tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/hillsborough-3838/articlesHillsborough – The Conversation2022-11-15T15:17:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1944662022-11-15T15:17:40Z2022-11-15T15:17:40ZSeoul crowd crush: history suggests authorities may try to blame the victims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495071/original/file-20221114-20-ahmdkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4602%2C2728&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Korean Citizens hold a Candlelight tribute to the victims of the Itaewon disaster during the Halloween Festival in Seoul </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/5-november-2022-seoul-south-korea-south-korean-citizens-hold-a-candlelight-tribute-to-the-victims-of-the-itaewon-disaster-during-the-halloween-festival-in-seoul-south-korea-on-november-5-2022-photo-by-lee-young-hosipa-usa-image490512595.html?imageid=8136128E-2ECB-4C70-A48D-A9D68E9E81F8&p=1417773&pn=undefined&searchId=5c45bba44e71423d762f3d9689f1a336&searchtype=0">Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tragedy in South Korea on Halloween, in which at least 154 people were crushed to death in an alleyway, has a grim historic precedent nearly 80 years before, in wartime London.</p>
<p>In the 1943 Bethnal Green disaster, 173 people lost their lives on the steps down to the entrance to Bethnal Green underground station. The victims, mostly women and children, were sheltering from an air raid. But the witness accounts given in an inquiry after the disaster and <a href="http://www.livingmaps.org.uk/portfolio-uploads/BG-01.pdf">interviews with survivors</a> are astonishingly similar to reports of what happened in South Korea.</p>
<p>Local people in Seoul are questioning why there was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/30/southkorea-halloween-crowd-fatalities/">lack of police</a> presence to marshal the wildly popular Halloween celebrations on the night. Witnesses have described <a href="https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/witnesses-reveal-horror-of-deadly-stampede-in-south-korea-say-crowd-fell-like-dominos-articleshow.html">people falling over</a> like dominoes. Some press accounts have speculated the crush might have been caused by a <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/30/at-least-151-crushed-to-death-when-thousands-tried-to-see-celebrity-17663590/">stampede to see a celebrity</a>, pointing the finger at the victims, much in the way the Bethnal Green victims were blamed by authorities. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495096/original/file-20221114-23-dugqxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rescuers move a victim after a stampede in Seoul’s Itaewon district during Halloween celebrations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/seoul-south-korea-30th-oct-2022-30th-oct-2022-halloween-stampede-in-seouls-itaewon-rescuers-move-a-victim-on-oct-30-2022-after-about-50-people-fell-into-cardiac-arrest-from-a-stampede-in-seouls-itaewon-district-during-halloween-celebrations-the-previous-day-credit-yonhapnewcomalamy-live-news-credit-newscomalamy-live-news-image487895789.html?imageid=578BFDBD-58D3-4835-A128-0EFC9A7E3A1A&p=433731&pn=undefined&searchId=5c45bba44e71423d762f3d9689f1a336&searchtype=0">Newscom / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span>
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<p>In Bethnal Green, police used to control the flow of people through the single entrance to the air-raid shelter. But on March 3 1943, no-one was there. The stairs were badly lit, had no central handrail and the steps were unfinished. </p>
<p>A woman with a child stumbled, fell over, and in a terrible ripple effect people fell into each other and couldn’t get up. The force compressed people’s lungs, leading to an astonishing death toll. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/30/seoul-crowd-crush-what-we-know-so-far-about-halloween-deaths-in-itaewon">As in Seoul</a>, it took more than an hour to extract victims and survivors.</p>
<h2>Victim blaming</h2>
<p>The Bethnal Green disaster <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=011702404X&cm_sp=mbc-_-ISBN-_-all">inquiry report</a> investigated the circumstances in detail. But it absolved the authorities responsible for monitoring the shelter and instead blamed the victims for a stampede or “loss of self-control”. </p>
<p>The findings of the inquiry were <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1945/jan/19/shelter-accident-bethnal-green">kept secret until after the war</a> and the witness statements were only made public recently. In 2022, the records were turned into <a href="https://osf.io/9862e/?view_only=bf2e73fc99c345b2a6822db96af44240">digital versions</a> for the <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/projects/stampedes/">Stampedes Project</a> at the University of Sussex.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495099/original/file-20221114-12-h4ej6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bethnal Green underground station with the Stairway to Heaven Memorial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/bethnal-green-underground-station-with-the-stairway-to-heaven-memorial-to-173-victims-of-the-1943-bethnal-green-tube-disaster-image345636541.html?imageid=070E1352-A9FB-4540-967B-53AC5BACCDF9&p=19106&pn=undefined&searchId=d55a54c136e0e234c1f429c1fd05e5ed&searchtype=0">Robert Evans / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span>
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<p>A <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hrqx5/">detailed examination</a> of the witness statements by psychologist <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/159695">Dermot Barr</a> revealed there was almost no evidence for the stampede theory. Indeed, witnesses told the inquiry people behaved rationally and considerately and simply tried to stay together with their families.</p>
<h2>Listen to history</h2>
<p>This is reminiscent of the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield in 1989, in which 96 people were crushed to death in overcrowded football stands. The Sun newspaper and senior police officers said drunk football supporters were responsible for the crush. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9261">Taylor inquiry</a> into what happened to the Liverpool fans revealed the main causes of death were the failure of police to control the crowd and the poor quality of crush barriers in the ground itself. Once again, the victims were blamed for “unruly behaviour” rather than the authorities responsible for crowd control.</p>
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<img alt="Red t shirt with " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495100/original/file-20221114-22-bdzfc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Shops in Liverpool still refuse to sell the Sun newspaper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/2012-liverpool-merseyside-uk-person-street-1668956560">Pete Stuart/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The Stampedes Project is also examining a <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/projects/stampedes/case-studies">more recent example from London</a>, the Oxford Street false alarm on November 24 2017 in which nine people were injured following what <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/24/oxford-circus-police-attend-tube-incident">press reports</a> described as a “mass panic” as people fled from a fight in an underground station. Many people mistakenly thought the brawl was a terrorist attack. </p>
<p>This is perhaps no surprise given there had been several genuine terrorist attacks in London that year. But again, generalisations about crowd behaviour didn’t hold up when the event was studied in detail. For example, video footage actually showed many people walked away from the tube station rather than ran. </p>
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<img alt="Armed police guard Oxford Street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495097/original/file-20221114-14-8zra9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A gunman was reported on the loose on Oxford Street in Londn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-public-panic-as-gunman-is-reported-on-the-loose-on-oxford-street-in-170061448.html?imageid=1AEAF876-FA45-41C3-8963-C3BFC64CDB05&p=215289&pn=undefined&searchId=493fad0ecdb48c815c1ffc8251ba8dd3&searchtype=0">WENN Rights Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span>
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<p>The Bethnal Green inquiry let the authorities off the hook. But it explained the wartime context. There was a shortage of police, for example, because so many had been conscripted. So the entrance had been unstaffed since 1941.</p>
<p>The disaster led to widespread adoption of a number of safety features London commuters will be familiar with today. Well lit passageways, entrances monitored by staff and concertina gates that can be closed in busy periods to prevent over-crowding. Plus central and side handrails on stairs, and internal communication systems so staff above and below ground can communicate easily with each other.</p>
<p>The Taylor report led to a transformation in stadium design, including removal of fencing in football stands. Many English stadiums today have only seats and no standing room. </p>
<p>It is right that historians avoid projecting similar past incidents onto the present. But in some cases, like crowd crush disaster, much can and should be learned.</p>
<p>In Seoul, investigators would do well to consider the adequacy of specific streets and their safety features for crowded conditions. Above all else, they should think about whether the authorities could have reasonably foreseen and acted to prevent the overcrowding. Reporters and those in authority should also be precise in the language they use to write or speak about the disaster, and avoid making assumptions about the behaviour of the crowd.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Butler has received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Bethnal Green Disaster Memorial Project and The ESRC as a consultant on the University of Sussex 'Stampedes' project.
