According to various sources the inquest would have been over in 6 months rather than 2 years, saving the families untold amounts of heartache and the public would have been saved vast amounts of money. His force is also the one which tipped off the BBC about the raid on Cliff Richard's house.

South Yorkshire Police can't seem to help themselves making things worse for themselves even now it would seem.

Some association of retired officers from South Yorkshire reported to have posted comments on their website telling members that they should be proud of what they did at Hillsborough apparently. A damned site more humility required methinks.

Yes, just seen it on Victoria Derbyshire. Apparently it was meant to be a private comment.

Of course, there were individual officers on the day who did try their best to help, but they did so in isolation. I do feel for those officers who did try their best who were let down by the senior officers, some of them were persecuted later by SYP themselves of course.

That is my view as well. It is easy to blame everyone from SYP who were on duty that day but there were many who disobeyed orders and helped and probably stopped an even greater death toll.

Those that did should be recognised for doing so.

It's not quite like that, when I heard it read out it appeared to be intended to remind all retired officers that they can be proud of their careers with SYP while there is obvious anger and guilt by association flying around at the moment.

The vast majority have nothing to do with what happened on that day and the pernicious actions that followed, so it's understandable an association would say something like this while the knives are out. But, it's being jumped on and spun into something completely different as its being made out to be solely about Hillsborough (as you have heard), which it is not.

well in fairness Liverpool as club and their fans have never truly acknowledged their part in Heysel preferring to sweep it under the carpet...blaming everyone from belgian police, the stadium and even cockneys

there's a bit of a victimhood culture amongst them, that i find off-putting

(sorry if that goes against the grain, but thats my opinion)

Nail on head.

There was an off duty Met officer who tried to help and was told by a SYP uniformed officer to 'f*ck off'.

At the inquest, a number of police officers were thanked by the QC's on behalf of the family's they represented. I do think at times it can be difficult to distinguish between an institution and the individual officers, but I think it's an important distinction to make.

One big issue that prevented a better response was the hierarchical nature of the police - if you are given an order by a senior officer you follow it, so if they say form a cordon across the middle of the pitch you will do it regardless of how absurd and counter productive it appears. Common sense seems to go out the window. Those that day that acted on their own initiative to try and save life should be recognised.

Yes, which was disgraceful, but then you have PC Alison Schofield who saved the life of a 12 year old child. The point being that even though SYP got everything wrong, there was still pockets of good practice that should not be forgotten.

It is true (and a bizarre quirk of the law) that only those present in the course of their duty for the various services could claim for psychological distress, some of whom (as has finally been accepted) were the self same people who caused or significantly contributed to the disaster, whether personally or institutionally. People who cruelly allege that the families are only interested in compensation, should think long and hard about the implications of this fact.

Regarding WYP, I feel today's comments on their internal retirees website (whilst insensitive) have been slightly blown out of proportion; the point being made was that its unfair to tar all officers from that era with the same brush thanks to Hillsborough, when much other good work was done. Of course their role in policing the miners strike hasn't helped their cause, nor the complete FUBAR of their response to this latest inquiry.

I imagine the reasons for that are in part that the Police Federation would have insisted (unwisely in this case) that the reputations of individual officers be protected to the nth degree regardless of cost and the associated stress on the part of the families. This struck an odd and completely discordant note with the hierarchy of the wider force, who had no choice other than to apologise for the facts which had previously spilled and continued to spill out; for them not to do so would have been absurd and frankly impossible.

No victim can ever be brought back alive, unraped, unattacked, unburgled, etc. What's your point? That people should just accept their injury/death and move on without "moaning"?

I agree with you, even watching the video evidence you can see many many police officers trying their best to help, the sad part is though their stories will be lost in the cover up they chose to follow after the events

It's not just that. Now the ceiling has smashed and it will be far more difficult for police to get away with things and far easier for the average citizen to seek redress.

And for that, I will always be grateful to the Hillsborough families. For other past and future cases; deaths in custody, police shootings, etc.

Because now the default position will no longer be to believe the police. And that applies to juries as well. Because from this point forward, a jury will no longer regard evidence from police officers in criminal cases as anything other than merely another witness. No better or worse than any other witness.

And that is a huge step forward for justice.

It would have been easier to have cured your ignorance by googling "Liverpool Heysel memorial"

And I think it is important that they do form a cordon if they are told to, even if it looks to be inappropriate from their perspective. They are just a cog in a much bigger mechanism. They expect (and have every right to expect) that their superiors have access to a much bigger picture than they have, and so are calling the shots. If they have doubts in the orders they are being given, because of what they can see, then they should pass that information back up the command structure. However, they can only see their part of the picture, and should not be criticised for following orders in these circumstances.

It would be a shame and a further injustice if the good officers of SYP were now tarred in the same way scousers have been.
Let's keep focus on those individuals responsible.

I see now that the families are going to sue SYP for damages. Quite rightly however no doubt some trolls will start by saying "That's what it's been about all along money".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...20million.html

Spot on

It's very clear that for some people this whole affair isn't about justice or about the victims as sons/daughters husbands/wives etc. but purely about finding a stick to beat the police with, irrespective of whether they are one of the thousands of great officers who do their jobs diligently and honestly

there's something quite distasteful about it

Why would we travel up from Nottingham on the M62? M1 North - Hillsborough is pretty much equidistant between the two, isn't it?

Or am I missing something?

And the dishonest relationship between police and press over Hillsborough was almost exactly replicated after the death of Jean Charles de Menezes,

CCTV vanished for some time, police fed the media false reports as to the behaviour of the dead man and - worse still - the then Immigration and Nationality Directorate also fed stories, both false and contradictory, about his immigration status.

Not forgotten, not forgiven.

I see that forum members have now started calling the police "killers" and "murderers".

This doesn't sit comfortably with me, and neither does the timing of the Daily Mails claims about financial compensation paid by the UK taxpayer.

I reiterate that, if the 400 claims regarding compensation from the Daily Mail are true, that every penny goes to charity. If its not true, then shame on that newspaper.

It is an emotive subject though, with many opinions on either side, all equally valid.

They tried to turn him into those two most hated things - an illegal immigrant and a sex offender (he was actually neither).