Freedom of speech, honesty and Christianity are all held in high regard in America, but unfortunately for Carrie Prejean aka Miss California, those three qualities that many American citizens openly embrace have not worked in her favour.
At the Miss USA pageant, notorious celebrity pot stirrer Perez Hilton asked the Christian beauty a question he most likely knew would draw negative attention and boost his tacky critical profile. That is after all what Perez likes to do, he loves to draw negative attention and once again he has succeeded. His entire profile and life revolves around tack, pretence and controversy...that can be drawn from his name alone (a cheap copy of the equally cheap heiress come socialite Paris Hilton). Perez asked Miss Prejean if she felt gay marriage should be nationally legalised. Now whilst I can understand that someone in a same sex relationship would feel hurt and offended by her response, I cannot see why the back lash that has been created is necessary. Miss Prejean simply responded by saying that she thought the freedom provided for same sex couples in America was great, but that she personally felt that marriage should be between a man and a woman. This invoked vile responses, including Perez saying that she lost because she was a 'dumb bitch' and that he would like to have called her a 'c*nt'. Surely all he has succeeded in doing is portraying himself as being dumb?
Now had Miss Prejean responded by saying 'I am Christian and you Perez are heading for the depths of hell by being gay' then yes, the back lash would have been expected and to an extent deserved, but she didn't, she acted with tact and quite rightly refused to go against what she believes just to adhere to the immoral Hollywood popular consensus. Surely we should have more respect for a woman who stands by her convictions than a woman who bats her eyelashes and agrees for the sake of a cheap tiara?
It worries me greatly that we now live an in era where Christians are made to feel that they should dumb down their freedom of speech in order to not hurt the feelings of the gay community. We are now being made to feel that our views should be squashed, just so that men like Perez Hilton can continue to be obscene and use his sexuality as an excuse for acting in the vile manner that he does.
Now for Britain. As of today, those promoting the morning after pill have been given the okay to advertise after the 9pm watershed.
What message are we putting across to the youth of today by doing this? We are simply telling them that it is okay to go out, spread their legs, abandon all form of contraceptives and then use emergency measures the next morning.
Why can we not instead advertise in detail about Chlamidya, unwanted pregnancies, the pit falls of abortion, HIV and hepatitis? Women across the UK are fully aware of where they can obtain the morning after pill, they can visit their doctor or their early pregnancy unit and in many towns and cities across the UK family planning centres are available. All the advertising of the morning after pill will achieve is the subliminal message that promiscuity is okay.
It seems that in the Christian western world we are now abandoning what is right just so that the immoral members of society may continue with their lifestyle choices guilt free.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Hillsborough: Lies v The Truth...Is All About To Be Revealed?
I was just over a year old when Hillsborough happened, I didn't watch it on TV like many did, I wasn't exposed to the shameful lies of Kelvin Mckenzie that still rub salt in to the raw wounds until this very day, but I am capable of reading old news reports, I have watched several documentaries, read accounts from both sides, trawled through forums to take in the opinions of others...
To me it is still shocking that many are still willing to lay the blame at the feet of Liverpool fans. It is quite easy to let your opinions be coloured by personal biases, it is almost impossible to shy away from the damning (and extremely contradictory) accounts given by high ranking police officers and for many when their arguments become weak it is all too easy to throw the word Heysel in to the argument as a weak form of confirming that Liverpool fans were all at the time very brutish.
To me tarring everyone with the same brush based on a historical account of their past behavior is an uneducated response to viewing a situation. How would a Catholic feel if someone were to tell them that all priests are paedophiles? How would a German feel if someone were to tell them their nation was filled with anti-semetic Nazis? No one with an ounce of common sense would generalize on these issues (and before it's mentioned, no I am not attempting to draw parallels between Hillsborough and either of the examples I have just used) so why is it that people still throw Heysel in to the mix when they are wrongfully deciding that on April 15 1989 thousands of Liverpool fans killed the 96 and injured many more?
Causation needs to be looked at carefully here. With a football game, concert, rugby match...even with Wimbledon you have alcohol+ticket less fans. Yet disasters do not happen on a regular basis every time alcohol and large crowds are combined. I used to attend Reading/Leeds festival each year (whichever one I went to depended on which one I could get tickets for!) along with hundreds of thousands of other music fans. Crowd build up and crushes would be as likely there as they are anywhere else, the majority of people attending drink throughout the entire weekend, many are under the influence of narcotics and many rush to their desired gig with the objective of getting close to the front...so why has there been only one death at Reading/Leeds in the past decade? Because the police and stewards know what they are doing, because those orchestrating the event follow health and safety regulations to an absolute tee and because crowd control management is regimented.
