Hillsborough families slam police claims

According to the leaked documents, only four days after the tragedy a member of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit met senior Merseyside police officers who claimed that the large numbers of Liverpool fans entering the stadium without tickets had been a “key factor” in the disaster.

“One officer, born and bred in Liverpool, said that he was deeply ashamed to say that it was drunken Liverpool fans who had caused this disaster, just as they had caused the deaths at Heysel,” Merseyside officer late Sir Kenneth Oxford said in a letter to Thatcher.

The letter also said the officer have “deplored the press’s morbid concentration on pictures of bodies. He was also uneasy about the way in which Anfield was being turned into a shrine.”

Margaret Aspinall, who lost his 18-year-old son in the tragedy and is now leading the Hillsborough Families Support Group, considered the leaked files as a “disgrace.”

“I find all of that absolutely appalling. Ninety-six lives and he was uneasy about it made into a shrine. The people who were there that day – the survivors, the fans – all needed somewhere to go to show respect and to be grateful that no more had died. He was ashamed that was made into a shrine?!” she added.

Sheila Coleman from the Hillsborough Justice Campaign stressed that she was disgusted by the leaked document but not very much appalled by the police officers’ view.

“Those of us who were around Liverpool in the 1980s are well aware of Ken Oxford’s racist and bigoted views. Presumably he recruited senior officers with a similar mindset,” she said.

Richard Kemp, the Lib Dem mayoral candidate for Liverpool, also criticized the appalling news, saying the idea that Thatcher was informed by the police that Liverpool fans were drunk described a lot in terms of the way the governments have dealt with the issues over the past 23 years.

Labour MP Andy Burnham said the papers admitted that “immediate attempts were made from the highest levels to shift the blame on to the supporters and away from the police.” The coalition government must reveal the truth and apologized for “one of the greatest injustices of the 20th century.”

On 15th April 1989, a total of 96 football fans were crushed to death after the South Yorkshire Police directed fans into already full pens. In the aftermath of the disaster, the media and the police blamed the supporters and treated them with great injustice.

SAB/JR/HE

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