David Duckenfield found not guilty of Hillsborough Manslaughter

SharpshooterTom

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50592077

He clearly was out of his depth on the day and should never have been given the job in the first place but there were plenty of other factors involved in this. To pin the entire tragedy on him alone would be wrong IMO.

The police and army are both notoriously difficult to prosecute and get a conviction against in the UK. It will be an absolute miracle if soldier f from bloody sunday is convicted even the though Saville inquiry quite literally stated he was guilty of murdering unarmed civilians.

corner of hells

ThomasFlynn wrote: »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50592077

He clearly was out of his depth on the day and should never have been given the job in the first place but there were plenty of other factors involved in this. To pin the entire tragedy on him alone would be wrong IMO.

The police and army are both notoriously difficult to prosecute and get a conviction against in the UK. It will be an absolute miracle if soldier f from bloody sunday is convicted even the though Saville inquiry quite literally stated he was guilty of murdering unarmed civilians.

Quite a post OP , not often we see a post that manages to get a mention of Bloody Sunday and the Hillsborough disaster in.
Threads finely poised, it could go either as a rant about the British Army or Liverpool.

SharpshooterTom

corner of hells wrote: »

Quite a post OP , not often we see a post that manages to get a mention of Bloody Sunday and the Hillsborough disaster in.
Threads finely poised, it could go either as a rant about the British Army or Liverpool.

The Hillsborough families have often cited bloody sunday families as an inspiration and have flown to Derry to meet them in person.

http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/04/27/news/relatives-drew-inspiration-from-bloody-sunday-families-499815/

I do think there is a wider link of the security services in the UK in avoiding being convicted of any criminal wrongdoing, whether that's the police or the army. I live in Northern Ireland so yes this relevant to me.

corner of hells

ThomasFlynn wrote: »

The Hillsborough families have often cited bloody sunday families as an inspiration and have flown to Derry to meet them in person.

http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/04/27/news/relatives-drew-inspiration-from-bloody-sunday-families-499815/

I do think there is a wider link of the security services in the UK in avoiding being convicted of any criminal wrongdoing, whether that's the police or the army. I live in Northern Ireland so yes this relevant to me.

It's going to be a rant about the security forces ?

SharpshooterTom

corner of hells wrote: »

It's going to be a rant about the security forces ?

Well the lack of criminal convictions towards both the police and the army, its just appears to happen a lot.

Stevieluvsye

This will be 30 pages deep by 7 bells

Sickening for the families. 96 people were unlawfully killed but still nobody is held accountable. What an absolute kick in the guts for them, again.

Yurt2

Sh*tty policing; sh*tty stadia; sh*tty disdain for working class football punters; sh*tty football administrators. It was an awful time in Britain generally - a country in a deep cultural malaise and a working class that was being hollowed out and cast aside under Thatcherism.

I remember watching a documentary on YouTube that took you through the day with survivor testimony. Harrowing.

Duckenfield has his share of the blame I suppose, but the wider culture was responsible. But I guess you can't put a culture in the dock can you.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Flying Fox wrote: »

Sickening for the families. 96 people were unlawfully killed but still nobody is held accountable. What an absolute kick in the guts for them, again.

Still, nothing will bring their loved ones back. I bet if you talked to all the families, there would be mixed feelings about the legal actions taken.

Snickers Man

Despite the clear parallels between the two cases, and the willingness of the Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough campaigns to provide mutual support to each other because of what they see as the similarity between their cases, I will confine my comments to today's announcement.

The OP is right; it's a correct decision. To hold one police official criminally responsible for the Hillsborough Disaster would have been an outrageous example of scapegoating.

The writer, and Arsenal fan, Nick Hornby got it quite right in his excellent and sympathetic chapter about Hillsborough in his book Fever Pitch.
"It is easy to understand why bereaved families wish to see officers from the South Yorkshire police brought to trial: their error of judgement was catastrophic. Yet.....it would be terribly vengeful to accuse them of anything more than incompetence."

"By the time football became a forum for gang warfare, and containment rather than safety became a priority (..perimeter fences..) a major tragedy became an inevitability. How could anyone have hoped to get away with it? With sixty thousand-plus crowds, all you can do is shut the gates, tell everyone to squash up, and then pray, very hard."

"So you can blame the police for opening the wrong gate at the wrong time if you like, but in my opinion to do so would be to miss the point."

Hornby went on to argue that better stadia, all-seater and out of town, was the way to go and indeed is the way that it has gone in Britain. And there hasn't been a major incident in England or involving an English team since. In the five years before Hillsborough there was the Bradford city fire and the Heysel disaster (about which Liverpool fans are traditionally a lot less sanctimonious) not to mention countless acts of riotous behaviour and street fighting while supporting English teams in Europe. These have not entirely disappeared, but mass fatalities have not occurred.

As someone who has been to major club and international soccer matches in England in the 1980s I am firmly of the view that the toxic culture which had been allowed to impregnate the game at the time was ultimately to blame. As Hornby, and others, have pointed out Hillsborough was a disaster waiting to happen.

But it didn't take place in other sports. When was Rugby League's equivalent disaster? (a sport with a support base as determinedly proletarian as soccer's) Or cricket's? Or rugby union's? Or indeed Gaelic Football's? (Bloody Sunday--the other one-- is hardly a pertinent comparison)

Remember when 50,000 people used to stream up Lansdowne Road and have to wait for the level crossing gates to open before they could proceed into the ground? It wasn't that long ago. And once you got in you were in one of the most crumbling, archaic structures it was possible to attend for a major sporting event. Ah, the old Havelock Square terracing!

And yet, there was never a major safety incident there, if one excludes the deliberate and orchestrated riot by, you've guessed it, English soccer supporters in 1995.

Trying to hold Duckenfield up as a scapegoat for the inevitable consequences of decades of menace on the soccer terraces and inadequate overall response was wrong and in my view the right judgement has been delivered.

If the Hillsborough families, who are deserving of nothing but sympathy, need a memorial to their loved ones and their tragic demise it might be the knowledge that their fate finally spurred soccer to take seriously the issue of crowd safety and containment, especially in the toxic world of professional soccer, and demand of clubs that stadiums be safe from the design stage up, adequately stewarded and with zero tolerance of thuggery, verbal or physical, and a determination to crack down on those who endangered public safety.

It may be little consolation that it took their loved ones' deaths to achieve, but it's a worthier and more enduring memorial than Duckenfield's head on a block.

Riesen_Meal

Can we please lock this thread as to not jeopardize any hope of a retrial :

https://twitter.com/LFC/status/1200081486050930688?s=20

According to the usual suspects on Twitter the only right answer today was the one they wanted, whether he was guilty or not. Sums that club up.

Edgware

When the Liverpool supporters caused the deaths in Heyssel several of them were convicted.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Mod note: Folks, I'm going to close this while awaiting confirmation or otherwise of the possibility of a retrial.

As soon as the situation is made clear, I'll update this again.

Thanks in advance,

Buford T. Justice

Buford T. Justice XIX

Mod note: Ok, after consulting with the legal experts in the background here, this thread will have to remain closed, I'm afraid, due to possible contempt of court issues.

There's another case due to start in the near future as well so anything posted could have implications with that trial as well.

More details below from the Liverpool Echo.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hillsborough-tragedy-you-still-need-17332663

Buford T. Justice.