On many forums I see the argument that the fans arrived late and ticket less, thus causing the problem. Most people posting and citing this argument fail to realise or even think as to why the fans were late in the first place. Many ticket holding fans would arrived by bus or train in large groups. As part of a government plan to prevent football hooliganism the police would conduct random stop and search procedures to ensure no fans were drunk, carrying alcohol or carrying weapons. Stop and search procedures were carried out in abundance on April 15th 1989, leading to large groups of fans being late. There was also an unreported accident on the motorway leading to Hillsborough, this added to the volume of fans arriving late.
Many people arguing that the fans were to blame also cite that the police were scared and had to open the gates to prevent a crush outside at the turnstiles. However, they fail to recognise that in the previous year no crush at the turnstile occurred due to police filtering the fans before they arrived there. They would filter the fans by checking for tickets, searching people for alcohol and weapons and they would also turn away drunk fans. This prevented a turnstile build up and therefore prevented an emergency situation, despite this the police did not choose to carry out this plan in 1989, ignoring recommendations for crowd control procedures that had previously proved themselves to be highly effective.
Once the gates were open the police could have prevented a build up in pens 3 and 4.
Duckenfield ordered the gates to be opened upon a request to do so, he had CCTV images in front of him that showed clearly how many people were outside and how full pens 3 and 4 were. Had he told the police officer that was about to open the gates to direct the fans in to separate pens or had he ordered the tunnel entrance to pens 3 and 4 to be closed a crush would have been avoided. Duckenfield had earlier decided that the direction of the fans once inside the stadium would not be the priority of his officers, he assumed that the stewards on site would do this and he failed to even delegate this responsibility to them. However Duckenfield and South Yorkshire Police had a duty of care to the fans and needed to direct them to areas where they would be safe, abandoning their responsibilities led to the death of 96 people.
So could the fans have directed themselves? The simple answer is: no. The fans held tickets that stated standing and nothing else, no pen number, just standing. The sign above the tunnel leading to pens 3 and 4 stated standing and no other signs clearly directed the fans to alternative pens, the fans naturally assumed that the tunnel was their only option.
The argument that fans were ticket less is pointless. The number of fans that entered the stadium that day amounted to far less than the number of fans that could have entered. The number of fans present outside the stadium also amounted to this number. Unfortunately it is impossible to gage how many fans held tickets, but to state that the surge was primarily due to ticket less fans is simply an empty argument.
If the police lacked blame, they certainly did not act as though they did. If they lacked blame why lie about who opened the gate? Why tell lower rank officers not to write in their note books? Why doctor statements? Why steal and then hide the CCTV tape? Those are not the actions of a blameless body.
On April 15th 1989 South Yorkshire Police acted without compassion and common sense. Their approach and their actions led to the deaths of 96 people, the injury of more than 400 others and a tragedy that will forever tarnish the memories of many. Whilst Liverpool fans in the seating area pulled suffering fans from pens 3 and 4, SYPF pushed fans back over the fence and refused to open the gate. Whilst Liverpool fans carried those that were injured to the waiting ambulance crews, the police formed a barricade assuming that they were going to attack other supporters. Whilst many Liverpool fans performed mouth to mouth, the police would not allow ambulances to enter on to the pitch, thus denying those dying the use of vital medical equipment.
TV images do not show Liverpool fans urinating on the dead, they don't show Liverpool fans stealing from the dead. They show them making conscious efforts to save lives, they show them pulling together. What the images do show is the ignorance of the police.
Today a further hallmark has occurred, one that may close this case and provide justice for those that are bereaved and those that survived. The full details of what happened that day are to be released upon request of Jacqui Smith. Lets hope that by the time Hillsborough reaches its 21st anniversary, that closure will have been found and justice delivered.
To me it is still shocking that many are still willing to lay the blame at the feet of Liverpool fans. It is quite easy to let your opinions be coloured by personal biases, it is almost impossible to shy away from the damning (and extremely contradictory) accounts given by high ranking police officers and for many when their arguments become weak it is all too easy to throw the word Heysel in to the argument as a weak form of confirming that Liverpool fans were all at the time very brutish.
