in the north-west corner stand - was "too high".

In 1981, at the semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Hillsborough, 38 fans were injured in a crush. In a course of events that would be repeated eight years later, police opened Gate C after congestion at the turnstiles. A serious crush developed in the Leppings Lane end and fatalities were "narrowly avoided", according to the HIP report. Two perimeter gates were opened to let some fans escape on to the pitch. Turnstile counters showed that 335 too many fans had been allowed on to the terrace that day. At the time, Sheffield Wednesday FC blamed Tottenham fans for "arriving late" and "rushing to their places", crushing those in front. After the incident, Hillsborough was not chosen to host an FA Cup semi-final for six years.

Under the terms of the ground's safety certificate, an Officer Working Party including the council, police, fire service and the club, inspected the ground each year. But the OWP never flagged up that the capacity of the Leppings Lane terrace needed recalculating. When it reviewed the stadium in May 1988, the OWP said the stadium had "no significant defects". Mr Cutlack told the inquests the annual inspections of the ground were missed opportunities to reassess the capacity.

The Leppings Lane terrace then underwent some significant alterations, none of which led to a revised safety certificate. On the recommendation of South Yorkshire Police, the club introduced the penning system to "prevent free movement of supporters". Yet proposals to feed fans directly to certain sections of the stand from designated turnstiles, allowing numbers to be monitored, were not acted on "because of anticipated costs to SWFC", the HIP report found. The gradient of the tunnel also significantly breached guidelines for sports grounds.

Reinstated as a semi final venue in 1987, Hillsborough hosted the match between Leeds United and Coventry City. Shortly before kick-off, police delayed the match by 15 minutes to ensure that late-arriving fans could be accommodated. One Leeds fan described "a bad crush" in the central pens, the crowd so tightly packed, he was "unable to clap his hands".

The 1988 semi-final, also between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, passed without serious incident although some Liverpool fans and police officers later gave accounts of crushing within the Leppings Lane pens. On this occasions, the tunnel was closed and fans redirected to the side pens. According to the HIP report, Sheffield Wednesday "denied knowledge of any crowd-related concerns arising from the 1987 or 1988 FA Cup semi-finals".

It said overcrowding problems at the turnstiles in 1987, and on the terrace in 1988, indicated the inherent crowd safety dangers posed by the ground. The risks were known and "the crush in 1989 was foreseeable", it added.

The jury concluded there were too few operating turnstiles, signage to the side pens was inadequate and the stadium design and layout contributed to the crush.

[Stuart Dickson]

Lord Justice Goldring said he would accept a majority verdict. 7 out of 9 is just about near unanimous.

Stuart, I'd honestly stop digging here. Seriously. You are making an utter c**t of yourself.

I'm not digging in any way shape or form. I'm expressing my personal dissatisfaction at today's verdict. I don't think it delivers justice or the truth for anyone and the witch hunt that will ensue and no doubt the many claims for compensation will be as distasteful as any police or ambulance service cover up.

It's absolutely obvious that Duckenfield is not solely responsible. He made catastrophic decisions under pressure but to put the 96 deaths on the one man is utterly ridiculous - as is any decision that absolves those Liverpool fans who pushed their way into that central pen when it was patently overcrowded from blame. And the really sad fact in amongst all of this is that the really important lessons that have been learned in terms of stadium safety have already been forgotten by several generations of football fans who long to stand at matches in the mistaken belief that this will somehow improve atmosphere.

Never mind reading Kenny Dalglish's book Zippy watch the TV coverage of the match as it happened. Listen to what John Motson is saying. Hear it first hand from people who were there both outside and inside the ground at Leppings Lane. Watch footage of Liverpool fans climbing up onto windows on buildings outside the stadium to escape the crush.

[Guest TPAFKATS]

The thing that pisses me off time and again about the Liverpool fans turning up late was the severe congestion on the approach roads to Sheffield, in particular the M62 and M1. The police knew fine well about this as Kenny Dalglish commented in the book I mentioned above that three separate police forces had to help escort the Liverpool team coach to Sheffield due to the roadworks. Traffic congestion played a major factor in Liverpool fans arriving in the city later than anticipated. This was relayed back to the powers that be at Hillsborough yet they still rejected the opportunity to delay the kick off.

Thanks zippy. Wasn't aware of that

[FTOF]

Stuart, I'd honestly stop digging here. Seriously. You are making an utter c**t of yourself.

It's the only thing he's good at.

[The Real Zippy]

I'm not digging in any way shape or form. I'm expressing my personal dissatisfaction at today's verdict. I don't think it delivers justice or the truth for anyone and the witch hunt that will ensue and no doubt the many claims for compensation will be as distasteful as any police or ambulance service cover up.

It's absolutely obvious that Duckenfield is not solely responsible. He made catastrophic decisions under pressure but to put the 96 deaths on the one man is utterly ridiculous - as is any decision that absolves those Liverpool fans who pushed their way into that central pen when it was patently overcrowded from blame. And the really sad fact in amongst all of this is that the really important lessons that have been learned in terms of stadium safety have already been forgotten by several generations of football fans who long to stand at matches in the mistaken belief that this will somehow improve atmosphere.

Never mind reading Kenny Dalglish's book Zippy watch the TV coverage of the match as it happened. Listen to what John Motson is saying. Hear it first hand from people who were there both outside and inside the ground at Leppings Lane. Watch footage of Liverpool fans climbing up onto windows on buildings outside the stadium to escape the crush.

So you're saying that Dalglish didn't see at first hand what happened then? Is that what you are saying? You're actually calling Dalglish a liar then? He had more of a first hand view at pitchside than Motson did way up in a TV gantry! I've watched the footage and read the books about the subject! I know who I believe!

Liverpool fans climbing onto 'windows' OUTSIDE? Well that's a new one as any of the footage that I watched had no sign of windows or Liverpool fans having to scramble down outside walls....................

Duckenfield, according to judge, had a 'duty of care' towards spectator safety. He betrayed that duty of care by opening that gate. He, in his words, froze. For that, as match commander, is wholly responsible for what happened.

Stuart - as I said, stop digging. You're continuing to make yourself look like a twat.

Edited April 26, 2016 by The Real Zippy

[Guest TPAFKATS]

Police open exit gates to allow entry to ground. Twats on here blame fans for entering ground.