He edited the book 'The 1943 Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster: an Oral History' (2015)</span></em></p>The tragedy this year shares similarities with the 1943 Bethnal Green disaster in London.Toby Butler, Reader, Geography, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617152021-06-02T12:37:49Z2021-06-02T12:37:49ZHillsborough disaster: a revealing analysis of the language in witness statements<p>The Hillsborough disaster of April 15 1989 led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans. They were crushed on the terraces at the FA Cup semi-final as their team started play on the pitch. That afternoon the match commander, David Duckenfield, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/mar/11/hillsborough-top-police-officer-says-he-is-blank-about-two-hours">falsely reported</a> to the FA that fans forced an egress gate – Gate C – and pushed through into the ground without tickets. This lie set the narrative that was later perpetuated in and by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#/media/File:Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg">tabloid press</a>, which was that the fans arrived drunk, ticketless and too late to get into the ground. In short, they were to blame for the tragedy. This false narrative has apparent resonances in many police officers’ witness statements.</p>
<p>In 2012, following decades of academic research by criminologist <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofLaw/pre-law-reading/phil-scraton/">Phil Scraton</a> and an impassioned <a href="https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/tag/hillsborough-justice-campaign/">justice campaign</a>, the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229038/0581.pdf">Hillsborough Independent Panel</a> found that police had <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229038/0581.pdf">changed statements</a> and that it had been the police case that the blame for the disaster should be placed on to Liverpool fans. An <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hillsborough-disaster-inquests-verdicts-delivered-11240268">inquest</a> found the same in 2016.</p>
<p>My new research has delved even further into those statements and revealed how the language used in police statements helped fuel the false narrative about what happened that day. I have shown, for example, that more subtle aspects which had the effect of blame-shifting characterised the process of taking statements from football fans and Hillsborough residents.</p>
<h2>My work</h2>
<p>I <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338701468_'Retelling_Hillsborough'_in_Narrative_Retellings_Stylistic_Approaches_ed_Marina_Lambrou_Bloomsbury_Press">analysed</a> 17 residents’ statements contained in a West Midlands Police (WMP) report that was compiled for the director of public prosecutions (DPP) in 1990. Police took hundreds of residents’ statements, but the WMP report offers no indication as to why these 17 were selected for inclusion in this report.</p>
<p>In the statements, a voice other than the witnesses is also present – the institutional voice of the police. One linguistic cue that signals this voice in a witness statement is negation – which is saying what did not happen. If I report something that did not happen then I am conveying that the non-event is newsworthy. This is because there are an infinite number of things that do not happen in the world and so my reporting of the non-event must have some level of narrative significance.</p>
<p>There are many instances of negation in the WMP report statements in which the negated element can be considered reasonably relevant or, to use the linguistic term, “felicitous”. An example of a felicitous negation in a statement is “I do not know what time this was”. Police are <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203168097-15/comparison-policespeak-normalspeak-preliminary-study-gwyneth-fox">fixated by time</a>, and it is not unusual to find many references to time in witness statements. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if I report something that is unexpected or for which there is little or no expectation of relevance, the negation seems odd or “infelicitous”. The following examples are infelicitous negations from four of the 17 residents’ statements, but there are many more:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I did not see any loitering with the exception of several fans who were openly urinating in the road.</p>
<p>They were still just talking to each other and not misbehaving.</p>
<p>I saw groups of supporters standing around on pavements talking. They were not misbehaving at all.</p>
<p>On Saturday (15/04/89) most of the supporters I spoke to left and didn’t cause any trouble.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These examples are “infelicitous” because there were no mentions of “loitering”, “misbehaving” or “causing trouble” up until these points in the witness statements. There is no antecedent to link to these odd occurrences of statements about what did not happen.</p>
<p>Such constructions suggest that at these points, police officers asked questions (such as “did you see any loitering?”) and the witnesses responded “no”. As witness statements do not incorporate question-and-answer sequences, the witness’s negated response to an undocumented question is reformulated here which reads as if the witness volunteered this information.</p>
<p>As these activities did not happen, it is very odd that a witness would offer this information. To give a flavour of how pervasive this is, in these 17 statements there were a total of 143 negations but only 44 were felicitous. That means 99 instances were infelicitous. </p>
<p>Looking closer at the events that are negated, 93 of them relate to the same key themes of alcohol, causing trouble or buying and selling tickets. This means that what fans did not do features just as prominently, if not more prominently, in these residents’ statements than what fans did do. These negations indicate that police officers introduced and controlled these topics, and their pervasiveness suggests that they fixated on the key themes they themselves introduced.</p>
<p>Negation is not the only linguistic cue that builds a dominant narrative that reflects badly on Liverpool fans. For example, police used leading questions in questionnaires circulated around the local neighbourhood. The same key themes emerge again:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(i) DID YOU WITNESS ANY INCIDENTS OF DRUNKENNESS OR DISORDERLY BEHAVIOUR OF ANY OF THE FANS? (BRIEF DESCRIPTION) INCLUDE TIME OF INCIDENT.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The same kinds of questions featured in questionnaires given out in pubs and licensed premises:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(ii) WAS ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOUR PREMISES?</p>
<p>(iii) WERE YOU SUBJECTED TO ANY THREATS OR VIOLENCE BY FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS?</p>
<p>(iv) DID FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS STEAL ALCOHOL TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE? EXPLAIN BRIEFLY AND ESTIMATE QUANTITY.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Latest findings</h2>
<p>On May 26, the case against two senior South Yorkshire police personnel, Donald Denton and Alan Foster, and the force solicitor, Peter Metcalf, for perverting the course of justice (by amending statements), was discharged.</p>
<p>But it’s vital to note that the charges were dropped on the grounds that the prosecution had <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Hillsborough-Ruling.pdf">“no case to answer”</a>. Because the statements in question had been prepared for the public inquiry into the disaster rather than for a case in a court of law, it could not be said that the men perverted justice. </p>
<p>Additionally, the judge did not find that anything done by any of the defendants had a tendency to pervert the course of public justice in relation to other proceedings. The decision did not rely on an assessment of whether statements had been altered – a fact that is not in dispute.</p>
<p>And as linguistic assessment of witness statements shows, a statement doesn’t need to be literally altered to give a misleading picture of events.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Canning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Witnesses spent a surprising amount of time talking about what didn’t happen that day – which is very significant.Patricia Canning, Lecturer/Researcher, Forensic Stylistics, Linguistics, and Rhetoric, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1258472019-11-08T14:24:06Z2019-11-08T14:24:06ZBerlin Wall: secret police files and the memories of two Germanies<p>Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the <a href="https://www.bstu.de/en/the-agency/future-of-the-stasi-records/">German government has confirmed</a> plans to incorporate the Stasi files into the Federal Archive. Many people whose lives were affected by repression at the hands of the Stasi – the East German secret police – are still alive and the memories of that repression are fresh and painful. </p>
<p>But for another generation, this is history and the way Germany handles the public archive of the Stasi files can provide a valuable object lesson in how to manage memory.</p>
<p>As they mark the anniversary on November 9, Germans will also remember how citizens stormed the offices of the hated State Security Service in 1989 and 1990, demanding “freedom for my file”.</p>
<p>Germany has ensured that victims, researchers and the media have had access to the Stasi files. Government bodies and other large organisations can also use them to check if their representatives or employees worked for the Stasi as informants. This came into action in 1992, following the regulations outlined in the <a href="https://www.bstu.de/en/access-to-records/">Stasi Records Law</a>, which was overseen by the commissioner of the Stasi files. Both the law and the commissioner were the first of their kind internationally. </p>
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<p>Now, the files will be incorporated into the holdings of the Federal Archive as a distinct body. The change will ensure the conservation of the files and allow their digitisation. The physical files will remain at the former headquarters of the Ministry for State Security and in five eastern federal states (Länder). Victims and researchers will also continue to have access to the material and some major institutions will maintain the ability to “check” their employees until at least 2030. </p>
<p>Alongside this, the commissioner for the Stasi files will become the commissioner for victims of the SED Dictatorship. The current post-holder <a href="https://thepearsoninstitute.org/faculty/roland-jahn-0">Roland Jahn</a> – a former journalist and East German dissident – supports the change, arguing that this “trophy of the Revolution” must be secured for the future. However, critics fear a line is being drawn under efforts to work through this part of Germany’s past.</p>
<p>On one side of this argument are those who value the symbolism of an institution conceived in the revolution; on the other, those who see the files principally in terms of a historical source to be passed to the next generation. In this sense, this is a debate about whether it is too soon to start thinking about East Germany as just another part of German history, to be approached simply as another historical exercise.</p>
<p>Some might say it is not soon enough. The history of the GDR has always been highly politicised. The German government spends a large amount of money on public remembrance of the former state (€100m a year, according to the Representative of the Federal Government for Culture, Bernd Neumann, in a <a href="http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btp/17/17232.pdf">parliamentary plenary discussion</a> in 2013). But, until quite recently, the focus of this activity was on oppression, the Stasi, the Berlin Wall, party leaders or prominent dissidents.</p>
<p>This prevailing narrative has left a large part of the former population of the GDR feeling misrepresented – those who had lived relatively “normal” lives, had not experienced state violence directly and enjoyed the benefits of living outside of the capitalist system. Some reacted with what has been termed an “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027218">identity of defiance</a>”, asserting the validity of their own memories. </p>
<p>Memory has thereby contributed to ongoing divisions between East and West, which can be seen in an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/18/how-the-attitudes-of-west-and-east-germans-compare-30-years-after-fall-of-berlin-wall/">array of social attitudes and voting behaviour</a> – not least in the success of the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland) in the eastern states.</p>
<h2>Pact of forgetting</h2>
<p>While remembrance has proved divisive in Germany, if we turn to other contexts and countries we can see that an absence of memory does not heal divisions. In Spain, the <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/macq13&div=6&id=&page=">1977 Amnesty Law</a> meant that those responsible for crimes committed during the civil war and under Francoism could not be punished. The so-called “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/03/comment.spain">pact of forgetting</a>” meant that public remembrance of victims was limited.</p>
<hr>
<p>Memories were, however, sustained by survivors and relatives of victims. As the amnesty has been challenged legally and politically, these memories have come bursting to the fore. The recent debate around the <a href="https://theconversation.com/exhumation-of-francos-remains-is-a-chance-for-spain-to-rest-in-peace-125762">reburial of Franco’s remains</a> provides clear evidence that Spanish society is not yet reconciled with its past and divisions remain within communities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/exhumation-of-francos-remains-is-a-chance-for-spain-to-rest-in-peace-125762">Exhumation of Franco's remains is a chance for Spain to rest in peace</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>False public memory</h2>
<p>It is not only state institutions that can attempt to control the public narrative and collective memory of traumatic events. In April 1989 in Sheffield, England, 96 people were killed in the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19545126">Hillsborough disaster</a>. For decades, their relatives fought against the misrepresentation of their loved ones in the media and for the right to know what happened. A degree of justice was achieved in 2016 when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-inquests-jury-says-96-victims-were-unlawfully-killed">an inquest found</a> that the victims had been unlawfully killed and that failures on the part of the police and emergency services had contributed to their deaths. The fans had not been to blame.</p>