To me tarring everyone with the same brush based on a historical account of their past behavior is an uneducated response to viewing a situation. How would a Catholic feel if someone were to tell them that all priests are paedophiles? How would a German feel if someone were to tell them their nation was filled with anti-semetic Nazis? No one with an ounce of common sense would generalize on these issues (and before it's mentioned, no I am not attempting to draw parallels between Hillsborough and either of the examples I have just used) so why is it that people still throw Heysel in to the mix when they are wrongfully deciding that on April 15 1989 thousands of Liverpool fans killed the 96 and injured many more?
Causation needs to be looked at carefully here. With a football game, concert, rugby match...even with Wimbledon you have alcohol+ticket less fans. Yet disasters do not happen on a regular basis every time alcohol and large crowds are combined. I used to attend Reading/Leeds festival each year (whichever one I went to depended on which one I could get tickets for!) along with hundreds of thousands of other music fans. Crowd build up and crushes would be as likely there as they are anywhere else, the majority of people attending drink throughout the entire weekend, many are under the influence of narcotics and many rush to their desired gig with the objective of getting close to the front...so why has there been only one death at Reading/Leeds in the past decade? Because the police and stewards know what they are doing, because those orchestrating the event follow health and safety regulations to an absolute tee and because crowd control management is regimented.
On many forums I see the argument that the fans arrived late and ticket less, thus causing the problem. Most people posting and citing this argument fail to realise or even think as to why the fans were late in the first place. Many ticket holding fans would arrived by bus or train in large groups. As part of a government plan to prevent football hooliganism the police would conduct random stop and search procedures to ensure no fans were drunk, carrying alcohol or carrying weapons. Stop and search procedures were carried out in abundance on April 15th 1989, leading to large groups of fans being late. There was also an unreported accident on the motorway leading to Hillsborough, this added to the volume of fans arriving late.
Many people arguing that the fans were to blame also cite that the police were scared and had to open the gates to prevent a crush outside at the turnstiles. However, they fail to recognise that in the previous year no crush at the turnstile occurred due to police filtering the fans before they arrived there. They would filter the fans by checking for tickets, searching people for alcohol and weapons and they would also turn away drunk fans. This prevented a turnstile build up and therefore prevented an emergency situation, despite this the police did not choose to carry out this plan in 1989, ignoring recommendations for crowd control procedures that had previously proved themselves to be highly effective.
Once the gates were open the police could have prevented a build up in pens 3 and 4.
Duckenfield ordered the gates to be opened upon a request to do so, he had CCTV images in front of him that showed clearly how many people were outside and how full pens 3 and 4 were. Had he told the police officer that was about to open the gates to direct the fans in to separate pens or had he ordered the tunnel entrance to pens 3 and 4 to be closed a crush would have been avoided. Duckenfield had earlier decided that the direction of the fans once inside the stadium would not be the priority of his officers, he assumed that the stewards on site would do this and he failed to even delegate this responsibility to them. However Duckenfield and South Yorkshire Police had a duty of care to the fans and needed to direct them to areas where they would be safe, abandoning their responsibilities led to the death of 96 people.
So could the fans have directed themselves? The simple answer is: no. The fans held tickets that stated standing and nothing else, no pen number, just standing. The sign above the tunnel leading to pens 3 and 4 stated standing and no other signs clearly directed the fans to alternative pens, the fans naturally assumed that the tunnel was their only option.
The argument that fans were ticket less is pointless. The number of fans that entered the stadium that day amounted to far less than the number of fans that could have entered. The number of fans present outside the stadium also amounted to this number. Unfortunately it is impossible to gage how many fans held tickets, but to state that the surge was primarily due to ticket less fans is simply an empty argument.
If the police lacked blame, they certainly did not act as though they did. If they lacked blame why lie about who opened the gate? Why tell lower rank officers not to write in their note books? Why doctor statements? Why steal and then hide the CCTV tape? Those are not the actions of a blameless body.
On April 15th 1989 South Yorkshire Police acted without compassion and common sense. Their approach and their actions led to the deaths of 96 people, the injury of more than 400 others and a tragedy that will forever tarnish the memories of many. Whilst Liverpool fans in the seating area pulled suffering fans from pens 3 and 4, SYPF pushed fans back over the fence and refused to open the gate. Whilst Liverpool fans carried those that were injured to the waiting ambulance crews, the police formed a barricade assuming that they were going to attack other supporters. Whilst many Liverpool fans performed mouth to mouth, the police would not allow ambulances to enter on to the pitch, thus denying those dying the use of vital medical equipment.
