The light is the eternal flame of the Hillsborough Memorial
at Anfield stadium, Liverpool. It
commemorates the loss of 96 lives in the worst peace-time disaster
ever to affect this country.
Today has been a momentous day and I couldn’t let it pass
without writing something about it
I cannot claim any great interest in football. In fact I have spent my entire life trying to
avoid it. I can’t name any players, I
don’t know the rules, I find it ultimately boring. But I have grown up in a city that eats,
sleeps and breathes it. I was 8 years old when the Hillsborough disaster
occurred. I can remember the endless
news reports and the front pages of the newspapers showing the anguished crowds
crushed up against the bars gasping for breath.
I can remember my mum always trying to shield me from the horror of it
and complaining that the images were far too graphic and gruesome for children’s
eyes. I can remember counsellors coming
in to my school to talk to relatives of the victims.
Justice for the 96 has been emblazoned onto the city’s consciousness
for the past 23 years. You couldn’t go
very long without hearing further theories emerge, new reports come to light or
seeing TV dramatisations and documentaries.
Even my 5 year old daughter, who
has become interested in the sport due to the intervention of ardent LFC
supporting family members, often asks about “the 96 people who lost their lives”.
Many people over the years have suggested that perhaps the victim’s
families should move on. Accusations of “professional
mourning” and group sentimentality have been glibly made to diminish the credibility
of the grieving families. Did I
ever subscribe to this? Perhaps. It's been hard for many observers to not be affected by the narrative that so many elements of the media have spun out regarding the city.
Today, the devastation, loss, and perpetually unfulfilled
yearning of the bereaved family members has been validated. Today, for the first time, I have seen why
these people have never given up their fight for justice. Today, for the first time I cried my eyes out
over the scale of this unspeakable tragedy. An injustice which carries the rare ability to
shock in a time when we’re all virtually unshockable.
I am not a statistics person. I tend to glaze over facts and figures. But,
the statistics revealed in today’s report are impossible to ignore:-
Of 164 police statements altered, 116 were significantly
altered to explicitly remove references to blame on the part of the South
Yorkshire Police.
Senior police officers, with the knowledge and approval of
the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, immediately began a concerted
cover-up by briefing the media that the whole thing was the responsibility of
drunken, ticketless fans that were violently rampaging through the streets.
In the days following the tragedy Police Officers
illegitimately ran criminal records checks on the victims in order to find
further information to leak to the press to turn public opinion further against
the fans
Blood alcohol tests were ordered to be carried out on all of
the dead, including children, to further build the web of lies.
Most damningly of all, 41 people could now be alive if the
South Yorkshire emergency services hadn’t decided that football fans were not
worth their best efforts.
Nothing I or anyone could ever say could begin to carry
sufficient meaning or poignancy to begin to ease the pain of the relatives of
the 96. I can only hope that peaceful rest and diminishing of pain and grief
can start for the victims and their families. The light that never goes out should ever
serve as a reminder of the courage and bravery of those who keep fighting when
the fight is all but lost, and the need
for openness and transparency from those who are appointed to protect and to
serve us, any of us, who might just find ourselves fatefully in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Lucy x