<p>The right to speak and give testimony about traumatic experiences can be understood in this way as a form of symbolic justice. Listening to survivors and acknowledging the particular truth of their accounts is a form of social recognition. Societies cannot and should not force survivors to speak, but neither can they insist that they are silent.</p>
<p>German memory culture has provided victims of the East German regime with many opportunities to tell their stories publicly through films, books and in memorials and museums. Access to the Stasi files was, and will continue to be, an important part of allowing victims to reclaim their pasts. But, if that same memory culture cannot also find space for voices who remember things differently – a normal life lived in a different kind of society – the risk is that these “ordinary” citizens will reject this memory culture. If this happens, the stories of victims of the regime will fall on deaf ears.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Jones has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust and Arts and Humanities Research Council for her work on testimony and the history and memory of Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.</span></em></p>The decision to move the Stasi files into the German national archive has sparked debate of how memories of life before reunification should be handled.Sara Jones, Professor of Modern Languages and German Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866642017-11-02T13:06:44Z2017-11-02T13:06:44ZNew ‘Hillsborough Law’ needed to tackle ‘burning injustice’ and empower victims and family<p>A report into the treatment of the 96 Hillsborough victims’ families <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hillsborough-police-duty-of-candour-burning-injustice-cultural-change-families-tragedy-bishop-james-a8031161.html">by the former bishop of Liverpool James Jones</a> supports the proposed “<a href="http://www.thehillsboroughlaw.com/">Hillsborough Law</a>” – which would force public bodies and public officials to tell the truth. </p>
<p>Titled <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/655892/6_3860_HO_Hillsborough_Report_2017_FINAL_WEB_updated.pdf">The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power</a>, the report looked at the families’ 27-year ordeal – between the 1989 disaster and the end of the inquests in April 2016. It puts further pressure on the government to make sure future victims and their loved ones don’t have to endure years of lies and misinformation. </p>
<p>The report by Jones, who chaired the <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/">independent panel</a> – which uncovered evidence that led to new inquests – was requested by the prime minister Theresa May, when she was home secretary. </p>
<p>The Hillsborough Law is an initiative of the victims’ families. It would prevent the obstruction and reputation management by police and others that made the 27-year process so tragic. The Law would require public bodies to act with “candour” – simply put, to tell the truth. But “candour” means more than just not lying. It would require the police and other public bodies to cooperate fully with investigations. Under the Hillsborough Law, victims can apply to the High Court or an inquiry chair to force public bodies to set out their position and make it clear what they say they did right, and what they accept they did wrong. </p>
<h2>Duty of Candour</h2>
<p>There is already a common-law duty of candour in the UK, but its limitations were laid bare in the Hillsborough Inquests. For two years, the various police parties refused to accept any failings. They convinced the coroner that the jury should not be told about the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-19575770">2012 apology by the then chief constable of the South Yorkshire Police</a>, who stated that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the immediate aftermath senior officers sought to change the record of events…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Disgraceful lies were told which blamed the Liverpool fans for the disaster.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These two admissions were central to the Hillsborough families’ cases. But they were ignored by the police and their lawyers during the inquests. Instead they again argued aggressively that the disaster was the fans’ fault. <a href="http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/cost-of-hillsborough-inquest-to-top-70m-1-7876140">This ensured that the hearing took longer</a>, cost more and inflicted more pain on the families who were forced to endure it. </p>
<p>Under the Hillsborough Law, failing to comply with the duty of candour by a public official or public body would be a crime. If an official misleads the public, the media, court or inquiry, he or she could be fined or go to prison for two years. So in the Hillsborough Inquests, the police would not have been able to pretend that the 2012 apology didn’t happen. It would have spared the families and the public purse <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hillsborough-disaster-how-the-cross-examination-of-david-duckenfield-was-a-shocking-landmark-in-the-10124308.html">tortuous weeks of cross examination</a>. </p>
<h2>From Hillsborough to Grenfell</h2>
<p>Proposed with cross-party support, the Hillsborough Law had <a href="https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/publicauthorityaccountability.html">its first reading in parliament</a> in March this year, but fell because of the general election. But the bishop’s report highlights the costs of inaction. The letter to Theresa May, and a <a href="https://twitter.com/davidlammy/status/924765067194793985">big push on twitter</a> to coincide with the release of the bishop’s report may resurrect the bill in this parliament – and there is no better time. The Grenfell Tower disaster is another tragedy that will require support for the victims and candour from public bodies. </p>
<p>The immediacy of the apparent failings at Grenfell was shocking. We saw the fire spread with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2017/jun/14/grenfell-tower-blaze-video-explainer?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">terrifying speed on television</a> and soon learned of the <a href="https://www.shortlist.com/news/grenfell-tower-london-fire-blog-post-warning/59534">Tenancy Association’s warnings</a> to the intractable management committee. We saw the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fears-riots-streets-anger-over-10633012">anger in the streets</a> at the Council’s relief and rehousing effort. Initial demands were made for a report <a href="http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/sadiq-khan-slams-council-grenfell-13326821">by the end of summer</a>, but the survivors and families were forced to settle for a <a href="https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/">longer public inquiry</a> chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick – a retired judge. </p>
<p>The Hillsborough Law would empower the Grenfell victims and their families to demand that the public bodies involved cooperate fully and openly with the inquiry. These bodies would be forced to tell the truth, and be clear about any failures. If the Law is passed, the legacy of Hillsborough will help to create a new era of transparency and justice for victims and their families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jared Ficklin is the Director of the Liverpool Law Clinic. Clinic students worked voluntarily on the Hillsborough Inquests on behalf of Brodie Jackson Canter which represented 22 families. Jared is also active in the Hillsborough Law campaign group. </span></em></p>This is about more than justice for the 96.Jared Ficklin, Lecturer in Law, Liverpool Law Clinic, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813412017-07-20T17:58:18Z2017-07-20T17:58:18ZThe Demba Diop stadium football crush: Is this Senegal’s Hillsborough?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179047/original/file-20170720-23983-10iy7pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Survivors of a stampede at Demba Diop stadium, Senegal. Eight people were killed when a wall collapsed after fighting started between fans. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s the evening of Saturday July 15: Stade de Mbour meeting Union Sportive (US) Ouakam in the Senegalese League Cup final at the Demba Diop stadium in Dakar. With the score evenly poised at 1-1 and the match having entered extra time, the team from Mbour, 80 kilometres south of the capital, scored what would prove to be the decisive goal.</p>
<p>The fans of Ouakam – a suburb of Dakar – started turning on their rivals, charging towards the fans in the Mbour section of the stadium and throwing rocks. As the Mbour fans sought refuge in one corner of the stand, part of a supporting wall gave way, plunging them into the ditch which surrounds the pitch. In the fall and ensuing panic, eight people lost their lives and around a 100 more were injured. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14093674">Senegal</a>’s worst ever <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40621982">sporting disaster</a>, some difficult questions had to be asked. How could this be allowed to happen? Who was to blame? And what would be the consequences? </p>
<p>An immediate scapegoat was found in the shape of US Ouakam. Their fans were reported to have initiated the violence which triggered the incident. The team was swiftly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40634432">suspended</a> indefinitely from all official competitions. The disorderly behaviour of sport fans in general was widely condemned. Indeed, this has been a recurring theme in Senegal’s sporting landscape for some time. It might be considered surprising, however, that the violence should reach its apex at a football match.</p>
<h2>Warnings about the stadium</h2>
<p>While living in Dakar and conducting ethnographic <a href="http://global-sport.eu/research-team">fieldwork</a> on the trajectories of aspiring athletes, I regularly attended both football matches and wrestling fights at stadia and arenas across the city. It included Demba Diop stadium, where most of the biggest wrestling events are held. </p>
<p>I was frequently warned by friends to avoid certain areas outside the stadium prior to or after the event. They warned me to leave the stadium early, or to stay away entirely and watch it on TV instead. On more than one occasion, I did get caught up in violent skirmishes where blows were exchanged, objects including chairs and bottles were thrown, and crowds were crushed into small areas as they tried to escape the violence. Senegalese sport fans are a passionate bunch. A trip to the stadium can turn into a volatile experience in the event of an unpopular outcome.</p>
<p>But all of these incidents and security warnings took place in the context of <em>lutte avec frappe</em> – <a href="https://theconversation.com/senegalese-wrestle-with-ethnicity-while-reaching-for-dreams-of-success-66073">wrestling with punches</a> – Senegal’s national sport, which has a reputation for being steeped in occult activities and violence. Football, by comparison, is considered relatively peaceful, in part due to the significantly lower interest in domestic competition. </p>
<p>When I went to the Demba Diop stadium to watch the semifinal of the football League Cup in 2015, there were only a handful of fans in an otherwise deserted stadium. Indeed, the matches of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-african-fans-love-european-football-a-senegalese-perspective-79856">inter-district navétanes championships</a> are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-african-fans-love-european-football-a-senegalese-perspective-79856">better attended</a> than the main league and cup formats, due to their important role in fostering community togetherness and local pride. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179023/original/file-20170720-23983-1ay2oyi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Normally very few fans attend football matches at Demba Diop, like this game in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Hann</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While there is no excuse for the unacceptable behaviour of a small minority of fans, the situation at Demba Diop was compounded by a glaring lack of security. One source told me that there was a cordon of only 10 police officers separating the two groups of fans, and that they left the scene once they realised that they could not control the escalating violence. </p>
<p>Other eyewitnesses <a href="http://www.jeuneafrique.com/458070/societe/senegal-alpha-raconte-nuit-de-violences-de-panique-stade-demba-diop/">suggested</a> that there was simply not enough security in the ground – and that those who were there simply observed proceedings without trying to intervene. An investigation has been launched to answer some of the pressing questions which arise from this tragedy: how many fans were allowed into the stadium? How could they bring in rocks and other projectiles? Was there sufficient security present? And was their response – which included the deployment of teargas to counter the crowd violence – appropriate?</p>
<h2>Complacency of political authorities</h2>
<p>For many Senegalese, the Demba Diop disaster is just the latest in a series of incidents which have demonstrated the negligence and complacency of political authorities in guaranteeing the safety of citizens. In recent months, <a href="http://www.dakaractu.com/Incendie-meurtrier-aux-Parcelles-Assainies-Ousseynou-Diaz-a-enterre-ses-cinq-enfants_a131427.html">fires</a> in the Dakar suburb of Parcelles Assainies and at a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/13/20-killed-in-fire-at-muslim-spiritual-retreat-in-senegal.html">religious festival</a> in Medina Gounass, as well as mass traffic accidents in <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/news/2017/03/218210/18-killed-senegal-truck-bus-crash">Saint-Louis</a> and <a href="http://www.lesoleil.sn/2016-03-22-23-37-00/item/60581-kaffrine-16-morts-et-18-blesses-dans-un-accident.html">Kaffrine</a> have claimed many lives. </p>
<p>Some commentators have been dismayed by the lack of official response and accountability. Both President Macky Sall and Sports Minister Matar Ba have <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/dead-senegal-football-stadium-stampede-170715213844314.html">declared</a> that the events at the stadium will be examined in a full inquiry. But, it remains to be seen whether these are anything more than hollow promises. </p>
<p>Demba Diop stadium was <a href="http://openbuildings.com/buildings/stade-demba-diop-profile-36814?_show_description=1">constructed</a> in 1963, and some minor repairs have been carried out since. However, its crumbling walls and dilapidated stands bear testimony to its age. Senior officials have been calling for the refurbishment and modernisation of the stadium for several years. Until now, almost nothing has been done, despite the fact that the venue also plays host to official international matches. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of Saturday’s events, the former Chelsea and Senegal striker Demba Ba <a href="https://twitter.com/dembabafoot/status/886536065464635393">tweeted</a> his discontent with the lack of funding for the country’s football venues. It seems that it has taken the deaths of eight innocent people to provoke the authorities into taking action. With tensions in Senegal already riding high due to the <a href="http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/senegals-ex-president-returns-for-legislative-elections-20170711">legislative elections</a> at the end of July, all major sporting events have been <a href="http://kwese.espn.com/football/senegal/story/3159293/senegal-suspend-sports-events-after-tragedy">suspended</a> until then. </p>
