RedHanded - Episode 234 - The Hillsborough Disaster

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

The deadliest event in UK sporting history took place on the 15th of April, 1989. In the starting minutes of the  F.A. Cup semi-finals between Liverpool F.C. and Nottingham Forest, a disaster unfolded which to date has claimed the lives of 97 people. and left 766 others injured on the day.  These innocent people were the victims of the complacency, ineptitude, and sheer incompetence of those whose very jobs were to ensure their safety.  Institutional coverups, police corruption, evidence tampering, and lies in the media made it take almost 30 years for the truth to come to light. May 27th London Live Show Tickets: Tickets through DICE! Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. This week on Red Handed, we're going to be talking about the Hillsborough disaster. The events that took place on the 15th of April 1989 during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool Football Club and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium

claimed the lives of 96 men, women and children and left 766 other people injured. A coroner ruling confirmed that the 97th death occurred just last year in 2021, when Andrew Devine died from aspiration pneumonia as a direct result of brain injuries that he sustained on that tragic day 32 years ago. Of the 96 who lost their lives in 1989, the youngest was just 10 years old, and the oldest was 67. And unbelievably, only 14 of those who died ever made it to hospital. All of those innocent people who died or survived the disaster were the victims of the complacency, ineptitude and sheer incompetence of those whose very jobs were to ensure their safety. Multiple warnings and complaints had been raised before about safety issues at that same stadium but they had all been ignored for years by officials. And the absolutely disgusting way in which senior police officers and other authorities at the time attempted to clear their own names

of any responsibility by placing the blame on the fans themselves just made this horrendous situation even worse. But we'll come back to that later in this episode. For now, let's start by taking you through the nightmarish series of events that unfolded on the 15th of April 1989. It was a warm spring day and one of the biggest sporting events of the year in England. Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were set to go head-to-head in the FA Cup semi-finals. The FA Cup, if you don't know what it is, it's called the Giant Killer. It's where Premier League football teams and lower league football teams have the opportunity to play each is, it's called the Giant Killer. It's where Premier League football teams and lower league football teams

have the opportunity to play each other. And it's called the Giant Killer because sometimes the big teams lose. And would you say like, I don't know very much about football, but I'm aware FA Cup, big deal. Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, is that like a longstanding rivalry? Is that some sort of big game? No, I mean... It's just because it's the semi-finals maybe then.

Yeah, I mean, my guess would be, I mean, we're not particularly familiar with the standings of football clubs in 1989 because i wasn't alive but my guess would be that nottingham forest is the underdog yeah that's what i thought and probably would not have had an opportunity to play liverpool no that makes sense so it's quite possibly the giant goliath of liverpool versus the smaller underdog of Nottingham Forest in the semi-finals of the FA Cup yes and I believe Nottingham Forest will have if my football knowledge serves me correctly which the number of takes I've had to do to do this piece of information is probably incorrect but Brian Clough was the manager of Nottingham Forest and is an absolute Cinderella story of a low league team going to the semi-final so it would have been a very big deal and Brian Clough is not the person who said that some people say that football is a

matter of life and death but I can assure you that it's much more than that that was Bill Shankly as I just found out and in my head they've been the same person for years but Brian Clough does have some really good quotes the better team on paper that's Brian Clough so Love Island have completely overtaken that Rome wasn't built in a, but I wasn't on that particular job. And he died in the 2000s sometimes. And he was like, don't send me flowers when I'm dead. Send them when I'm alive. Very appropriate.

Yeah. And one last one on the Beckhams. His wife can't sing and his barber can't cut his hair. Sick burns. Yeah, sick burns from Brian Clough. But yes, Nottingham Forest at this particular moment in history would have been a bit of a Cinderella moment. Got it. Got it. Got it.

I have to also say, this is more for the listeners rather than you, Hannah, but I appreciate the mm. We are recording this episode for the first time in our new studio that we are in, in this new shared office space that we've moved into. And I cannot help but feel like I'm suddenly transported to talk radio of some description. I feel like we're on LBC. Yeah. Especially with you reeling off the football quotes. I'm like, am I suddenly on TalkSport.fm? Maybe that's our next gig. Who knows?

