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"41 people might have survived" - the Hillsborough report's findings

“The truth is out today and the justice starts tomorrow,” says the chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group following the report of an independent panel examining 450,000 documents related to the disaster.

THE REPORT BY the independent panel tasked with scrutinising all documents pertaining to the Hillsborough stadium disaster has been released today and contains a number of revelations.

The panel, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool the Reverend James Jones, has overseen the examination of 450,000 documents related to the disaster and their publication today along with its report.

The disaster at the Sheffield football stadium led to deaths of 96 people in a crush at the Leppings Lane end of the ground with hundreds more injured. An inquiry later found that the failure of police crowd control was the main cause of the disaster.

In the years that followed it has emerged that officers from South Yorkshire Police conspired to cover-up their involvement in the disaster and lay the blame at the foot of the fans in order to deflect criticism from themselves.

No one has ever been criminally prosecuted for what happened on 15 April 1989.

In a statement to the House of Commons today, Prime Minister David Cameron said that he was “profoundly sorry” for what he described as a “double injustice” for the families of those that died.

Here are a few of the key findings of the report published today and which you can read in full here.

Emergency response

  • Neither South Yorkshire Police nor the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service fully activiated their major incident procedure as the disaster unfolded on the afternoon of 15 April 1989.
  • Only two major Sheffield hospitals correctly activated their major incident procedures.
  • A lack of activation of such procedures “significantly constrained” an effective and appropriate response to the disaster.
  • The panel found that there was “clear and repeated evidence of failures” in the emergency response.
  • Many junior ambulance staff and police officers as well as fans attempted resuscitation and to transfer casualties but there was no “triage” and a lack of “basic necessary equipment” for medical treatment of casualties.
  • The report states that 28 of those who died had no obstruction to their blood flow and that 31 people’s heart and lungs continued to function after the 3.15pm cut-off point (see more below).
  • In a press conference, the panel said that 41 people had the potential to survive after the 3.15pm cut-off point.
  • The panel said that on the evidence from the documents disclosed some of those who were partially asphyxiated in the crush survived for a significant period after 3.15pm.

Police cover-up/media briefing

  • The panel found that among the main flaws in the police operation were the checks that were carried out on victims of the disaster to “impugn their reputation”.
  • In relation to statements from officers from South Yorkshire Police who were present at the stadium, the panel found that 164 statements were significantly amended with 116 of these having negative or unfavourable comments about the police’s actions or conduct removed.
  • The source for The Sun newspaper’s infamous ‘The Truth’ frontpage was a local news agency in Sheffield, Whites Press Agency, whose journalists met with a local Conservative MP Irvine Patnick and members of the police force.
  • The panel said that the union for police forces in England and Wales, the Police Federation, met on the 19 April 1989 – the day The Sun printed its story.
  • A representative from SYP confirmed that they had been “putting our side of the story over to the press and the media” and that this had been his priority.
  • The Police Federation meeting heard that a “defence” had to be prepared and a “rock solid story” had to be presented which would exonerate the “force” and place the blame on “drunken, ticketless” fans.

Inquests

  • The panel found that there were “profound concerns about the conduct and appropriateness of the inquests”.
  • The panel said that the imposition of a 3.15pm cut-off point by the coroner Dr Stefan Popper, after which no evidence of the emergency response was heard, and the recording of a single, unvarying pattern of death was “unsustainable”.
  • Blood alcohol tests were carried out on those who had died, including children.
  • Documents provided “no rationale” for this “exceptional decision”.
  • The panel found that “the weight placed on alcohol levels, particularly in the Coroner’s summing up at the inquests, was inappropriate and misleading”.
  • Blood alcohol levels were tested in some survivors who attended hospitals in Sheffield but there is no record of these tests or their results in medical notes and no “apparent medical reason for the test”.

In his statement today, Prime Minister David Cameron said that victims families were correct in their belief that authorities attempted to create “a “completely unjust” account of events at Hillsborough.

“The families were right,” he told MPs.

Read: Independent report finds police changed Hillsborough statements to deflect blame

In full: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel

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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:26 AM

    Amazing how the US sends it’s warships around the world it’s called a show of strength. Yet when others do the same it’s an act of aggression. There up to something.

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    Mute Fred North
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:15 AM

    @: *They’re

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    Mute Squarepeg 01
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:20 AM

    Well if I were an Israeli or South Korean, I’d feel better knowling there was a US carrier group anchored off my coast.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 12:22 PM

    Gunboat diplomacy.

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:45 AM

    The world is going into melt down. Conflict everywhere.

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    Mute Eamon
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:36 AM

    That’s it, poke the bear.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:00 AM

    I’ve done extensive research and can’t seem to find anywhere, the exact date and time that the treaty was signed that the USA were assigned leaders of the world. They must have just assumed it.

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    Mute Zionist Shill
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:05 AM

    @: You obviously didn’t get our memo.

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    Mute Squarepeg 01
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:11 AM

    Who else is going to do it? Chibna? Rhw UN?

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Oct 12th 2023, 1:41 PM

    @: if Ireland was invaded tomorrow you be all wondering when the yanks where landing in Shannon and coming to your rescue . Liberating the Irish people GOOD. Liberating the Afghan people bad . American soldiers dying for Ireland GOOD . American soldiers dying for Afghan people BAD .

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    Mute Sean
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    Oct 12th 2023, 3:00 PM

    @Jack Moss: Oh yes. They liberated those Afghani real good! And those poppy fields got liberated too.. Thank God for our boys in the US and British army. Tally ho!