TV images do not show Liverpool fans urinating on the dead, they don't show Liverpool fans stealing from the dead. They show them making conscious efforts to save lives, they show them pulling together. What the images do show is the ignorance of the police.
Today a further hallmark has occurred, one that may close this case and provide justice for those that are bereaved and those that survived. The full details of what happened that day are to be released upon request of Jacqui Smith. Lets hope that by the time Hillsborough reaches its 21st anniversary, that closure will have been found and justice delivered.
Friday, 17 April 2009
Whilst Britain Acts As A Safe House For Terrorists Our Councils Use Surveillance To Track Who's Dog Poos Where...
Anti terrorism surveillance powers were implemented in The UK to protect its citizens from potential terrorist attacks. Most law abiding, stiff upper lipped Brits will sit and say that they do not mind, they don't mind this surveillance that could potentially infringe on their privacy for one simple reason: They are innocent right?
Wrong.
It seems our local councils are now abusing the legislation that allows them to track potential terrorists in order to see who leaves their bins out early, who allows their dogs to defecate on the street and who steals fairy lights from a Christmas tree. Hardly a covert operation to bring down Bin Laden now is it?
What is even more worrying is the fact that we are at no more threat from a terrorist attack now than we were 30 years ago. This is down to Britain continuing to be a safe haven for terrorists, not the word 'continuing'.
Mohammed Sifaoui a French-Algerian journalist posed as a terrorist sympathizer for many years. He managed to infiltrate Al-Qaeda cells based in The UK and France. According to
Sifaoui terrorists see Great Britain as a second base prior to their attacks. They can freely distribute literature here without question, they have been able to use The UK as a base to plot attacks prior to 9/11 and can continue to do so now. One such example of this would be the terrorist attacks in 1995 in France that were financed from The UK. Sifaoui has explained that because the terrorists can orchestrate such attacks with little intervention from the western country they are residing in they have little cause or desire to actually attack The UK itself. So it is painfully ironic that the self proclaimed terrorists stood on obscure street corners in London professing to know 'the truth' and attempting to recruit young Muslims in their battle against the capitalist west are actually making our country safer. Sustenance can be added to this argument when you consider the story of the companions of the prophet Muhammad who sought solace and found it within another country, due to this it is a Koranic rule that a Muslim is not to attack the inhabitants of a country in which they can safely reside. So theoretically, the British based Muslims are unlikely to carry out a large scale attack on Britain itself, this has also been backed up by Sheikh Omar Bakri, who leads al-Muhajiroun, a controversial and potentially dangerous Islamic group in The UK.
So as the UK continues to implement fictitious laws such as the ones designed to protect us from terrorism by allowing surveillance, it is also flouting a law introduced by the British regarding keeping terrorists safe. This law is UN resolution 1373 of 28 September 2001 which rules that member states should "(c) Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens; and to (d) Prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other states or their citizens".
So not only are we left with a bitter taste in our mouths regarding these surveillance laws being used to track how many hours prior to 7am we dragged our teeming garbage bins in to the street, we must also face the fact that Gordon Brown and his cabinet are continuing to flout UN laws regarding harboring terrorists, which ironically enough makes us as British people safer than The US, France, Italy...
Wrong.
It seems our local councils are now abusing the legislation that allows them to track potential terrorists in order to see who leaves their bins out early, who allows their dogs to defecate on the street and who steals fairy lights from a Christmas tree. Hardly a covert operation to bring down Bin Laden now is it?
What is even more worrying is the fact that we are at no more threat from a terrorist attack now than we were 30 years ago. This is down to Britain continuing to be a safe haven for terrorists, not the word 'continuing'.
Mohammed Sifaoui a French-Algerian journalist posed as a terrorist sympathizer for many years. He managed to infiltrate Al-Qaeda cells based in The UK and France. According to
Sifaoui terrorists see Great Britain as a second base prior to their attacks. They can freely distribute literature here without question, they have been able to use The UK as a base to plot attacks prior to 9/11 and can continue to do so now. One such example of this would be the terrorist attacks in 1995 in France that were financed from The UK. Sifaoui has explained that because the terrorists can orchestrate such attacks with little intervention from the western country they are residing in they have little cause or desire to actually attack The UK itself. So it is painfully ironic that the self proclaimed terrorists stood on obscure street corners in London professing to know 'the truth' and attempting to recruit young Muslims in their battle against the capitalist west are actually making our country safer. Sustenance can be added to this argument when you consider the story of the companions of the prophet Muhammad who sought solace and found it within another country, due to this it is a Koranic rule that a Muslim is not to attack the inhabitants of a country in which they can safely reside. So theoretically, the British based Muslims are unlikely to carry out a large scale attack on Britain itself, this has also been backed up by Sheikh Omar Bakri, who leads al-Muhajiroun, a controversial and potentially dangerous Islamic group in The UK.