<p>What happened at the Demba Diop stadium is sadly not an isolated event in the global context. A combination of decrepit stadia, poor security, and a failure to control crowd violence have led to similar disasters in <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/killed-stadium-stampede-malawi-48471155">Malawi</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38939723">Angola</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/at-least-four-dead-and-more-injured-after-stampede-at-honduran-football-match-a7761386.html">Honduras</a> this year alone. And while stadium safety has improved immeasurably in Europe thanks to safety measures including the introduction of all-seater football grounds, the horrors of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-32898612">Heysel</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-32898612">Bradford</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades">Hillsborough</a> live on in the memories of football fans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179026/original/file-20170720-24021-ah61gk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thousands gathered last year in remembrance of those who died at the Hillsborough disaster, that claimed the lives of 96 people in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Powell/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, it was only last month (June 2017) that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/28/hillsborough-six-people-including-two-senior-police-officers-charged">charges</a> were brought against those responsible for the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, in which 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives. The scale of negligence and the ensuing police cover-up which reached the upper echelons of British politics, have been gradually pieced together over the course of a lengthy campaign and multiple inquests and inquiries. </p>
<p>There are parallels to be drawn to the Demba Diop disaster: an initial focus on blaming fans, inadequate stadium design and maintenance, and insufficient or negligent security. As Senegal mourns the victims and searches for answers, it is to be hoped that lessons are learned, and consequences are swift. </p>
<p><em>This article is based partly on research conducted as part of the <a href="http://global-sport.eu/">GLOBALSPORT</a> project based at the University of Amsterdam and funded by the European Research Council.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Hann receives funding from the European Research Council.</span></em></p>As Senegal mourns the victims of the Demba Diop football stadium crush and searches for answers, it is to be hoped that lessons are learned, and consequences are swift.Mark Hann, Doctoral student in Anthropology, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795052017-06-22T19:14:26Z2017-06-22T19:14:26ZThe Grenfell Tower inquiry: learning from Hillsborough<p>Now that the enormity of the Grenfell Tower tragedy is apparent, it is clear that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/14/fire-safety-concerns-raised-by-grenfell-tower-residents-in-2012">residents’ concerns</a> about the building’s design, structure and fabric had been ignored, suggesting a catastrophic dereliction of responsibility by corporate and public bodies. In the hours and days that followed, the bereaved and survivors were left, homeless and destitute, to fend for themselves, while social and mainstream media carried often ill-informed demands for an immediate wide-ranging investigation.</p>
<p>The government has now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/victims-advocate-role-created-in-response-to-grenfell-fire">indicated its intention</a> to establish a judicial inquiry, a decision greeted with understandable caution by the community – who fear it will not deliver the necessarily independent, prompt or thorough investigation. One <a href="https://www.change.org/p/this-government-must-carry-out-a-fully-transparent-investigation-into-the-grenfell-tragedy-allowing-for-meaningful-participation-of-the-residents-their-families-and-the-surrounding-community-their-voices-must-be-heard">online petition</a> demanding transparency and “meaningful investigation” has amassed over 150,000 signatures. Another <a href="https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/an-inquest-not-a-public-inquiry-for-the-grenfell-tower-fires">well-subscribed petition</a> has demanded an immediate inquest, reflecting profound distrust in state-initiated inquiries.</p>
<p>It is a distrust rooted in previous investigations. Solicitor for the 2009 Lakanal fire victims, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grenfell-tower-public-inquiry-is-not-answer-warns-lawyer-7qmxfrk5m">Sophie Khan</a>, has argued an inquest would enable a jury to reach a verdict independent of government influence. Cited as the way forward, in 2016 the jury in the <a href="https://hillsboroughinquests.independent.gov.uk/">second Hillsborough inquest</a> reached its verdict of unlawful killing and 25 damning findings against the police and other key institutions. </p>
<h2>Long road to justice</h2>
<p>Hillsborough, however, demonstrates the shortcomings of inquests and inquiries. Within four months of the 1989 disaster, a public inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Taylor, concluded that the main cause of the deaths was overcrowding on the stadium’s terraces but the main reason was a police failure in controlling the crowd. Yet, the speed with which his <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/HWP000000180001.html">interim report</a> was delivered significantly inhibited exploration of the historical context, the wider institutional failings, and the appalling treatment of the bereaved and survivors during the immediate aftermath.</p>
<p>Crucially, Taylor failed to reveal that police officers’ statements underwent review and alteration carried out by a South Yorkshire investigation team in close consultation with the force’s solicitors. This process was accepted by Taylor, by the West Midlands Police investigators and by the Home Office. It has since been revealed that the South Yorkshire Ambulance Service <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/report/Section-1/summary/page-13/">adopted a similar process</a>.</p>
<p>In March 1991, the first Hillsborough inquest jury, under assertive direction from the coroner, delivered verdicts of accidental death. Over two decades later, the full extent of the miscarriage of justice was revealed – not by an inquest nor by a public inquiry – but by the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/report/">400-page report</a>, encompassing 153 detailed findings. I headed its research and also advised the bereaved families’ legal teams throughout the second inquest from 2014 to 2016. </p>
<h2>Frustration for families and survivors</h2>
<p>Among the Grenfell families and survivors, the sense of urgency and desperation for their questions to be answered is as obvious as it is painful. Calls for inquests to precede an inquiry are understandable but inappropriate. Inquests have neither the capacity, nor scope to engage necessarily complex questions. For example, it is outside their remit to explore survivors’ experiences and their endurance of the immediate aftermath.</p>
<p>Inquests establish who died, and when and where they died. A fourth duty – to establish how they died – is the most contested terrain at inquests involving deaths in controversial and contested circumstances. Yet inquests cannot attribute named responsibility for the deaths, and witnesses can refuse to answer questions that could suggest liability.</p>
<p>An underlying frustration is that no alternative form of investigation exists. When I stood before the Hillsborough families and survivors to deliver the panel’s report, I anticipated we had established a process that prioritised the best interests of families and survivors. Innovative and independent, a panel with complementary and necessary skills had prepared the ground for new inquests, criminal prosecutions and disciplinary proceedings. It now appears it will remain an exception.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Prime Minister Theresa May <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/victims-advocate-role-created-in-response-to-grenfell-fire">has confirmed</a> that a public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire will proceed. In fast-moving developments following her announcement, it transpires that across England approximately <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/22/flammable-cladding-found-on-other-flats-after-grenfell-fire-says-may">600 high-rise blocks</a> have combustible exterior cladding similar to Grenfell’s. The financial and personal implications for evacuating these blocks and rehousing their residents are unprecedented. It has taken a dreadful tragedy to reveal the extent of such institutionalised neglect and complacency. And the Grenfell inquiry will be deficient unless it addresses, explains and acts on three inter-connected elements.</p>
<p>First is the history of the tower block: from inception and planning as a local authority housing development, to its commission, design, transfers of ownership, subsequent modifications, inspections and so on. The combination of public investment and the chain of private contractual arrangements are central to the “long history” that precedes all disasters. This was the crucial context and record of complex decision-making absent from the rushed public inquiry into Hillsborough. It took the independent panel’s research team, which I led, two years to unpack this complexity.</p>
<p>Second is to establish precisely what happened on the night of the disaster. This must focus on discovering how the fire started and why it spread so fast with such devastating consequences. Clearly, preventative measures – fire barriers, alarms and sprinkler systems – were not present, or were ineffective. Thus, escape and rescue was inhibited with dire consequences. The inquiry should also consider why prophetic warnings of concerned residents allegedly went unheeded.</p>
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<p>Third – consistent with the model devised for the Hillsborough Independent Panel – is a full analysis and evaluation of the systemic failures during the immediate aftermath and days that followed. People lost loved ones, neighbours and all possessions. Yet in these moments of crisis, as the prime minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/victims-advocate-role-created-in-response-to-grenfell-fire">has admitted</a>, they were failed. As I have stated repeatedly post-Hillsborough, immediate care and support for those traumatised has to be central to any emergency response.</p>
<p>In my experience, the Grenfell inquiry will not have the confidence of the community unless it demonstrates a profound understanding of the context, circumstances and aftermath of the tragedy, engaging directly and meaningfully with families and survivors. At the public inquiry and eventual inquests, as the recent Hillsborough inquests demonstrated, families must be guaranteed state-funded access to full legal representation equivalent to that commissioned by the private and public bodies involved. </p>
<p>Those appointed as advisors to the inquiry must have the experience and expertise to question, contextualise and evaluate evidence on each of the above three elements. The inquiry must present incisive conclusions on causation alongside recommendations that safeguard those living in similar accommodation. Only then, and to the satisfaction of the bereaved and survivors, can the truth be revealed and the public interest served.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Scraton receives funding from ESRC and The Leverhulme Trust.
Editorial Board of Statewatch, member of INQUEST.
By-line: Phil Scraton is professor emeritus in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. Author of the much-acclaimed Hillsbrough: The Truth, he headed the research for the Hillsborough Independent Panel and was primary author of its report. He was advisor to the Hillsborough families’ legal teams throughout the inquests 2014-2016. A founder and advisory board member of INQUEST (see: <a href="http://www.inquest.org.uk/media/pr/inquest-statement-on-grenfell-tower-fire">www.inquest.org.uk/media/pr/inquest-statement-on-grenfell-tower-fire</a> )</span></em></p>The investigation into the Hillsborough disaster took a long and twisted path – the government must learn from its mistakes.Phil Scraton, Professor Emeritus in Criminology, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588112016-05-04T10:54:16Z2016-05-04T10:54:16ZThe case for police commissioners<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121032/original/image-20160503-19828-1pacpeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Thursday May 5, voting will get underway for local police and crime commissioners – commonly referred to as a PCC. The chances are that it will be the first time that many people have voted for a PCC, as back in November 2012 when the first PCC elections were held, most people did not bother, resulting in an average <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/30/nine-in-10-cannot-name-local-police-and-commissioner-pcc">turnout of less than 15%</a> of potential voters across England and Wales. Understandably, the elections were dubbed a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/by-extending-the-remit-of-pccs-the-government-is-playing-with-fire-47909">shambles</a>”.</p>
<p>The decision to stage the first PCC elections on a (cold) Thursday in November probably goes a long way to explain why the eventual <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20374139">turnout was so low</a>. Added to that the fact that it was the wettest November in 50 years and, along with a lack of awareness, it’s not surprising most people weren’t bothered enough to turn up to vote.</p>
<p>This time round, tying the PCC elections to the local elections is definitely likely to significantly increase voter turnout. Even if voters only go to vote for their local councillors, while they are there they will be asked to vote for a PCC – two birds with one stone and all that.</p>
<h2>What is a PCC?</h2>
<p>Despite popular opinion, <a href="http://www.apccs.police.uk/role-of-the-pcc/">police and crime commissioners are influential</a> and important because as well as being responsible for the hiring and firing of chief constables, they are charged with holding the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tories-quietly-slash-police-fund-7310428">police fund</a>. </p>
