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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:20 pm
Time: 8:20 pm
Results for hillsborough disaster
1 results foundAuthor: Hillsborough Independent Panel Title: Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel Summary: On 15 April 1989 over 50,000 men, women and children travelled by train, coach and car to Hillsborough Stadium, home of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, to watch an FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. It was a sunny, warm, spring day and one of the high points of the English football season. Hillsborough was a neutral venue, like so many stadia of its time a mix of seated areas and modified standing terraces. As the match started, amid the roar of the crowd it became apparent that in the central area of the Leppings Lane terrace, already visibly overcrowded before kick-off, Liverpool fans were in considerable distress. In fact, the small area in which the crush occurred comprised two pens. Fans had entered down a tunnel under the West Stand into the central pens 3 and 4. Each pen was segregated by lateral fences and a high, overhanging fence between the terrace and the perimeter track around the pitch. There was a small locked gate at the front of each pen. The crush became unbearable and fans collapsed underfoot. To the front of pen 3 a safety barrier broke, creating a pile of people struggling for breath. Despite CCTV cameras transmitting images of distress in the crowd to the Ground Control Room and to the Police Control Box, and the presence of officers on duty on the perimeter track, it was a while before the seriousness of what was happening was realised and rescue attempts were made. As the match was stopped and fans were pulled from the terrace through the narrow gates onto the pitch, the enormity of the tragedy became evident. Fans tore down advertising hoardings and used them to carry the dead and dying the full length of the pitch to the stadium gymnasium. Ninety-six women, men and children died as a consequence of the crush, while hundreds more were injured and thousands traumatised. In the immediate aftermath there was a rush to judgement concerning the cause of the disaster and culpability. In a climate of allegation and counter-allegation, the Government appointed Lord Justice Taylor to lead a judicial inquiry. What followed, over an 11-year period, were various different modes and levels of scrutiny, including LJ Taylor’s Interim and Final Reports, civil litigation, criminal and disciplinary investigations, the inquests into the deaths of the victims, judicial reviews, a judicial scrutiny of new evidence conducted by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, and the private prosecution of the two most senior police officers in command on the day.Despite this range of inquiry and investigation, many bereaved families and survivors considered that the true context, circumstances and aftermath of Hillsborough had not been adequately made public. They were also profoundly concerned that following unsubstantiated allegations made by senior police officers and politicians and reported widely in the press, it had become widely assumed that Liverpool fans’ behaviour had contributed to, if not caused, the disaster.In 2009, at the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, announced the Government’s intention to effectively waive the 30-year rule withholding public records to enable disclosure of all documents relating to the disaster.In July 2009 the Hillsborough Family Support Group, supported by a group of Merseyside MPs, presented to the Home Secretary a case for disclosure based on increasing public awareness of the circumstances of the disaster and the appropriateness of the investigations and inquiries that followed.The Home Secretary met with representatives of the Hillsborough Family Support Group and in January 2010 the Hillsborough Independent Panel, chaired by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, was appointed. The remit of the Hillsborough Independent Panel as set out in its terms of reference was to:• oversee full public disclosure of relevant government and local information within the limited constraints set out in the Panel’s disclosure protocol• consult with the Hillsborough families to ensure that the views of those most affected by the tragedy are taken into account• manage the process of public disclosure, ensuring that it takes place initially to the Hillsborough families and other involved parties, in an agreed manner and within a reasonable timescale, before information is made more widely available• in line with established practice, work with the Keeper of Public Records in preparing options for establishing an archive of Hillsborough documentation, including a catalogue of all central Governmental and local public agency information and a commentary on any information withheld for the benefit of the families or on legal or other grounds• produce a report explaining the work of the panel. The panel’s report will also illustrate how the information disclosed adds to public understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath. The structure of the Panel’s Report The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s Report is in three parts. The first part provides an overview of ‘what was known’, what was already in the public domain, at the time of the Hillsborough Panel’s inaugural meeting in February 2010. The second part is a detailed account, in 12 substantial chapters, of what the disclosed documents and other material ‘adds to public understanding’ of the context, circumstances and aftermath of the disaster The third part provides the Panel’s review of options for establishing and maintaining an archive of the documents made available by over 80 contributing organisations in hard copy, many of which have been digitised and are now available online. Finally, the Report includes a set of appendices: the Panel’s full terms of reference; how the Panel has consulted with bereaved families and their representatives and how it responded to well-publicised events during its work; the process of disclosure; and the research methodology adopted in analysing the documents. Details: London: The Stationery Office, 2012. 389p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 26, 2012 at: http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/report/HIP_report.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/report/HIP_report.pdf Shelf Number: 126454 Keywords: Crowd ControlCrowd SecurityHillsborough DisasterSoccer Fields, AccidentsSports (U.K.)Stadiums |