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Oct 12th 2023, 3:13 PM

    @Sean: Actually it was 40 countries that made up ISAF . There is no guaranteed any military operation is going to work . If you are scared of failure then you will never achieve anything . Thank god the rest of the world didn’t think like the Irish do otherwise the Nazis would have won WW2 . South korea would be an extension of N Korea . Millions would have died in the Balkans from ethnic cleansing . The civil war in Sierra Leon would stil be happening .

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    Mute mainmsam
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    Oct 12th 2023, 3:23 PM

    @Jack Moss: you’d think after 20 years & how many innocent civilians that had to die it might have worked. Back to square one though

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    Mute Diarmuid Hunt
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:39 PM

    @Jack Moss: Your cognitive dissonance is showing.

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    Mute
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:27 AM

    Cant everyone just relax

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    Mute Tomasso San Roque
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:37 AM

    @: we’ll they could, but there’s weapons to be sold and wealthy donees to be satisfied.

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:48 AM

    @Tomasso San Roque: well ?

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:49 AM

    @Dave Harris: we’ll

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    Mute Jack Moss
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    Oct 12th 2023, 1:44 PM

    @Tomasso San Roque: actually weapons and munitions have a shelve life then need replaced . They are normally used for training purposes at the end of their live . You don’t need wars to sell munitions and weapons .

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    Mute mainmsam
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:40 AM

    This coming from a sitting US President who said that “climate change” is a bigger threat to the world than nuclear war!

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:54 AM

    @mainmsam: it is ! A nuclear war might or might not kick off – it’s not definite. Climate change is actually happening.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:03 AM

    @Dave Harris: what flavours does Koolaid come in these days?

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    Mute mainmsam
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:30 AM

    @Dave Harris: good man Dave

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    Oct 12th 2023, 12:26 PM

    @mainmsam: to be fair, he’s changing that. Nuclear war has become a greater threat in the last 3 years.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:55 AM

    Armageddon is coming, repent

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    Mute John Sheahan
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    Oct 12th 2023, 2:36 PM

    @: we’ll at least we will finally have a World Cup in our hands before it’s lights out.

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    Mute F2yxfluD
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:54 AM

    Stop winding the guy up

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    Mute Caoimín Ó Muircheartaigh
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    Oct 12th 2023, 10:10 AM

    According to the Journal Russia has exhausted its ammunition. No evidence of this claim while Russia is chasing Nato officers/UAF out of bunkers Then we’ve a quote from Trump blaming Biden for handling the crisis in Israel/Palestine and a counter-response from a nobody working for Biden.
    Russia lost Moskva to a missile. The Ronald Reagan is made of 70k tonnes of steel. They all sink if you hit the spot. The Journal makes for tabloid reading with its opinions, so long as you get the facts from somewhere else, but that won’t be in the Western mainstream media.

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    Mute Tom Newell
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    Oct 12th 2023, 10:04 AM

    Just what the world doesnt need right now….

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    Oct 12th 2023, 11:06 AM

    @Tom Newell: it’s exactly what the world needs. When your neighbourhood is rioting, you need more police, not less.

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    Mute James Brohan
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    Oct 12th 2023, 10:26 AM

    These aircraft carriers are sitting ducks even for NK’s limited military.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 11:49 AM

    @James Brohan: let’s see if the North Koreans would like to test that theory.

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    Mute honey badger
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    Oct 12th 2023, 8:52 AM

    I see the little rata Putin is creeping out of his nest in Moscow. Be a nice change of scene from his bugout bunker in St.Peterburg.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:02 AM

    @honey badger: You should travel over there and confront him, let us know how you get on.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:03 AM

    @honey badger: the likely hood of you leaving your bugout bunker is increasing daily with the fact it’s day 5 since the last article about the Ukraine war. Amazing how quickly the world moved on isn’t it?

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    Mute honey badger
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:13 AM

    @: lol ffs.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:14 AM

    @honey badger: when are you going over to escort Russia off Ukraine’s premises?

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    Mute honey badger
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:15 AM

    @Is it 5 days since yesterday already?
    Silly.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:30 AM

    @honey badger: No article on the Ukraine war yesterday. The article was about how they may have found an informer who gave up information. Nothing about the actual war or the daily updates of Russia killing people, or Zelensky out with his begging bowl in 5 days. Must be terrible for you not having anywhere “show your support” to Ukraine by insulting people.

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    Mute honey badger
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:42 AM

    @: You’re right, the article about identifying traitors who helped Russia murder over 50 ukrainian civilians has absolutely nothing to do with Russias invasion of Ukraine.
    Clown, lol.

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    Oct 12th 2023, 12:23 PM

    @honey badger: There’s the insults again. I’m sure Zelensky feels the support when you type them here.

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    Mute Dominic Leleu
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:39 AM

    Show off

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    Mute Luka Roche
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    Oct 12th 2023, 9:57 AM

    I think WW3 is brewing in the background as the decade of 2020 to 2029 has brought a wars with Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine

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    Mute honey badger
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    Oct 12th 2023, 7:48 AM

    “negative ghost Rider, the pattern is full”

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    Mute Ham Hat
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    Oct 12th 2023, 4:29 PM

    Why the Comment section is open?

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    Mute K H
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    Oct 13th 2023, 2:37 AM

    It’s kicking off everywhere..Ukraine , Syria , Yemen, Palestine/Israel , The Korea’s, China / Taiwan …. the lobbyists on the hill and the weapons traders and manufacturers must think they’ve hit the jackpot .. enjoy the champagne and fine dining, while the rest of us watch the world go up in flames on our 4K Hi definition surround sound 55inch TV’s… humanity, destined to destroy itself.. but nevermind, just keep shopping. Oh dear

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