<p>This is an annual grant from the Home Office to fund their policing, which is calculated using a formula which takes into account factors such as population size, geography and levels of crime in the 43 police service areas.</p>
<p>It is the PCC’S responsibility to set the budget for the force area, which includes allocating enough money from the overall policing budget to ensure that they can discharge their own functions effectively. </p>
<p>As part of their role, police and crime commissioners must produce a “police and crime plan” which lays out their objectives for policing in their area – including what resources will be made available to their chief constable and how they intend to measure police performance. </p>
<p>The PCC is required to produce an annual report to the public on progress in policing. The plans they develop are therefore very important as they will <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-years-on-from-the-first-uk-police-commissioners-its-time-to-get-ambitious-55692">set the direction and emphasis</a> of your local police force. </p>
<h2>Why bother voting?</h2>
<p>PCCs have to set up and run their own offices with their own staff to monitor progress against the crime plans, measure police performance and administer the policing budget. This is a lot of power for just one person. Ask yourself how you would feel in the very unlikely scenario that your PCC set up his or her administrative centre in a stately home, decorated it with expensive marble flooring, antique furniture and priceless masterpieces – and you hadn’t voted? </p>
<p>They are also able to raise additional police funding by raising the <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/police-funding">local policing precept</a> from our council tax – if you look at your council tax bill for this year you will see policing itemised along with the fire services. So if you have an opinion on how your council tax is spent, it’s probably worth your while having a think about who should get your vote in your local area.</p>
<p>When it comes to the hiring and firing of chief constables, you clearly want a PCC who knows their stuff. I live in Yorkshire, where this power has been wielded in a big way. The chief constable of West Yorkshire was hired but then was very quickly <a href="http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-police-chief-mark-gilmore-has-suspension-lifted-1-7259869">suspended as part of a probe into police vehicle contracts</a> and the chief constable of South Yorkshire has just been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36154201">suspended following the Hillsborough inquests</a>. This means that voting for the candidate you trust to wield this power for the public good is pretty important. </p>
<h2>What makes a good PCC?</h2>
<p>Don’t be under the illusion that only ex-police candidates will know anything about crime – or even policing. In fact, having been a police officer might actually produce a narrower perspective of crime solely based on career experience – so what counts as serious crime to you could be considered totally differently to an ex-bobby.</p>
<p>That said, a candidate who appears to know little (or next to nothing) about crime at all is far more worrying. A Channel 4 documentary which aired last year followed the PCC for Kent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-36093721">Ann Barnes</a>, leading to widespread criticism of the role and claims it made the Kent force into a “laughing stock”. </p>
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<p>In <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/meet-the-police-commissioner">Meet the Police Commissioner</a> Barnes, struggled to explain what her role involved and was filmed painting her nails and incorrectly writing her job title on a whiteboard.</p>
<p>So someone who knows a bit about crime, victimisation and policing, and who is prepared to listen to local views and opinions and challenge the chief constable where and when necessary, would be a start. </p>
<p>And if you list crime as one of your main concerns, then surely you need to have a say in who is in charge of policing your local area.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Roach (on behalf of University of Huddersfield) received funding to develop and conduct a 'feelings of safety' questionnaire for the Office for the PCC for West Yorkshire, in 2013</span></em></p>Here’s what you need to know before you cast your vote in the elections for local police crime commissioners.Jason Roach, Reader in Crime and Policing, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585302016-04-27T16:00:44Z2016-04-27T16:00:44ZHillsborough inquest rights the wrongs, but now attitudes towards fans must change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120382/original/image-20160427-30960-owps88.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Modern standing terraces are safer than all-seater stadiums.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_seats_in_Klagenfurt,_Austria.JPG">Jon Darch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Hillsborough disaster of April 1989 shook British football to its core, but such was the terrible state of Britain’s decrepit, overcrowded, poorly policed terraces that many fans had long predicted such a disaster would unfold.</p>
<p>But even after the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/32388297">fire at Bradford City’s ground in 1985</a>, whenever such fears were raised they were given short shrift. Prior to the semi-final at which 96 of his club’s fans died, Liverpool’s own chief executive, Peter Robinson, contacted the Football Association asking them <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/docs/HOM000001380001.pdf">not to locate the Liverpool supporters in the much smaller Leppings Lane End </a>. If he was ignored, what chance did ordinary fans have in articulating their concerns? </p>
<p>The authorities were animated more by the spectre of hooliganism – and this loomed large in attitudes towards football fans. Supporters were not to be listened to but to be controlled. The sins of the few meant that football fans were collectively caged like animals in creaking, crumbling pens surrounded by perimeter fencing.</p>
<p>For those charged with managing games, law and order were far more important than the welfare of supporters. Even in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, the narrative of hooliganism and “<a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/report/Section-1/summary/page-14/">drunk, ticketless fans</a>” provided the police with a convenient if fraudulent alibi to cover up their own incompetence and wilful neglect of human life. It was a deceitful lie repeated with glee by <a href="https://theconversation.com/finally-the-truth-about-hillsborough-but-you-wont-read-it-on-the-front-of-the-sun-58529">certain parts of the tabloid media</a>.</p>
<p>The public inquiry into Hillsborough led to the publication of the <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/docs/HOM000028060001.pdf">Taylor Report</a> in 1990. Although this went some way towards clearing the Liverpool supporters of blame, pressure applied by the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, saw the final version shorn of any criticism of the police. Taylor instead focused upon Britain’s decaying terraces, ordering that they be modernised and transformed into all-seater stadiums, and for the 27 years that the truth remained buried, the authorities believed that the Taylor Report contained all the lessons that needed to be learnt.</p>
<p>Now, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-35401436">14 landmark verdicts delivered at the Hillsborough inquest</a> – including one declaring the 96 deaths unlawful killings and another exonerating the behaviour of the Liverpool fans – not only vindicate the families’ struggle for justice but also reveal the limitations of Lord Taylor’s original inquiry. Taylor was right, of course, to absolve the Liverpool fans of any blame and he was right to criticise those who sought to pin culpability for the disaster upon anyone other than those responsible for the fans’ safety. But Taylor stopped short of properly holding to account those who had neglected their public and legal duty of care. By emphasising the need for all-seater stadiums, Taylor’s recommendations unwittingly supported the narrative that the fans were to blame.</p>
<h2>Returning to the Taylor report</h2>
<p>Football has undergone a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-long-haul-to-implement-taylor-report-1087369.html">radical, much-needed transformation in the decades since Hillsborough</a>. Futuristic, space-aged stadiums have replaced the pre-war relics that existed at the time of the disaster, providing fans with comfort, albeit for a considerably higher price. Yet supporters are still <a href="http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/watching-football-is-not-a-crime/">frequently subject to draconian measures</a> designed to curb and control their movements and behaviour – measures that stem from the same attitudes that the inquests found had been partly responsible for failures before, during and after the disaster.</p>
<p>Now is the time to challenge these deep-seated attitudes – most of all the issue of standing terraces and drinking alcohol in football grounds. So far football authorities, in England at least, have been taciturn over the introduction of “safe standing” areas. Rejected principally <a href="http://old.culture.gov.uk/news/hot_topics/9608.aspx">out of respect for those who died</a>, modern safe standing does not mean a return to the dark days of the huge, crumbling terraces and the lethal perimeter fences that penned supporters in like cattle. It involves a safety barrier on every row and rail seats that can be bolted upright to allow spectators to stand safely, without the threat of crushing and overcrowding. </p>
<p>Where this technology <a href="http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/safe-standing/what-does-safe-standing-look-like/">has been introduced in Germany, Sweden and Austria</a>, it has been shown to be a safer alternative to the all-seater stadiums recommended by Lord Taylor and now found throughout the UK. Perversely, given the lessons of Hillsborough, this reticence to engage in constructive dialogue with fans over the issue suggests a continued unwillingness to prioritise crowd safety over crowd control.</p>
<p>The same attitude is evident in the efforts to rid football of alcohol. The use of “dry trains” where the drinking of alcohol is forbidden between certain stations, and the continued <a href="http://www.safetyatsportsgrounds.org.uk/advice/faqs/sporting-events-act-1985">ban on the consumption of alcohol “within sight of the pitch” on match days</a> implicitly fuels the myth that drink was a contributory factor at Hillsborough. There is little evidence to suggest football’s illogical approach to alcohol actually has any effect upon violence. Relaxing the regulations concerning drinking during matches, as at other sporting events, would address the discrimination that football fans continue to face and, crucially will help erase the pernicious lie that was spun following Hillsborough. </p>
<p>These new verdicts finally deliver what the families and survivors of Britain’s worst sporting disaster always knew: that their loved ones were unlawfully killed, that the behaviour of those who survived was beyond reproach and that a cover-up ensued to protect those who had failed in their duty of care. Britain and the rest of football owes them a debt of gratitude for their tireless campaign. </p>
<p>But their challenge to the attitudes of those who govern the game and society must be taken further, to change the narrative that hindered the families’ struggle for the truth – only that will deliver a lasting justice for the 96.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Safe standing stadiums and less invasive crowd control would be the final step to overturn Hillsborough’s wrongful legacy on British football.David Webber, Teaching Fellow, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585292016-04-27T13:06:39Z2016-04-27T13:06:39ZFinally, the truth about Hillsborough (but you won’t read it on the front of The Sun)<p>As Jared Ficklin <a href="https://theconversation.com/hillsborough-at-last-the-shameful-truth-is-out-58456">wrote here</a>, the verdicts returned at the inquest into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 completely vindicate the 27-year campaign for justice resolutely undertaken by the families of the 96 who died.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36138337">The verdicts</a>, which will surely have far-reaching consequences for the South Yorkshire police, found that those who died were unlawfully killed and that a series of failures by the police and ambulance services contributed to the tragedy. The jury also unanimously agreed that the behaviour of Liverpool supporters did not contribute to the horrific events. After the decisions were made public, the <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/david-cameron-hillsborough-verdicts-official-11246715">prime minister, David Cameron</a> was moved to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All families and survivors now have official confirmation of what they always knew was the case, that the Liverpool fans were utterly blameless in the disaster that unfolded at Hillsborough.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Outside the court, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/hillsborough-disaster-inquest-rules-96-victims-unlawfully-killed/">Margaret Aspinall</a>, whose 18-year-old son James died in the disaster, said: “Let’s be honest about this – people were against us. We had the media against us, as well as the establishment.”</p>
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<p>And, when we consider Mrs Aspinall’s sentiments concerning the media and the fact that both The Sun and The Times, in isolation, originally <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/27/sun-times-front-pages-ignore-hillsborough-verdict?CMP=twt_gu">chose not to cover</a> the verdicts on their front pages the following morning it’s impossible not to think about how the tragedy was <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/docs/PRE000000340001.pdf">originally reported</a> by The Sun.</p>
<p>On April 19, four days after the disaster occurred, The Sun printed its “THE TRUTH” edition, where its front page alleged that Liverpool fans had stolen from the bodies of the victims, urinated on “brave cops” and, in a particularly appalling piece of fantasy which I quote in full, alleged that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In one shameful episode, a gang of Liverpool fans noticed the blouse of a girl trampled to death in the crush had risen above her breasts. As a policeman struggled in vain to revive her they jeered: “Throw her up here and we will **** her.”</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Sun’s front page following Hillsborough.</span>
