ferno Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 South Yorkshire police, who blamed Liverpool supporters for the disaster in 1989, had made strikingly similar blunders during the miners' strike in 1984, when 95 men were prosecuted for rioting – all were acquitted amid allegations of fabrication. After Orgreave, South Yorkshire police claimed they had been attacked by striking miners, and prosecuted 95 people for riot and unlawful assembly, offences that carried potential life sentences. All were acquitted, after defence lawyers argued that police evidence was false, fabricated and that an officer's signature on a statement was forged. Mansfield, who defended three of the accused miners, describes the prosecutions as "the biggest frame-up ever". Speaking today, Mansfield argues that South Yorkshire police, under Wright, had been "institutionally corrupt" and was still unreformed when the Liverpool supporters came to Sheffield for the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. Police mismanagement Lord Justice Taylor, in his official report into Hillsborough, published in 1990, judged that mismanagement by South Yorkshire police was the prime cause of the disaster, yet the force relentlessly sought to lay the blame on the Liverpool supporters. A unit of senior officers, reporting to Wright, oversaw that case, ordering junior officers to rewrite their statements, to delete criticisms of the police's own operation and emphasise allegations that supporters were drunk and misbehaving. In a parliamentary debate on Hillsborough in October, Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow health secretary, argued that the police operation to blame football supporters at the Sheffield Wednesday ground was "truly shocking" and "transports us back to an era when football supporters were considered to be the 'enemy within'". After both Orgreave and Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police – under its chief constable, Peter Wright, who died last year – was accused of the concerted fabrication of evidence against the miners and Liverpool supporters respectively. After a substantial reform of the force begun by the chief constable who succeeded Wright, Richard Wells, the disclosure of the documents was initiated in 2009 by the then chief constable, Meredydd Hughes, in a spirit of greater openness over Hillsborough. After Orgreave, South Yorkshire police claimed they had been attacked by striking miners, and prosecuted 95 people for riot and unlawful assembly, offences that carried potential life sentences. All were acquitted, after defence lawyers argued that police evidence was false, fabricated and that an officer's signature on a statement was forged. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/12/hillsborough-battle-orgreave 39 miners were paid an unprecedented £425,000, plus costs, by South Yorkshire police to settle civil claims that included assault, malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECCOnoob Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Who says Liverpool supporters or the miners were totally blameless? Whilst its clear the police behaviours and post event actions have been negligent they cannot and should not be blamed for the events. Every action has a consequence and these tragic events have a catalist that starts them happening. What exactly was that? What caused the police to act in the way they did? What could have been done to prevent it? Everyone is responsible for their own actions and there is always two sides to every story. The Guardian seem to have ignored that part. No mention of how the liverpool fans were behaving pre tradegy. No mention of how the miners were behaving during their "protest". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 How is this "more" disgrace exactly? It's nothing recent, happened years ago, predates Hillsborough and has no bearing on SYP as it is today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECCOnoob Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 You know the Guardian. Its anniversary time of a tragic event and they need something to sell their rag. Just look at their twitter feed following that article. Full of pompus self importants cooing over its "genius" "must read" "stunning" article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 You know the Guardian. Its anniversary time of a tragic event and they need something to sell their rag. Just look at their twitter feed following that article. Full of pompus self importants cooing over its "genius" "must read" "stunning" article. Probably the OP with multiple accounts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinz Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 How is this "more" disgrace exactly? It's nothing recent, happened years ago, predates Hillsborough and has no bearing on SYP as it is today. We're in a time warp. SF has lost the knack of good thread content, so as a punishment we've been sent back to the 80's.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferno Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 Under cross-examination by Mansfield and the other defending barristers, including Vera Baird, later a QC and Labour minister, many officers' accounts faltered badly, leading the barristers to argue that the accounts had been fabricated. In the case against one miner, Bryan Moreland, a police statement was signed at the bottom by two named officers. Baird argued that one officer's signature was clearly not in his handwriting and had been forged. She requested that when the court adjourned for lunch, a handwriting expert be called to examine the signature, to which Judge Coles, presiding, agreed. When the court reconvened after lunch, it was announced that the original statement had gone missing. Routinely corrupt police officers. Faking evidence. Or, stealing it: Mansfield and Eagle argue that a culture of malpractice and impunity, exposed but not remedied after Orgreave, was still in place four years later, on 15 April 1989, when South Yorkshire police was responsible for the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough. In his report, Taylor identified as the "immediate cause" of the 96 deaths the failures of the match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who had ordered an exit gate to be opened to relieve pressure outside the ground, but failed to direct the incoming supporters away from the tunnel leading to the overcrowded central "pens" on the Leppings Lane terrace. That, Taylor ruled, was a "blunder of the first magnitude". Duckenfield, with the disaster unfolding, lied about the opening of the exit gate, saying Liverpool supporters had forced it, a version that was initially broadcast on television before being corrected. A videotape of CCTV footage went missing on the night of the disaster, from the locked control room at Hillsborough, a theft for which no culprit was ever caught. However, the CCTV footage that survived showed the gate being opened from the inside on Duckenfield's order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygardener Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 I see the grauniad wants to keep South Yorkshire in the a Sam Tyler style life in the past. London asshats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferno Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 I see the grauniad wants to keep South Yorkshire in the a Sam Tyler style life in the past. London asshats. That would be the Manchester Guardian? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The Guardian moved from Manchester over 50 years ago! It's full of London assholes now. Waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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