So as the UK continues to implement fictitious laws such as the ones designed to protect us from terrorism by allowing surveillance, it is also flouting a law introduced by the British regarding keeping terrorists safe. This law is UN resolution 1373 of 28 September 2001 which rules that member states should "(c) Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens; and to (d) Prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other states or their citizens".
So not only are we left with a bitter taste in our mouths regarding these surveillance laws being used to track how many hours prior to 7am we dragged our teeming garbage bins in to the street, we must also face the fact that Gordon Brown and his cabinet are continuing to flout UN laws regarding harboring terrorists, which ironically enough makes us as British people safer than The US, France, Italy...
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
The Hillsborough Disaster 20 Years On
Today the seats at Anfield were almost filled to capacity with grieving relatives, survivors, fans and players. They were all there to remember the disaster that occurred due to poor police management on the 15th of April 1989: Hillsborough.
On April 15th 1989 as many as 25,000 Liverpool fans made the 85 mile journey from Liverpool to Sheffield for the semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Liverpool had always typically turned out more fans for their games than Nottingham Forest, but despite this they were directed towards the Leppings Lane end of the stadium (which could hold only 14,600 fans) whilst the Nottingham Forest fans were directed to the 21,000 capacity Spion Kop stand. Shortly before noon the ticket holding fans were directed to the standing area, this was divided in to 7 'pens', 3 and 4 were the ones that were most clearly marked as 'standing', resulting in the majority of the fans heading for their direction.
Outside the stadium thousands of fans arrived, many of them arriving later than the cut off mark of 2.45 pm, their lateness was largely due to an en route motorway crash causing a back log of traffic. The chaos led to children being passed over heads to safety and women gasping for breath as the crowd grew frenzied. As the chaos turned to mayhem, the police made the decision to release the gates leading to the stadium to prevent a crowd crush outside. Although this decision was made to prevent deaths, it was made poorly. Many will argue that the police made this decision with a high degree of pressure on them, but it would not have taken much common sense for them to post police officers and stewards outside each pen in order to distribute the crowd in a safe manner. This was one of the first mistakes that led to the surge, as fans followed the clearly marked 'standing' signs to pens 3 and 4, those already inside began to feel the pressure against the crush barriers, originally implemented to protect opposing teams from hooligans. 3000 fans surged through the obvious central route, with no direction from stewards or police officers, they surged in to pens that were intended to hold 2000, but it was later discovered that due to the poor quality of the crush gates at Hillsborough they should only have allowed a maximum of 1600 people at any one time. This meant that the overall health and safety capacity had doubled. Police officers and their supporters later argued that it was the drunken behaviour of Liverpool fans that caused this mis-direction, but if these fans were 'obviously' drunk as they claimed, then surely the police should have taken this in to account when allowing them to flock in to the stands freely, them being the ones in a position of authority and all.
Kick off began at 3.00pm, the referee blew the whistle to halt the match at 3.06. The Liverpool goal keeper of the time, Bruce Grobbelaar recalled hearing fans scream 'Their killing us, their killing us Bruce'. Trevor Wicks, father to Sarah and Vicky Wicks who were both tragically killed aged 19 and 15 in The Hillsborough disaster has stated how he told a police officer to open the gates to lessen the pressure, to which the officer replied 'Shut your fucking prattle'. Tv cameras filmed the police pushing fans attempting to escape back over the fences they were scaling, witnesses recall police officers forming a baracade and refusing to allow fans carrying other injured and dying fans to the 42 waiting ambulances, the police would only allow 1 ambulance through to help the hundreds of suffering fans and it was the police who treated the families of the victims with contempt and suspicion following the disaster.
Yet until this day, they will not accept the blame. The Taylor Report, released in 1989 following a 7 week trial stated that the police were at fault and the fans were a minor secondary factor, yet tabloid hounds such as Kelvin Mackenzie continued to latch on to the theory that drunken fans were to blame until 2007.
