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MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!


I was very surprised to see these signs when I was driving down the M6, but I guess it shows quite how large the inquest and the interest in the inquest are (and rightly so)

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irlZaphod
Mar 26, 2004

Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

Some free rag in Norfolk has published a pretty horrendous column about the 25th Anniversary memorial service

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hillsborough-column-anger-after-newspaper-7016777?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Total Meatlove
Jan 28, 2007

:japan:
Rangers died, shoujo Hitler cried ;_;
It's clickbait of the worst kind, ignoring it is the only sensible option

irlZaphod
Mar 26, 2004

Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

Apparently Specsavers have withdrawn their sponsorship of the column lol.

jynxed
Sep 30, 2013

Lysdexia FWT!
(In other words, I'm dyslexic)

irlZaphod posted:

Apparently Specsavers have withdrawn their sponsorship of the column lol.

Good no need for that, the column I mean - it was the same format as other years JFT96 chants in the 2nd part at appropriate places (ie when the families are speaking of their fight with the establishment to show they have the backing of everyone there) and applause of appreciation / support to those who deserve it. Always ends with YNWA its a song of hope and togetherness after all so nothing is more appropriate at a memorial service for 96 LFC fans.

SO year rabble-rousing; dont forget it was the so called rabble-rousing that actually made Burnham take notice 5 years ago too.

jynxed fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Apr 23, 2014

polydizzle
Sep 13, 2004
30 for 30 was sobering at the least and disgusting at the worst. I'm trying to imagine what the outcome would be if that had happened in America. Made me furious to watch even as a united fan.

irlZaphod
Mar 26, 2004

Kiss the Joycon to Kiss Zelda

Shocking Hillsborough insults added on Wikipedia from Government computers

Holy poo poo. Completely classless, and utterly idiotic to do it from Government computers.

Paperhouse
Dec 31, 2008

I think
your hair
looks much
better
pushed
over to
one side

irlZaphod posted:

Shocking Hillsborough insults added on Wikipedia from Government computers

Holy poo poo. Completely classless, and utterly idiotic to do it from Government computers.

haha loving hell, that's unbelievable

jynxed
Sep 30, 2013

Lysdexia FWT!
(In other words, I'm dyslexic)
This doesnt surprise me as it was denied anything wrong had occurred over the years. The authorities absolute resistance to any other story apart from 'it was the fans fault' despite what any inquest said (for eg bernhard ingram letter). The evidence was there long before the HIP report just people refused to look. Prof. Phil Scraton published a book as far back as 1999 called Hillsborough: The Truth; which detailed some of the faults of the original inquest along with the revelation that the alteration of police statements (with approval of the inquest I might add) took place.

At the end of the day it was a large scale cover-up and people are now feeling threatened that names will come out and action taken, either their own (or (ex)colleague)doesnt surprise me that some will be vindictive, especially as there has been such vitriol from various people over the years who have nothing to lose - eg a certain news paper that shall go un-named.

jynxed fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Apr 24, 2014

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Paperhouse posted:

haha loving hell, that's unbelievable

It's not if you've ever met young Tories, the kind who intern at Whitehall

ZeeBoi
Jan 17, 2001

Same kind of cunts that post poo poo like that to Twitter. Some idiot posted a shot of his Liverpool v. Chelsea ticket saying how he's going to poo poo on the flowers at the stadium's memorial, and now apparently Chelsea has banned him from attending.

paddyboat
Feb 20, 2013

Maxi, Maxi Rodriguez
Run down the wing for me
:ohdear: I'd just like to point out that I have never worked for the British Government.

DickEmery
Dec 5, 2004
Being on the GSI doesn't necessarily mean it was in Whitehall, it does mean that it would be fairly easy to track down who did this though.
Somewhere a fantastically dumb Tory is getting sacked.

Paperhouse
Dec 31, 2008

I think
your hair
looks much
better
pushed
over to
one side

DickEmery posted:

Being on the GSI doesn't necessarily mean it was in Whitehall, it does mean that it would be fairly easy to track down who did this though.
Somewhere a fantastically dumb Tory is getting sacked.

That makes me happy

OppyDoppyDopp
Feb 17, 2012

DickEmery posted:

Being on the GSI doesn't necessarily mean it was in Whitehall, it does mean that it would be fairly easy to track down who did this though.
All government departments were FOIed for their web access data a few months ago (which is where the 'MPs looking at porn' story came from) and I don't believe that any of them had information dating back more than six months as the records are routinely purged. Anything from 2009 or 2012 will probably be long gone.

Also, web access from government departments is channelled through their IT providers, so it could just as easily be an employee of one of those companies that is always ripping off the taxpayer by charging huge amounts of money for computers with Internet Explorer 7 installed.

DickEmery
Dec 5, 2004

OppyDoppyDopp posted:

Anything from 2009 or 2012 will probably be long gone.

Ahh, I didn't read it properly I thought it was recent.

Zephirus
May 18, 2004

BRRRR......CHK

OppyDoppyDopp posted:

Also, web access from government departments is channelled through their IT providers

In general, this is not true. Most central gov internet access is provided through the same provider, dependant on the security classification

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jynxed
Sep 30, 2013

Lysdexia FWT!
(In other words, I'm dyslexic)
Read this earlier today, it debunks the supporters without tickets caused over crowding myth that has been peddled for years. The Taylor Interim Report (aug 1989) was also very clear in it's findings re: a complete lack of evidence that it was ticketless Liverpool fans who swelled the numbers, yet this untruth still remained at the forefront of those who had an agenda using 'fans fault' lies, also remained a common mis-conception for many until very recently. I find it very sad that it has taken so long for so many people to even acknowledge this fact despite the report only 4 months after the event had the same findings. Also shows a complete lack of professionalism at the time, whilst also accounting for the other non-fatal crushes in previous years in the Leppings Lane end.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/29/hillsborough-inquest-evidence-fans-tickets

quote:

David Conn
theguardian.com, Sunday 29 June 2014 12.46 BST

The suggestion that many people without tickets entered the Hillsborough football ground when 96 Liverpool supporters died there in 1989 is not borne out by the evidence, the inquest into the disaster has heard.