Dot com. I don't know. Basically, what we're saying is this game would have been huge, not only because it was the semifinals, but also because it is a giant of Liverpool versus arguably a smaller team like Nottingham Forest that were there and having a Cinderella moment. We love that. We love that. Love to see it. We were there and having a Cinderella moment we love that we love that love to see it we love football here in the UK and we love an underdog

Cinderella story I think the only way to describe football religion doesn't quite cover it it's tribal I think and I don't mean that in a like it's base or it's uncultured

I don't mean that at all football is our entire culture and people care about it it's your tribe yeah yeah yeah it's life and death you know people live and die for their football teams in this country like in you know in Boston people. It's your tribe. Yeah, it's life and death. You know, people live and die for their football teams in this country.

Like in, you know, in Boston, people live and die for the Red Sox. It's the same thing. So on that particular monumental day, Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium had been chosen as a neutral venue to host the sold out game. And it had been for the previous two years running. 54,000 fans had bought tickets to watch their team play for the chance to get to the final. Due to the segregation policy, in order to avoid the fans clashing inside or outside the stadium, because you have to remember that big fights did happen back then, there's a lot of

rules now to sort of stop that from happening, but it was very prevalent at the time. There's a big debate at the moment because you're not allowed to stand at football games anymore because of safety and fighting and shouting and blah blah blah blah so they're bringing that back in a few stadiums one side or the other people feel quite strongly about it but a lot of people are like the atmosphere is not the same if you sat down it's not really that kind of game i would have thought i've not been to a football game but i assume you want to stand up and you want to chant and clap and just expert football yeah tips from me here today on our talk show I went into the gym yesterday and I forgot my little like wristband thing and the guy was like oh like what's your name I was

like it's Hannah Maguire like Harry Maguire who is a footballer and he looked at me like is that is that what you say and I was like well I used to say like Jerry Maguire but nobody's seen that film anymore and he was like yeah I don't know what that is and I was like yeah because you're 14 years old and he was like oh Harry Maguire is much worse I was like, yeah, because you're 14 years old. And he was like, oh, Harry Maguire is much worse. I was like, yes, all right. But did you spell my name right? Yes, you did. So it served its purpose, didn't it, George? Sinking further and further into the talk sport arena that we have found ourselves in today. Hannah going to her bougie bitch Pilates in mortgage.

Hilarious. But also, I mean, I think it's probably quite obvious to people listening, but just in case it isn't, the segregation policy that Hannah mentioned there is to keep fans apart, right? Rifle fans apart. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So that meant that the Liverpool fans were allocated the North and West stands, while the Nottingham Forest fans were in the South and East stands. But the poor design of the stadium meant that every single one of the 24,000 Liverpool fans there that day needed to enter the stadium through one entrance called Leppings Lane. And 10,100

of these Liverpool fans had tickets for the standing terraces, which could be entered through just seven turnstiles. So let's pause on that for a moment. 10,100 human beings with lives and jobs and families needed to pass through just seven turnstiles. Yeah, 10,100 human beings with bodies. Yeah. With physical bodies. What's 10,100 divided by seven? I mean...

TikTok. It's... Why am I feeling so much pressure for this? I'll look it up. Well, it would be a thousand if it was 10. So like, if it's seven, it's going to be like 1,300, 1,400 people. So ask me again. Sushi Barra, with your A-level in maths, what is 10,100 divided by seven?