Trevor Wicks, the man who lost two daughters and who fronted the campaign for justice said that he lost all faith in the establishment that day, but did not lose his Faith in God. Speaking at Anfield today he made a brave swipe at those who refused to hand their heads in shame and gave Mackenzie and his lies a brief mention. This man who stands as a testimony to all grieving families then provided some form of relief for the 25,000+ people in the stands by saying that unconfirmed reports indicated that the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police is now willing to accept blame.
Will this provide closure for the families of those 96 and the survivors of Hillsborough? I hope so. Of course there were numerous factors that contributed to the tragedy that is Hillsborough, but the lack of basic common sense and compassion that was clear in those 1400 police officers present that day killed those innocent men, women and children.
On April 15th 1989 as many as 25,000 Liverpool fans made the 85 mile journey from Liverpool to Sheffield for the semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Liverpool had always typically turned out more fans for their games than Nottingham Forest, but despite this they were directed towards the Leppings Lane end of the stadium (which could hold only 14,600 fans) whilst the Nottingham Forest fans were directed to the 21,000 capacity Spion Kop stand. Shortly before noon the ticket holding fans were directed to the standing area, this was divided in to 7 'pens', 3 and 4 were the ones that were most clearly marked as 'standing', resulting in the majority of the fans heading for their direction.
Outside the stadium thousands of fans arrived, many of them arriving later than the cut off mark of 2.45 pm, their lateness was largely due to an en route motorway crash causing a back log of traffic. The chaos led to children being passed over heads to safety and women gasping for breath as the crowd grew frenzied. As the chaos turned to mayhem, the police made the decision to release the gates leading to the stadium to prevent a crowd crush outside. Although this decision was made to prevent deaths, it was made poorly. Many will argue that the police made this decision with a high degree of pressure on them, but it would not have taken much common sense for them to post police officers and stewards outside each pen in order to distribute the crowd in a safe manner. This was one of the first mistakes that led to the surge, as fans followed the clearly marked 'standing' signs to pens 3 and 4, those already inside began to feel the pressure against the crush barriers, originally implemented to protect opposing teams from hooligans. 3000 fans surged through the obvious central route, with no direction from stewards or police officers, they surged in to pens that were intended to hold 2000, but it was later discovered that due to the poor quality of the crush gates at Hillsborough they should only have allowed a maximum of 1600 people at any one time. This meant that the overall health and safety capacity had doubled. Police officers and their supporters later argued that it was the drunken behaviour of Liverpool fans that caused this mis-direction, but if these fans were 'obviously' drunk as they claimed, then surely the police should have taken this in to account when allowing them to flock in to the stands freely, them being the ones in a position of authority and all.
Kick off began at 3.00pm, the referee blew the whistle to halt the match at 3.06. The Liverpool goal keeper of the time, Bruce Grobbelaar recalled hearing fans scream 'Their killing us, their killing us Bruce'. Trevor Wicks, father to Sarah and Vicky Wicks who were both tragically killed aged 19 and 15 in The Hillsborough disaster has stated how he told a police officer to open the gates to lessen the pressure, to which the officer replied 'Shut your fucking prattle'. Tv cameras filmed the police pushing fans attempting to escape back over the fences they were scaling, witnesses recall police officers forming a baracade and refusing to allow fans carrying other injured and dying fans to the 42 waiting ambulances, the police would only allow 1 ambulance through to help the hundreds of suffering fans and it was the police who treated the families of the victims with contempt and suspicion following the disaster.
Yet until this day, they will not accept the blame. The Taylor Report, released in 1989 following a 7 week trial stated that the police were at fault and the fans were a minor secondary factor, yet tabloid hounds such as Kelvin Mackenzie continued to latch on to the theory that drunken fans were to blame until 2007.
Trevor Wicks, the man who lost two daughters and who fronted the campaign for justice said that he lost all faith in the establishment that day, but did not lose his Faith in God. Speaking at Anfield today he made a brave swipe at those who refused to hand their heads in shame and gave Mackenzie and his lies a brief mention. This man who stands as a testimony to all grieving families then provided some form of relief for the 25,000+ people in the stands by saying that unconfirmed reports indicated that the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police is now willing to accept blame.
Will this provide closure for the families of those 96 and the survivors of Hillsborough? I hope so. Of course there were numerous factors that contributed to the tragedy that is Hillsborough, but the lack of basic common sense and compassion that was clear in those 1400 police officers present that day killed those innocent men, women and children.
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