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<p>In their book about the Sun, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stick-Up-Your-Punter-Newspaper/dp/0571299709">Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie</a> describe the atmosphere inside The Sun’s newsroom in the Hillsborough era under the editorship of Kelvin Mackenzie. </p>
<p>It was a place, they write, of terror – where the editor’s personality dominated to such an extent that even though there were grave misgivings about the accounts of what happened at Hillsborough (none of the allegations, of course, were attributable) journalists felt intimidated and powerless to object to the terrible smears. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-19507065">Harry Arnold</a>, the reporter whose by-line appeared next to the story along with John Askill, told the BBC in 2012 that when he saw the article ready for print he was “aghast”. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The fact is reporters don’t argue with an editor. And in particular, you don’t argue with an editor like Kelvin Mackenzie.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s worth pointing out, though, that various other newspapers were culpable in peddling the narrative of supporter misbehaviour and criminality. The Daily Express, for example, on April 18 ran with the front page headline, POLICE ACCUSE DRUNKEN FANS. Football Fanzine <a href="http://www.exacteditions.com/read/wsc/june-1989-48242/4/3/%20.">When Saturday Comes</a> did a round-up of some of the headlines including the Sunday People’s: BODIES SPIKED AS CRAZED MOB FLEE.</p>
<h2>Anger on Merseyside</h2>
<p>Such reports must be seen in their political and social context. The subject of football hooliganism had great currency in the late 1980s and, as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14616700050081786">Jemphrey and Beddington </a> point out, Liverpool as a city had been subject to continual negative imagery and bad press from the national newspapers in general. Hooliganism as a cause of the tragedy was the accepted “wisdom” in the aftermath of events – and <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/report/main-section/part-2/chapter-12/page-7/index.html">not just</a> in the tabloid press.</p>
<p>Yet it is The Sun that remains most closely associated with the lies and disinformation perpetuated around the Hillsborough tragedy. There are a number of reasons for this. It’s because of the apparent certainty of the THE TRUTH headline and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154177221679540&set=gm.10154060738061772&type=3&theater">belated apologies</a>; it’s because of the habitual cockiness of <a href="http://www.themediablog.co.uk/the-media-blog/2012/09/kelvin-mackenzies-latest-hillsborough-insult.html">Mackenzie</a> and his return as a Sun columnist. It may even be, as Mackenzie himself maintains, because The Sun <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/sep/27/kelvin-mackenzie-hillsborough-disaster">was so pro-Thatcher</a> – and the city in general was so vehemently opposed to a variety of Tory policies.</p>
<p>But it is little wonder, reading once again The Sun’s accumulated coverage of the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, that the anger on Merseyside felt toward the paper since 1989, despite the seemingly grudging and <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4535743/23-years-after-Hillsborough-the-real-truth.html">belated apologies</a>, has hardly subsided. After the verdicts were announced, former Liverpool players called for the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hillsborough-disaster-inquest-the-sun-kelvin-mackenzie-trevor-kavanagh_uk_571f8103e4b06bf544e0c423">closure of the paper</a> – and at the post-verdict press conference it became clear that Sun journalists were <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hillsborough-inquest-verdict-the-sun-kelvin-mackenzie_uk_571f4311e4b06bf544e0a7fa">not welcome</a> as they were asked to leave “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hillsborough-verdict-the-sun-and-the-times-criticised-for-leaving-inquest-verdict-off-front-page-a7002806.html">quietly by the back door</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120359/original/image-20160427-30946-4jrgrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sun journalists need not apply.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But what must not be forgotten or side-lined is the fact that, as <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/12872#.VyB7wVUrKUk">Mick Hume</a> wrote in Spiked in 2012, The Sun (and the other papers, for that matter) did not simply make up the slanderous and despicable stories they ran. They were wilfully fed false stories by the establishment and by police officers who have subsequently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/how-the-suns-truth-about-hillsborough-unravelled">admitted their guilt</a>. </p>
<p>In truth, it’s not only the Sun but also other major newspapers who bear collective responsibility for failing in their duty to adequately investigate the terrible allegations before printing. But it’s the actions of the Sun, in it’s misplaced confidence and brazenness, which partially fuelled the campaign for justice which lasted 27 years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58529/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
All UK tabloids, but particularly The Sun, have a lot to answer for with their disgraceful reporting.John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584562016-04-26T17:09:53Z2016-04-26T17:09:53ZHillsborough: at last, the shameful truth is out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120245/original/image-20160426-1335-1p75hcn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">They'll never walk alone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillsborough_anniversary.JPG">Linksfuss</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following two years of harrowing evidence, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36138337">verdicts</a> in the <a href="https://hillsboroughinquests.independent.gov.uk/">inquest into the Hillsborough disaster</a> in 1989 are a complete vindication of the 27-year campaign for justice for the 96 victims and their families. It is difficult to imagine the fortitude required to continue their fight for justice against the arrayed institutional might of the police, government and even sections of the media for so long.</p>
<p>But this fight for the truth did not take almost three decades, <a href="http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/cost-of-hillsborough-inquests-passes-14-million-1-7563289">millions of pounds</a>, and the longest court hearing in UK history because of its complexity. It was because within hours, the South Yorkshire police organised a conspiracy to protect themselves by defaming the dead and injured. </p>
<p>It is now clear that the police did not <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades">take blood from children to run alcohol tests or send a photographer to find empty beer cans</a> because they wanted to understand what had really happened. It was simply to find any prop that could support the false narrative that the fans were drunk and abusive and were somehow responsible for their own deaths, and that the police had done their best under the circumstances. </p>
<p>We now know, from evidence heard at the inquest and admissions of senior police officers themselves, that this was so far from reality that the police had to collude to invent evidence. But even that wasn’t enough to hide the truth. There were thousands of fans there that day who knew what really happened – even in an age before everyone carried a phone with a camera, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22566230">images existed that didn’t tally with the police’s claims</a>.</p>
<p>But at the time the police had the most powerful allies there were: South Yorkshire police had been instrumental in breaking the miners’ strikes in 1984-1985, during which then prime minister Margaret Thatcher deployed them like her <a href="http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/thatcher-miners-official-papers-confirm-strikers-worst-suspicions/265">army in the north of England</a>. The force also had form for blaming victims: we now know that <a href="https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/investigation_commissioner_reports/Ogreave_Decision_12-06-2015.pdf">South Yorkshire police had committed perjury</a> during failed prosecutions of miners following the battle between police and strikers at Orgreave in 1984, and that senior officers were well aware of it and said nothing.</p>
<p>In 1989, the police needed support for their cover-up, and the Conservative government was happy to help. Thatcher herself toured the ground the morning after the disaster, and was aware that privately there were serious questions about the police propaganda, but it didn’t stop her government from backing the police. Her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, relied upon what he was told about the disaster by the police and blamed “tanked-up yobs” for the deaths. <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/bernard-ingham-still-refuses-say-11244412">“Liverpool,” he later said, “should shut up about Hillsborough.”</a></p>
<p>With the government onside, the police needed another ally, and they found it in The Sun. The paper’s infamous headline “The Truth” probably caused more pain and anger in Liverpool than the government’s collusion, where thousands of residents knew the truth because they had <a href="http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/Hillsborough-inconvenient-witness/index.html">seen it with their own eyes</a>. In 1996, Ingham advised Liverpool to ignore <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/bernard-ingham-still-refuses-say-11244412">“ambulance-chasing lawyers” and that “least said, soonest mended for Liverpool”.</a> But fortunately for the victims, and for the cause of justice, the families ignored that advice. Anne Williams, whose son Kevin was killed in the disaster aged just 15, literally fought for the rest of her life, until she <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/apr/18/hillsborough-campaigner-anne-williams-dies1">died of cancer in 2013</a>. Her work was instrumental in the establishment of the <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/">Hillsborough Independent Panel</a>, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool. The panel’s report led to the previous accidental death verdicts being quashed in the High Court in 2012, paving the way for today’s verdicts.</p>
<p>Today, after so long, the only issue worthy of consideration is that the families have finally received a verdict that can be called justice. But even in these proceedings the police refused to be accountable, or even decent. When the then Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge quashed the previous inquests, he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Notwithstanding its falsity, the tendency to blame the fans was disappointingly tenacious and lingered for many years … [in fact] each one was a helpless victim of those terrible events.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But over almost two years of hearings, the police forced the families to endure a final performance of the cover-up. Lawyers for both the South Yorkshire Police and the Police Federation argued forcefully that the fans were drunk, non-compliant and contributed to their own deaths. </p>
<p>In the end, the inquest has found that every one of the 96 were victims of unlawful killing, opening up the possibility of criminal prosecutions against the police and individual officers. The police could have spared the families and their own reputations by admitting their conspiracy and finally renouncing the shameful claim that the dead were anything but victims. That, decades on, the police and the Federation are still unable to accept their mistakes makes it all too clear that these verdicts do not simply record historical failures of police accountability, but are evidence that it is still a problem today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jared Ficklin is affiliated with the Liverpool Law Clinic at the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, and Garden Court North Chambers in Manchester. Students from the Liverpool Law Clinic took part in evidence preparation for the Hillsborough inquests. </span></em></p>Two inquests, millions of pounds, 27 years, 96 dead, one verdict: that police failures led to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, and police lies tried to cover it up.Jared Ficklin, Lecturer in Law, Liverpool Law Clinic, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/289252014-07-08T15:28:02Z2014-07-08T15:28:02ZAs child abuse investigations take shape, old crimes are transforming British society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53323/original/n9chmn7x-1404831258.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time to open up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gates_of_House_of_Parliament.JPG">RickyPi05</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The home secretary, Theresa May, has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-announces-details-of-independent-inquiry-into-paedophile-network-claims-9590545.html">announced a major independent inquiry</a> into claims that for decades, accusations and evidence of child abuse were dismissed, ignored and mishandled by many of Britain’s most important institutions.</p>
<p>She also announced a review of the way the Home Office handled sexual abuse allegations passed to it between 1979 and 1995 – including those submitted by MP Geoffrey Dickens to the then home secretary <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10952480/Leon-Brittan-was-given-second-paedophile-dossier.html">Leon Brittan</a>.</p>
<p>The allegations of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10950138/Westminster-paedophile-ring-allegations-Scotland-Yard-detectives-trace-victim.html">organised historic sexual abuse of children by MPs and peers</a> are already sending huge shockwaves through the British establishment; they point to abuses and cover-ups in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/08/children-homes-supply-line-paedophiles-lord-warner">care system</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28203914">civil service</a>, among others, and have revived long-dormant inquiries into alleged child abuse by powerful figures at the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/05/elm-guest-house-paedophile-network-allegations">Elm Guest House</a> in Barnes in the early 1980s.</p>
<p>But the claims that have sparked these new investigations also fit a broader pattern of crimes committed in the past, often by the famous and powerful, that have had significant impacts on how the police and other criminal justice agencies work in the present. </p>
<p>In short, they are what some social scientists have described as “<a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199684472.do">signal crimes</a>”.</p>
<h2>A special kind of crime</h2>