I would say it's roughly about 1,400 people passing through a turnstile. So lots. And I don't know if you've ever seen old and timey football stadiums. I have not. I have not even seen new and timey. The one I have been to the most frequently is Haringey Borough. And that is quite literally just a car park in Tottenham. And it makes me think of that because when I used to go to football games with my dad,

so early 90s, they would all be like that. So just like a terrace and one gate. Going through a singular turnstile may work, but in order for it to work, you need absolute assurance that there would be a slow and steady flow of people over a long period of time, coupled with well-managed crowd control by the police. But as many of you will already know, that's not at all what happened. Kick-off was at 3pm, and by 2pm, just over 2,000 Liverpool fans had arrived in the standing terraces. And that meant that around 8,000 fans still needed to arrive in the next 60 minutes. Now, we need to explain the actual setup of the standing terraces. It is hard to visualise,

especially if, like me, you've never even been to a football game. I'll take you to Harrington. Well, you should be going to Leighton Orient. I should be going to Leighton Orient. The day I went to go look at my house that I then bought, there was a Leighton Orient game on and I was on the overground it was like such a cool vibe i was like i should go to see this football team because everyone was just loving it living for it living for late norient but no if you haven't been to a football game like me then you might have some difficulty visualizing exactly what i'm about to explain but do not worry we are going to post an annotated diagram of the stadium and the standing terraces on our social media so that you can go have a look at exactly what the

layout was of Leppings Lane and the turnstiles and the pens everything that we're going to refer to so don't worry if you're having trouble picturing this in your head. Basically what we need to know is that the standing terraces at the western side of the stadium were divided into six pens and these pens were separated by high fences and these pens were also separated from the perimeter track around the pitch by more high fences which was specifically designed to be difficult to climb over. You can start to see the shapings of the disaster that's about to unfold. After passing through the turnstiles, the majority of Liverpool fans made their way into pens three and four, which were located directly behind the goal, which is where one of our more football knowledgeable producers says is the best spot

to be at a football match. By 2.15pm, the large crowd of Liverpool fans outside the Leppings Lane entrance was rapidly building, and it continued to grow over the next 15 minutes. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

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wherever you get your podcasts. Using code REDHANDED. The flow of fans through the seven turnstiles was steady but slow, and by this point around 4,400 fans had passed through them. A message echoed through the speakers in the stadium, urging the Liverpool fans in the standing terraces to move forward and to spread to the sides in order to make room for those still coming in. But because the pens were divided by high fences

and the gates allowing movement into the neighbouring pens was actually located at the back of these fences, the more packed pens three and four became, the harder and harder it was for people to move into the next ones. Do you just like creating an absolute bottleneck situation? Yeah, I mean, I don't even know what the word is. No. Like, I mean, it's a bottleneck on a scale that's quite unimaginable. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, the commander of the match, somebody that we'll speak a lot more about later on, and another senior officer watched on from the police control box, deliberating whether or not to delay the kickoff in order to allow the fans more time to enter the stadium. And that would have been the rational decision to make,

one that's been made many times in previous years, and at that particular stadium as well. But for whatever reason, they decided against it. It was now 2.45pm, and 5,500 fans had already packed through the seven turnstiles, which meant there were still 4,000 fans with tickets for the standing terraces, waiting to get inside the stadium. And let's put that into context. Normally, it would have taken two hours for that many people to come through the turnstiles steadily, but there was just 15 minutes till kick-off, which had been deliberately not put back. Why? When they have done this before,

when there is a precedent, I mean, I know why, we'll go on to discover together why but really it just is so unbelievably infuriating especially again my football stadium ignorance the police box i assume if they're watching from there they have a clear bird's eye view of the situation that is unfolding quite possibly into the pens and even if they don't they can see the number of people that are still outside and the fact that there's only 15 minutes to go. And as a police officer at a stadium football match, your job is crowd control. Yeah. What else are you doing? Yeah. So they could have decided to postpone the match, but for some reason he didn't. Thousands of fans were now packed into the Leppings Lane bottleneck and the pressure on the turnstiles was intensifying. Meanwhile,

