Many people lost their lives in the Hillsborough disaster, that was an absolute tragedy. Many families suffered years of unimaginable grief as cover ups and the blame game was played by everyone with a vested interest in keeping the facts from coming to light.
There is no question that the authorities and the government covered up vital facts that should have come to light many many years ago. The ongoing battle for justice has had many setbacks and rightly the people of Liverpool feel aggrieved, not least at the Sun newspaper who published some appalling lies about supporters robbing the dead.
Could swifter action have saved lives ? Most assuredly the time spent getting to the injured and dying was unacceptable as was the covering up of the gross negligence of everyone that day. There is not a single blameless body from that day.
Should those who sought to cover up the terrible flaws that allowed so many people to die go to jail for not giving the facts as happened that day ? Absolutely.
However long it may take, no matter how far one needs to dig, then the families of those who died deserve a full explanation, why and how they died and those who did not allow the swiftest and greatest of care should be jailed so that the families that have suffered so much can have justice and some measure of closure.
But therein lies a paradox, for there are many and i count myself among them, who feel ALL bodies that day carry a responsibility for what happened that day. That includes some supporters too.
Now before you all start screaming and swearing, this was a tragedy that was highly avoidable, unlike the locked gates and a careless cigarette at Bradford that caused so much tragedy and just as much heartache.
I will never forget the terrible image of that poor man walking from the stand ablaze or the courage of those running to his aid to desperately put out the fire. I will never forget the harrowing description of the late Peter Jones on the radio describing the events as they unfolded at Hillsborough. Nor the bravery and efforts of those supporters desperately trying to help the injured and the dying.
There lies the paradox, for some supporters who had behaved so badly crushing and squashing those in a desperate effort to get in the ground that the commander made the fatal mistake of opening the gates and allowing the awful crush outside where space for orderly supporters was far greater than the space available for the lemming like rush into the Leppings Lane End.
It is hard to take emotion out of it, but to get to something like the truth you must, for if the kick off is delayed further then proper segregation could have taken place. Proper and more peaceable behaviour may have been the order of the day outside.
For that was the catalyst that caused the tragedy, you can put any number of vitriol and nonsense forward, but the plain facts are that if the behaviour of the supporters outside is more orderly then no one panics and no one makes awful decisions.
For the start of the tragedy some Liverpool supporters must take the blame. For what followed afterward many many people who gave false and misleading statements should go to jail, for many many more could and should have been saved and it is entirely at their door the blame should lie once the tragedy happened !
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