Today, in a landmark legal decision, six people are being charged by the Crown Prosecution Service, into the events which took place at Hillsborough.
They include the notorious David Duckenfield, the match commander.
This represents a near total victory for the Hillsborough families, who have campaigned all down through the long years – 28 of them now – for someone to be held to account for what happened there. It was aided by the verdict, last year, in the major inquest which found that the 96 were “unlawfully killed.”
Even then, prosecutions were thought unlikely.
But criminal investigations have been proceeding, quietly, in the background, and things ramped up in January this year when files were sent by two of those investigations to the Crown Prosecution Service for their consideration. Today they confirmed that charges will be filed against Duckenfield and others on a range of offences including attempting to pervert the course of justice and professional misconduct.
Duckenfield will be charged with 95 counts of manslaughter.
The other charges are levelled against five others; Sir Norman Bettison, the former chief constable of Merseyside and West Yorkshire police; Graham Mackrell, the Sheffield Wednesday chief executive at that time; Donald Denton, then South Yorkshire police chief superintendent; his deputy, chief inspector Alan Foster, and the then South Yorkshire police solicitor, Peter Metcalf.
It has taken nearly 30 years for things to reach this point.
The dedication and determination of the people who have fought in all that long time, to bring these matters to a head, is phenomenal. They did it for their loved ones, for the city of Liverpool itself, for all football supporters and for our wider society which is better off for their efforts in the face of media lies, official cover-ups and some of the most scandalous misrepresentation of events and individuals which has ever taken place on this island.
It is horrible enough to slander the living, but at Hillsborough even the dead who were maligned, and that is unforgivable, that is what these families could not bear and it’s why the struggle has gone on all down the long years.
At last, we may be coming towards the final chapter.
And Justice for the 96.
The Celtic Family wishes them well as they go forward.
YNWA.