<p>These are crimes whose discovery changes how we individually and collectively think, feel and behave about our safety and security. They cut through the background noise of everyday life, communicating messages about the nature and distribution of risks and threats, reshaping our ordering of social reality, and revealing the boundaries of our moral and behavioural norms. </p>
<p>A number of the historic abuse cases discovered recently fit this description, especially the crimes perpetrated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/rolf-harris-guilty-but-what-has-operation-yewtree-really-taught-us-about-sexual-abuse-28282">Rolf Harris</a>, <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/stuart-hall-a-paedophile-abuser-but-not-a-rapist-1-3414178">Stuart Hall</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27259318">Max Clifford</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/notes-on-a-scandal-the-jimmy-savile-case-is-all-too-familiar-20379">Jimmy Savile</a>. All those cases combined issues of celebrity, criminality, blatant failures by state agencies, and anxiety about appropriate sexual conduct – central themes in periodic re-examinations of British society and culture.</p>
<p>But there is an additional category of past crimes that, although focused on different substantive issues, are proving equally influential in channelling public and political concerns. This category includes the findings of the <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/">Hillsborough Independent Panel</a>; the allegations of collusion in unsolved murders against <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27278039">Gerry Adams</a> in Northern Ireland; the unsolved murder of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26472252">Daniel Morgan</a>; and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-shocking-and-immoral-behaviour-of-the-british-secret-police-22326">activities of undercover police officers</a>. </p>
<p>What has been remarkable to observe has been how, as these cases have mounted in recent years, so has the number of state and social institutions touched by the taint of scandal and culpability. Police, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hacking-trial-judge-reveals-how-milly-dowlers-voicemail-was-hacked-as-journalists-jailed-9584249.html">media organisations</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27235785">schools</a>, central government, social services, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jimmy-savile-nhs-investigations">health service</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23215388">church</a> – have all been exposed in particular ways. </p>
<p>The re-opening of all these cases has thrown up inconvenient and challenging questions about our notions of law, order and justice, and whether we can ever really trust the state and its institutions to protect people from harm.</p>
<h2>Reworking the past</h2>
<p>These are all signal crimes deriving from historic events. They possess the telltale traits of a phenomenon that can be labelled “retroactive social control”: where past events are placed under new definitions of the situation and in the process new opportunities for the regulation and control of behaviour in the here and now made possible. </p>
<p>In this process, previously hidden crimes and wrongdoing are publicly re-examined and redefined, not just to acknowledge what happened but to reframe the public memory of these events. This, in turn, often triggers criminal justice interventions, even though many years may have passed since the original offence occurred (as in the cases stemming from Operation Yewtree).</p>
<p>This process of retroactively changing how past events are publicly defined and remembered typically involves two key steps, usually achieved either through the courts or some form of public inquiry. First is what we might call the social control of memory; the way in which the content of what is collectively remembered is adjusted and reconstructed. In many cases, this involves the radical recasting of the public reputations of formerly powerful and lauded individuals.</p>
<p>After this is done, there begins a new phase of social control <em>through</em> memory, where reworked public and institutional memories of the past lead to changes in how social control is exerted in the present – for instance, increased likelihood of criminal convictions for the perpetrators of abuse. </p>
<h2>Haunting legacies</h2>
<p>The critical point about signal crimes is that although they are relatively few, they exert a disproportionate influence on the public understanding of crime in general. </p>
<p>Ironically, the current cases have emerged just as criminal justice agencies are focusing more and more attention on the future. Technologies for anticipating and preventing crime using <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26520013">big data</a> and the associated strategies of <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582042-it-getting-easier-foresee-wrongdoing-and-spot-likely-wrongdoers-dont-even-think-about-it">predictive policing</a> and risk-based profiling to manage offenders are beguiling criminal justice leaders and dominating their thinking about future plans. </p>
<p>But at the same time, the legitimacy of the institutions trusted to protect us from crime are being badly corroded by the haunting legacies of crimes past. </p>
<p>It has been announced that the government’s inquiry will be headed by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28203914">Elizabeth Butler-Sloss</a>, who not only headed the inquiry into the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1834212/">Cleveland child abuse scandal</a> in 1987, but as a judge, ruled in favour of lifelong anonymity for the killers of James Bulger – whose 1993 murder provoked public shock and despair <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-20th-anniversary-of-james-bulgers-death-a-tragic-episode-and-its-shameful-legacy-8490205.html">like no other crime of its time</a>.</p>
<p>That experience will surely stand her in good stead as she leads an inquiry into how the British state as a whole apparently failed some of its most vulnerable citizens.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Next, read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/notes-on-a-scandal-the-jimmy-savile-case-is-all-too-familiar-20379">Notes on a scandal: the Jimmy Savile case is all too familiar</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Innes receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>The home secretary, Theresa May, has announced a major independent inquiry into claims that for decades, accusations and evidence of child abuse were dismissed, ignored and mishandled by many of Britain’s…Martin Innes, Director, Universities' Police Science Institute, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/256182014-04-15T13:34:36Z2014-04-15T13:34:36ZHillsborough’s lesson – don’t fear the crowd<p>It is the 25th anniversary of the worst sporting tragedy in the UK: the Hillsborough football disaster, where 96 Liverpool fans died at an FA cup semi-final game against Nottingham Forest. As a mark of respect, all domestic football matches on Saturday 12 April started seven minutes <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26685698">late</a>, and various <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27001696">tributes</a> were held by football fans across the country. </p>
<p>The fallout from the disaster is still being felt 25 years on, now with a new round of <a href="http://hillsboroughinquests.independent.gov.uk/">inquests</a> after the quashing of the original “accidental death” verdicts in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-20772416">December 2012</a>. These inquests are currently hearing profiles of the 96 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26765007">victims</a>, with moving accounts by their <a href="http://www.live.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26979691">families</a>; there are also ongoing separate <a href="http://operationresolve.co.uk/">police</a> and <a href="http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/investigations/hillsborough">Independent Police Complaints Commission</a> investigations into the disaster. </p>
<p>It is now largely accepted that the fatal crush in the Leppings Lane pens, where the Liverpool fans were located, was a preventable disaster. Measures have been taken since to ensure that such crushes can never happen again, such as re-designing perimeter fences in football stadiums so that they can be opened quickly if crushes begin. </p>
<p>As the 1989 <a href="http://www.epcollege.com/EPC/media/MediaLibrary/Knowledge%20Hub%20Documents/F%20Inquiry%20Reports/Hillsborough-Taylor-Report.pdf?ext=.pdf">Taylor Report</a> said, it was a miracle that such a disaster had not happened before. It pointed out the tragic irony that before the disaster, no-one had ever died in a pitch invasion at a UK football match, while at Hillsborough 96 Liverpool fans died because the police were trying to stop an imagined one. </p>
<p>The way the police viewed football (and other) crowds in the 1980s influenced how they policed them. This is why they failed to spot the fatal crush developing until it was too late; it was exacerbated by the police believing that Liverpool fans were attempting to invade the pitch (hence the cordon they maintained near the half-way line while the disaster was at its height), when in fact they were merely trying to escape the fatal crush. This misplaced belief resulted in police pushing fans back into the pens while people still inside them were dying.</p>
<p>A common theme emerges runs through this catalogue of mistakes: that football matches and crowd events in general in the 1980s were too often seen as a public order problem, instead of a public safety issue. This is explicitly stated in the report, which concluded that at Hillsborough, “the collective policing mindset prioritised crowd control over crowd safety.”</p>
<p>Along with others involved in the study of crowd emergency behaviour and safety management, I am very critical of such approaches. As John Fruin has written, there is a clear difference between crowd control and crowd management:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Crowd management is defined as the systematic planning for, and supervision of, the orderly movement and assembly of people. Crowd control is the restriction or limitation of group behaviour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not just a semantic issue. As <a href="http://drury-sussex-the-crowd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/hillsborough-and-crowd-control.html">John Drury</a> wrote after the independent panel report was published, “Approaching the crowd with a view to crowd control risks undermining crowd safety.” This emphasis on “crowd control” directly contributed to the disaster at Hillsborough.</p>
<h2>Insult and injury</h2>
<p>Of course, it was not just the disaster itself that made Hillsborough infamous, but also the subsequent cover-ups and attempts to deflect blame for the tragedy onto the victims that have so hurt both their families and the survivors, leaving an enduring sense of injustice that is still felt today. But lies about fans’ alleged behaviour (which have since been shown to be baseless) were all too readily accepted by politicians and the media. This was influenced by the same pervasive view that crowds are not to be trusted because of their potential for “irrational” behaviour.</p>
<p>The most notorious example was perhaps the shocking front page of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-19575411">Sun</a> newspaper, headlined <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+sun+hillsborough+original+article&espv=2&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=1PDvkgl1YA9TGM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcTl_9mhOmS2gBjm6H2P3dKVx6rDplYW-SBms21dGk--jc9Cr">The Truth</a>, which appeared four days after the disaster.</p>
<p>These views of crowds permeated the very top of the British establishment, as highlighted by <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-margaret-thatchers-ministers-to-be-interviewed-by-police-watchdog-over-hillsborough-disaster-9236663.html">reports</a> that days after the tragedy, senior police officers briefed Margaret Thatcher that drunken Liverpool fans were to blame for the tragedy, despite there being <a href="http://dontpaniccorrectingmythsaboutthecrowd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/leaked-hillsborough-papers.html">no evidence</a> to support this claim.</p>
<p>Thatcher’s chief Press Secretary <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/margaret-thatcher-aide-sir-bernard-3420040">Bernard Ingham</a> also provoked outrage by defiantly sticking to the myth that Liverpool fans were to blame and the city should “shut up about Hillsborough”; similarly, in 2012, Boris Johnson was forced to apologise for an article that appeared in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/sep/13/boris-johnson-apologises-hillsborough-article">The Spectator</a> magazine when he was editor that falsely blamed drunken fans for the tragedy. </p>
<p>These attitudes have greatly exacerbated the sense of injustice. A recent article in the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/10760335/We-all-share-in-the-shame-of-Hillsborough.html">Daily Telegraph</a> looked at the shocking treatment of victims after Hillsborough, arguing that derogatory stereotypes of Liverpudlians have also helped contribute to the enduring myth that somehow fans were to blame.</p>
<p>There is almost a sense of moral panic in the way society views crowds, in that they are often seen as vehicles for potential “disorder” or mass panic, despite decades’ worth of research by psychologists finding that such concepts are largely myths, and that crowds often behave much more sensibly than they are usually given credit for. When tragedies happen, it is almost always because of a failure of crowd management, as opposed to any “irrational” behaviour on the part of the victims. Attempts to blame victims are often part of a strategy to deflect blame away from those responsible for such mismanagement. </p>
<p>As I have argued <a href="http://dontpaniccorrectingmythsaboutthecrowd.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dont-blame-brazilian-nightclub-fire-on.html">elsewhere</a>, we too often attempt to shift blame for disasters like Hillsborough onto victims by using emotive terms such as “panic” to describe their behaviour. This deep societal mistrust of crowds was a major contribution to the context in which Hillsborough happened, and helps explain why the despicable slurs that were spread about the victims were allowed to remain unchecked in popular discourse for so long – adding to the pain and distress of those who knew the truth about what happened.</p>