the situation in Pens 3 and 4 was already dire, but it was about to become a whole hell of a lot worse. Superintendent Roger Marshall, one of the few officers stationed outside of the stadium, made several requests for exit gate C, which was next to the turnstiles, to be opened in order to relieve the pressure that was building. And this could have been a good idea if there had been officers on the other side directing the fans who were then going to come pouring out of this gate once it was opened, away from the tunnel, leading to the already packed out pens 3 and 4. But again, common sense did not prevail. Chief Superintendent David Ducanfield gave the order for Exit Gate C to be opened without taking into consideration how to handle the thousands of fans

who were, like we just said, going to inevitably come pouring out in order to bypass the turnstiles. Within the space of five minutes, 2,000 fans passed through the open gate and many of them headed straight through the unmanned tunnel leading to pens three and four. You've got to understand like when we're saying this like if the police are not there to tell people where to go they are just going to follow the most obvious path that's in front of their eyes they have no idea what's going on in pens three and four because they haven't been into the stadium yet so obviously they're going to try and enter that space which is the exact wrong place for them to be heading yeah it makes me think of i mean obviously not

even remotely comparable but like when you're on a protest and you can't see, you can't see anything. And there's thousands of people and everyone's just walking in circles. I went on one for International Women's Day once and we met on Grosvenor Square, I think, which is not a big area. But because everyone was following everyone else, we didn't find our way out of the square for four hours. No one's phones were working because there were so many people. So you literally have, you just got to figure it out and there's no one directing you anywhere. And that's the thing, it's even worse here because it's funneling people down tunnels. Yes, absolutely.

And into smaller and smaller and smaller spaces that are then fenced in like these pens. And like we said earlier, the only way to get out of that pen once you're in there, because the only people that would have known how bad things were would have been right at the front of the pen. The doors to get into the other pen are at the back of that pen. So the people that would have known how bad it is would have had no chance of getting out the people who maybe don't realize how bad things are are the ones closest to the door but why would they leave because these are the best pens to be in and they don't know that anything is wrong it's like the perfect storm of how to create a catastrophe and unsurprisingly that's exactly what happened and so once exit gate c

was opened, predictably, obviously, people headed down that tunnel and into Pens 3 and 4. And the excited fans, who again had absolutely no idea what was going on at the front, piled onto the back of the crowded central Pens, unknowingly causing a devastating crush on the people now trapped up against the fences

at the very front. With five minutes to go until kick-off, the players came onto the pitch and the roar of the spectators echoed across the stadium. And this just caused the eager fans trying to make their way into the stadium rushed forward to try and catch a glimpse of their team and get a good spot for the game.

They had no idea about the carnage that was unfolding at the front of the central pens because they can't see. Kick-off took place promptly at 2.59 while the Liverpool fans, pressed up against the barriers in the central pens, were quite literally dying. Five minutes into the game, Liverpool player Peter Beardsley struck Nottingham Forest's crossbar, causing the fans at the back to surge forward

again, and again they had no idea what was happening at the front because they couldn't see, but at this point the pressure grew to the point that one of the crush barriers in the middle of pen three collapsed, and the fans that had point that one of the crush barriers in the middle of pen three collapsed. And the fans that had been pressed up against it fell forward over the metal barrier, pinning those in front of them to the ground. This allowed the people at the back to surge forward even more, and consequently put more pressure on the people at the front, many of whom were already unconscious or in the process of passing out.

And that's the thing, isn't it? It's like so much pressure building and building, no way to relieve the pressure because I'm guessing also the doors at the back by this point are completely blocked and people can't move forward. And the people who are moving forward can't see what's going on. So the minute the barrier falls, it's almost like the crowd is like water. It's like as soon as that barrier falls, then it just moves into that space. They've got nowhere to go. Of of course the momentum just takes them forward and then that's

how the crush is sort of happening almost like a wave of people who can't at this point stop what is already happening because the pressure is so high because even if you were to get further to the front realize what's happening the people behind you you can't get back out yeah yeah it's just like a it is it's like an unstoppable wave that is just crashing and the people who should have foreseen this the people who should have known what was going to happen pushing this number of people through that small an entrance and that few turnstiles completely failed and in no way are the people that were caught up in this would have been able to do anything it would have been like being caught in a tsunami it's just happening

and as this wave got worse and worse some fans were lucky enough to be able to scale the high fence at the front, while some caught near the back were lifted out of the crush by fans above them. Two incredibly narrow gates at the front of the pens were unlocked and a few fans managed to squeeze through. Police initially thought that these people were pitch invaders, but then one of the fans ran up to the goalkeeper to tell him what was happening. Now the entire stadium and the police's attention were drawn to central pens 3 and 4.