John Cutlack, a structural engineer appearing as an expert witness on stadium safety, calculated the number of spectators in the ground, and said it did not exceed the number who should have been there according to Sheffield Wednesday's safety certificate.

Pete Weatherby QC, representing 22 families whose relatives died at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989, asked Cutlack: "From your best estimates, there is no objective basis to say that a large number of people without tickets got into the ground?"

Cutlack replied: "It definitely does show to me there certainly were not more people in the ground than were on the safety certificate."

The jury of seven women and four men were told, however, that the number of spectators legitimately allowed by Sheffield Wednesday's safety certificate on to the Leppings Lane terrace exceeded a safe capacity limit. The club also had no dedicated system to monitor the number of people admitted to the enclosed pens created in 1981 and 1985 by building metal railing fences up the terrace. This meant, Cutlack said, that supporters who had tickets for that part of the ground in the 1980s were in "real danger".

On the day the 96 Liverpool supporters were killed by the crush in central pens 3 and 4, Cutlack has said the pens were full far beyond their safe capacity. He has calculated 678 as the safe limit of people for pen 3, but on the day of the disaster, 1,296 were in there.

The total capacity for the Leppings Lane terrace had been calculated for Sheffield Wednesday's safety certificate in 1979 at 10,100, which Cutlack said was itself "substantially" excessive, yet it was never changed, even after the construction of pens and other changes to that end of the ground in the 80s that reduced safe capacity. Cutlack has told the inquest the correct safe figure should have been 7,247 people, 2,853 fewer.

He said he considered the overstating of the safe capacity to have been "a remarkable failure" by Sheffield Wednesday's consultant engineer, Dr Wilfred Eastwood, who was also a shareholder in the club and represented it on safety matters.

Asked by Michael Mansfield QC, representing 75 of the families whose relatives died at Hillsborough, whether the overstated safe capacity, and lack of system to monitor numbers in each pen, was "in itself creating a real danger on the Leppings Lane terrace", Cutlack answered: "Yes."

He said: "If you are consciously admitting [the permitted number of] 1,000 people into pen 3, and the figure which should have been calculated is 678, then that must mean the level of safety is less than it should have been and risks could occur to people's safety."

Cutlack agreed that the safe capacity figure of 10,100 for the Leppings Lane terrace stated by Sheffield Wednesday in 1979 was "a substantial miscalculation". Then, throughout the 1980s, there was "a failure to identify that error" and recalculate the figure, he said. The error remained uncorrected, and the 10,100 figure unchanged, despite the division of the terrace into pens and other structural changes, including the removal of crush barriers, which did not comply with the official "Green Guide" on safety at sports grounds.

Together with the absence of a dedicated system for counting the numbers admitted to the individual pens, Cutlack agreed with Mansfield that this created "a serious risk of danger on the Leppings Lane terraces at Hillsborough".

Weatherby asked Cutlack whether allowing in crowds that exceeded the ground's safe capacity meant "you are creating the conditions for a calamity such as happened in April 1989".

"Potentially, yes," Cutlack replied.

Weatherby asked if it was acceptable, on the part of those responsible, to respond to that danger by considering that it was safe because no disaster had yet happened.

"'We got away with it last time' is not an answer to the safety concerns?" Weatherby asked.

"No," Cutlack replied, "because it could have been happenstance that you did get away with it."

The inquest heard that at 2.40pm on the day of the match, which kicked off at 3pm, just over 5,000 supporters had been counted in to the Leppings Lane terrace, so about 5,000 were building up outside, still awaiting admission. Only seven turnstiles were in operation to admit them, which Cutlack said was insufficient. The jury has already heard evidence from club and police witnesses that the majority of football supporters arrived to matches in the last 20 minutes.

The Leppings Lane terrace had a 3-metre-high reinforced mesh fence at the front, to prevent supporters getting on to the pitch; Cutlack said these were not mandatory and some football clubs took the view that they should not have perimeter fences because they were "inherently unsafe".

Pens 3 and 4 had gates within the fences, which Eastwood had judged could be opened, only from the outside, to enable spectators to be evacuated quickly in an emergency. Cutlack said he disagreed with that view. Both gates were narrower than the minimum 1.1-metre width recommended by the official Home Office Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds, known as the Green Guide. Both fences had steps in front of them; the one in pen 4 was 76% higher than the recommended height of steps in the Green Guide, which Cutlack said made it "more of a hindrance than a help" for fans to get through the gate.

"People on the terrace, whether in pen 3 or 4, faced very considerable difficulties using these gates to get out of there, didn't they?" Cutlack was asked by Stephen Simblet, another barrister representing 75 of the families.

"Yes," Cutlack said, "they did."

After the disaster, in May 1989, the jury were told, Eastwood backdated safety inspection certificates for 1986 and 1987 that he had previously failed to produce, and sent these to the club. Eastwood wrote to the club's secretary that he had not realised it was a condition of the club's safety certificate for a structural engineer to carry out a safety inspection every year with a council representative, then send a certificate to the council.

Eastwood therefore produced "retrospective" safety inspection certificates for 1986 and 1987, which were "simply backdated", and included them with his letter, said Terry Munyard, representing three families.

"I have to say that is a fairly horrifying letter, from a professional perspective," Cutlack said.

The inquest continues.

jynxed fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jun 30, 2014

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