<p>To help avoid future Hillsboroughs, we need to develop a less negative view of crowd behaviour in popular discourse. As I <a href="http://dontpaniccorrectingmythsaboutthecrowd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/hillsborough-papers-released.html">wrote</a> when the Hillsborough Independent Panel report was released, we all need to take responsibility for ensuring that we adopt a less pathological view towards crowds, and try to develop crowd safety strategies at large events that prevent such disasters from ever happening again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Cocking has received funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>It is the 25th anniversary of the worst sporting tragedy in the UK: the Hillsborough football disaster, where 96 Liverpool fans died at an FA cup semi-final game against Nottingham Forest. As a mark of…Chris Cocking, Researcher into crowd behaviour, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223262014-01-22T15:02:02Z2014-01-22T15:02:02ZThe shocking and immoral behaviour of the British secret police<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39682/original/vqkfyp6t-1390400306.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police lead away members of the Drax coal train protest group.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Gowthorpe/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that a group of environmental protesters who stopped a train carrying coal to the Drax power station in 2009 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/21/drax-protesters-convictions-quashed-police-spy-mark-kennedy">have had their convictions overturned</a> should give us pause for thought about the current health of the British police. In the Court of Appeal yesterday, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25829169">said</a> of the case that there “was a complete and total failure, for reasons which remain unclear, to make a disclosure fundamental to the defence. In those circumstances, this court has no alternative but to quash the convictions”. What had not been disclosed is that much of the evidence used against the protesters had been collected by an undercover police officer, Mark Kennedy. </p>
<p>This event, the latest in a series that have ended with cases collapsing in court or convictions being overturned, is the result of the exposure of such police tactics by a whistleblower and dogged work by two investigative journalists from the Guardian newspaper. The wider story is one of undercover cops, tasked with infiltrating protest groups in order to gather “intelligence” in ways that raise serious questions about police integrity. The officers concerned belonged to the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a part of Special Branch which became something of a force within a force – and was both largely secret and generally unaccountable.</p>
<p>Established in the late 1960s, and eventually disbanded in 2008, the SDS’s focus was broad. Rather like the Special Branch that had spawned it, an initial concern with subversives -– those considered a probable threat to the state –- quickly expanded to incorporate a very wide range of political and protest groups: animal rights protesters, the anti-apartheid movement, the International Marxist Group, protesters at <a href="http://www.greenhamwpc.org.uk/">Greenham Common</a>, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Anti-Nazi League, among many others. </p>
<p>What set the SDS apart was their core tactic: living the life of a protester. SDS operatives gave up their warrant cards (their police identity), changed their names, grew their hair, changed their appearances and sought to establish personal relationships with their targets. While many of us might accept that some level of subterfuge is necessary where the policing of very serious criminal activity is concerned, there is little in the <a href="http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9780571302178&INTCMP=mic_3052&guni=Article:content-related%20Undercover%20book:microapp%20static:Undercover%20books%20component">Guardian journalists’ account</a> of their activities to strike readers as even close to acceptable. </p>
<p>The nature and consequences of the deceptions perpetrated are truly frightening. Indeed, the SDS’s informal motto –- “By Any Means Necessary” -– seems all too close to the truth. Staggeringly, it seems to have been tacitly understood that undercover officers (usually male) should target female protesters and form close personal relationships with them. These relationships were by no means casual, in many cases becoming sufficiently serious and long-standing for the officer effectively to become the partner of the person concerned. As such, these were no ordinary betrayals; they were, as one of the women pithily put it, “about a fictional character who was created by the state and funded by taxpayers’ money”. Worse still, and at their most extreme, these relationships led to children being born. </p>
<p>The officers not only deceived the women they formed relationships with, but also went as far as to father children that they knew they would have to abandon when, eventually, they were required to return to other duties. In many cases there were two sets of women (and their children) being deceived at the same time: the activist and the agent’s existing wife or partner. Can anyone in the police service seriously have thought this was justifiable? </p>
<p>Then there are the targets themselves. Rarely do they appear to have been much of a threat. In the Drax case the protesters engaged in a non-violent disruption of the railway –- costly, but no particular threat to the security of the state. Whatever the original intent, increasingly it seems the SDS simply targeted a range of organisations the police felt they needed more information about, including organisations campaigning around matters like police corruption. Shockingly, as those who have followed the news will know, the Guardian journalists discovered that among those being spied upon were <a href="https://theconversation.com/protect-journalists-sources-or-give-up-on-british-democracy-22011">the family of Stephen Lawrence</a>; some believe that operation was designed to undermine the family’s case against the Metropolitan Police. </p>
<h2>Counting the cost</h2>
<p>SDS officers lied, cheated, and in some cases were involved in serious criminal activity. Their lying was by no means confined to those they were deceiving “in the field”, but seems also to have extended to perjury. And much, if not most, of this appears to have occurred without a great deal of oversight from the senior officers at the Yard. Indeed, one wonders how much critical scrutiny any of these activities received. Leaving aside ethics for the time being, what about the costs? The financial implications were sizeable, and for what gain? </p>
<p>The human cost, too, was enormous, primarily falling on the women and children who found themselves caught up in these deceptions. But many officers paid a significant price too. Quite a number appear to have experienced significant mental health problems as a result of attempting to live two separate, but very different lives over many years.</p>
<p>Last, and by no means least, there is the cost to the reputation of the police service. Given the range and number of current challenges to the standing of the police –- “<a href="https://theconversation.com/question-of-trust-police-find-themselves-in-the-frame-19632">plebgate</a>”, recent revelations about the “fiddling” of police-recorded <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25831906">crime statistics</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-scotland-yards-rotten-core-police-failed-to-address-endemic-corruption-9050224.html">corruption charges</a> against a number of senior officers, the bribery evidence given to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/06/leveson-inquiry-police-bribery-sun">Leveson Inquiry</a>, and perhaps most shocking of all, the conspiracy around the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24431269">Hillsborough stadium tragedy</a> -– it can ill-afford more cases like those of the 29 Drax protesters.</p>
<p><em>This is an expanded version of a piece that originally appeared on the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/07/29/book-review-undercover-the-true-story-of-britains-secret-police/">LSE Review of Books</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Newburn has received funding from the ESRC, Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Department of Health, HM Prison Service, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Nuffield Foundation. He is a member of the Home Office Science Advisory Council, and worked with Paul Lewis and the Guardian newspaper on a project around the 2011 London riots.</span></em></p>The news that a group of environmental protesters who stopped a train carrying coal to the Drax power station in 2009 have had their convictions overturned should give us pause for thought about the current…Tim Newburn, Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95832012-09-14T02:18:40Z2012-09-14T02:18:40ZCruel summer: how Hillsborough brought Britain down to earth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15439/original/9zqdr6xh-1347579822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster have never given up their campaign for justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Lee Sanders</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of Hillsborough Independent Panel’s <a href="http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/report/HIP_report.pdf">report</a> into the death of 96 football fans at the 1989 FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest is not just a landmark in British history. It is also a tribute to the tenacity of their families. </p>
<p>Almost a quarter of a century ago, these ordinary people faced the might of a police force and Britain’s largest selling newspaper, who were both determined to blame the deaths on drunken hooliganism. </p>
<p>Now the official version has finally accepted that the tragedy was caused by poor crowd management and an inadequate response from the emergency services. And it is acknowledged that the pain of the bereaved was aggravated by a concerted police campaign to deflect blame from the authorities by besmirching the dead and other Liverpool fans; a campaign which found a willing ally in News International’s The Sun.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15446/original/sjnsj62w-1347584836.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun reported that emergency services were initially hampered by hoolignans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Spart</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Back in 1989, then editor Kelvin MacKenzie ran an infamous front page story claiming “the truth” of Hillsborough was that rescue efforts had been thwarted by hooligans who attacked and urinated on the police as they attempted to save lives. It was even alleged that some had robbed from the dead and dying. </p>
<p>Yesterday, MacKenzie and the paper issued an unreserved <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4535743/23-years-after-Hillsborough-the-real-truth.html">apology</a>. They confess to being duped by a disinformation campaign coming from the police.</p>
<p>On one hand, this <em>mea culpa</em> recognises how quickly and how well the Hillsborough families learned to play a media game. Long before tweets and facebook likes, the families, led by Trevor Hicks, who lost two daughters on that day, were taking active steps to challenge powerful misrepresentations of events. By protesting, commemorating and collaborating with investigative journalists and even renowned television dramatist Jimmy McGovern, they have kept the story-and the investigation-alive in the face of powerful interests who would rather forget.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it seems their struggle isn’t over. Just hours after the report was published, newspaper reviewers on UK Sky television criticised the UK’s Daily Telegraph for choosing to lead its front page with a story about the Duchess of Cambridge. </p>
<p>The Telegraph hosts London Mayor Boris Johnson’s column, who is increasingly looking like the big winner from the UK’s glorious summer of sport. Johnson’s political career almost unravelled in 2004, following an editorial <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/sep/13/boris-johnson-apologises-hillsborough-article">gaffe</a> over Hillsborough. </p>
<p>As editor of The Spectator magazine, Johnson passed an opinion piece repeating the charge that the disaster was down to drunken Liverpool fans. To make matters worse, the article misreported the number of victims, and suggested that the only reason why the Hillsborough story lived on in public memory was because Liverpudlians are an inherently maudlin bunch who love to play the victim. Clearly, for all their vernacular PR skill, the Hillsborough families had not entirely dislodged the erroneous version of events established by the police and the Sun in 1989.</p>
<p>As sitting MP for Henley on Thames, Johnson was dispatched to Merseyside by then Conservative Leader Michael Howard to apologise for the offending article in person. Humiliating as the experience appeared to be, Johnson also managed to spin things in his favour. He explained at the time that the opinion piece was really about the need to accept personal responsibility for one’s actions; here he was, in Liverpool, doing just that. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15447/original/ns3qynfd-1347585117.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boris Johnson seen here leaving his home in London, publicly apologised for a Spectator editorial in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Frantzesco Kangaris </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Looking back, the episode dramatised his inchoate capacity to transform disaster into political capital. The whole world saw this skill during the Olympics, which started with endless logistical complaints, and ended with Johnson leading David Cameron in public opinion polls.</p>
<p>So perhaps it’s not surprising that David Cameron chose to use his <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-19543964">public apology</a> to the Hillsborough families to attack his new rival. Where Johnson’s stock has increased, Cameron has had to endure the ignominy of seeing his cabinet ministers roundly booed during Paralympic medal ceremonies.</p>
<p>The point here is that within a matter of hours, the Hillsborough report has been turned into a political football that has again placed the pain of the victims in the shade. So, once again, they must organise and act.</p>
<p>The whole episode is a nasty little coda to Britain’s sporting summer.</p>
<p>But it has also displayed the politics of media and sport with unprecedented clarity. If the Olympics was about why it’s still great to be British, the Hillsborough report is about why it isn’t. It is about a group of good people who have been deliberately let down by the institutions – including the media – who are supposed to be looking out for their interests. </p>
<p>Bradley Wiggins and Andy Murray can’t paper over that crack. You can bet the Hillsborough families won’t let that happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The release of Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report into the death of 96 football fans at the 1989 FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest is not just a landmark in British history…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.