We Have The Truth. Next Step: Justice

Move on, they said. Get on with your lives, they told them. You’ve got all the answers that we’re going to give you, stop feeding conspiracy theories – that’s what they told the families.

Families who, for 23 years, have woken up every day with a burning sense that they were being lied to, and denied access to the facts around how and why their loved ones set off for an FA Cup semi-final with their mates and never came home. They were told that their sense of injustice was nothing more than a collective bunch of wallowing Scousers failing to accept that the state had done all it could to save their friends and relatives, and were now becoming increasingly annoying for their refusal to move on.

Well, now the truth is out: in the clearest, most objective way possible. The facts that everyone associated with Liverpool Football Club – and a good few other fair minded people in the wider football family – knew to be true for 23 years are set in the public domain in such a way that no-one could ever dispute them.

We knew that the fans weren’t to blame. We knew that there had been no major issues with ticketless fans or drunkenness on the day. We knew that the police had failed to manage the safety of the supporters, and that massive mistakes had been made. And, worst of all, we knew that the sickening campaign to smear the reputation of the dead fans was engineered by the police and the establishment, and was readily and happily given a public voice by Kelvin MacKenzie and The Sun newspaper in the most high profile way they could imagine.

We knew those facts to be true. That’s why we sang our hearts out at Anfield and at away grounds across the country, screaming for ‘Justice for the 96’. That’s why we backed the campaign, backed the petition and backed the families in their unrelenting, unending battle to be heard and taken seriously. The dignity, the determination and the tenacity of those families underpins one of the great public campaigning victories of this or any other generation.

Now that battle is won – the truth has been exposed and the facts that we all knew to be true have been independently verified by a panel with access to all of the first hand documentation.

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But that battle for the truth to be revealed was just that, a battle – and a battle that was just the first step in a war for justice that has not yet been concluded. Although the calls will come again for the families and the campaigners to ‘move on’ now that the facts are agreed, if anything their ongoing energy will now be even more important – in the fight for true justice to now be served to the 96.

Let’s all be absolutely clear. If any of us were found guilty of doctoring police statements as part of an official investigation, if any of us were found guilty of collusion to hide or cover up facts that might have established criminal negligence, and if any of us were found guilty of feeding deliberately inaccurate information to the media with the purpose of slandering 96 individuals, we would face criminal charges. We would face prosecution. We would have to stand in front of a jury of our peers and hear them tell us that we were guilty.

Guilty of perverting the course of justice, of collusion, of slandering the reputations of 96 dead men, women and children. Take your pick. We would have to face a public trial to answer for our actions, and we would have to face the consequences of our actions – imprisonment and the devastation of our reputations in society.

If we would face those charges, then it’s high time that the criminal conspirators from South Yorkshire Police and the related establishment bodies stood in front of a court of law and answered them in the most public way possible. Let them tell us why they lied. Let them tell us why they ordered blood alcohol tests to be taken from the body of a dead ten year old boy in order to try and prove fans were boozed up. Let them tell us why they fed those stories to the pond life media moguls who so readily snapped them up. We, and the rest of the world, are waiting to hear.

South Yorkshire Police is the same force whose officers built new conservatories and bought new cars with the overtime monies they were given by the Government as they assaulted striking miners on picket lines across the region. They lived off a culture where they answered to nobody, and were above the law. Now is the time, for the sake of the families that have fought so hard and in such a dignified way to bring the truth to light, for those individuals to be brought to justice.

Government can do its part of course. By quashing the now completely discredited initial inquest finding and ordering a new one, they can start the journey of giving the families the legal confirmation that the death of their loved ones was never ‘accidental death’. They can officially record that the criminal negligence of the authorities was the root cause, and they can give answers to the questions around whether their loved ones might have survived with better stewarding, better responsiveness and more compassion from the authorities on duty.

Those answers won’t take away the pain of course – nothing will. If anything, the truth in the short term at least makes it harder for families to have to finally come to terms with just how badly they were let down by the very people that are supposed to protect us. But having the real answers set on record will be another important part in the journey to justice.

We stood and we sang for ‘Justice for the 96’. Having the world know the truth in the clearest way possible is the first step. The families ignored the cries of the ignorant who told them to forget about it and move on. The next step is to see those responsible brought to public account, and made to explain and answer for their actions. The 96 innocent victims of Hillsborough have waited too long for justice to be a realistic possibility. Let it be served.

Find me on twitter @rossco1981