The fans were screaming at nearby police officers to do something as they did their best to pass the unconscious bodies of men, women and children over the fencing and onto the pitch. Now, seven minutes into the game, at 3.06pm, it finally became obvious to police that a disaster was taking place and the match was stopped. By this point, already so quickly, just seven minutes into the start of the game, many of the Liverpool fans caught in the crush were already dead from asphyxiation.

The first ambulance only arrived on the scene at 3.14pm, but put a pin in that for now, we'll come back to this later to explain why the emergency response to this tragedy was so shambolic. But as these events were unfolding, as people were literally dying, Chief Superintendent David Ducanfield was more concerned about covering his own arse than making decisions that could have saved lives. At 3.15pm, Duckenfield met with the chief executive of the Football Association, a man named Graham Kelly, in the policeman's box. He told Kelly that there had been fatalities and that the game was likely to be called off. And then this piece of shit told him that the crush had been caused by Liverpool fans

who had forced their way through exit gate C and rushed the pence, even though we know that they had opened exit gate C and then failed to have any police officers on the other side steering people in the right direction. As Ducanfield was lying through his teeth to save himself and other senior officers, the stadium's poorly equipped medical teams didn't have anywhere near enough stretchers to carry the injured and unconscious fans away from the crush. Fortunately, many quick-thinking Liverpool fans took it upon themselves to turn billboards into makeshift stretchers. The match was formally abandoned at 4.10 and many of the fans went home.

By 4.30pm, around 151 people had been taken to hospital by a fleet of ambulances. Many bodies of the dead, unconscious and injured were taken to the stadium's gym, and the chaos and disorganisation in there was just as bad as it had been on the pitch outside. And I think even before you move on, it's like, just the sheer number to get into your head. 151 people were taken to hospital. That is unbelievable. Bodies were just scattered around at random, to the point that nurses had to search through bodies to even figure out who was dead and who was alive. One nurse couldn't find anything to cut open a man's jumper

in order to perform a tracheotomy. And eventually, she was handed a butter knife by a policeman. Once all the people who were still alive and in need of medical attention had been removed, the gym essentially became a mortuary. The bodies of those who died in hospital were even brought back to the gym. This decision was criticised, but a CID officer defended it, saying, quote, I saw it as an ideal situation, if you don't mind me saying, to put all our eggs in one basket. And this comment, as gross as it is, was made even worse when the truth came out that it was actually the coroner, Stefan Popper, who insisted that all the bodies were kept in the same place for identification.

Despite there having been a possibility for all of these dead people to have been transported to the Medico Legal Centre before 6pm that very day, Popper had his own reasons for keeping them all in the same place. I'm presumably keeping them all in the gym at Hillsborough. So by the end of the evening, 82 people had been declared dead at Hillsborough and 12 more were declared dead in hospital. Another person, Lena Cole, survived on life support for two days before dying. The 96th victim of the Hillsborough disaster was Tony Bland, who survived until 1993 with severe brain damage. And just like almost everything else up until this point, authorities handled the identification process horrendously. The gym at Hillsborough was divided

into three sections, one for the dead, one for the police, and one to take statements. Terrified family members were kept on buses outside as they waited to identify the bodies of their loved ones. Police and medical staff had taken Polaroid photos of the dead, numbered them and then pinned them to a board. And that might seem like an efficient way to handle what is an unprecedented, unbelievable situation that has happened. But I think one very clear criticism, well, there are many, but one particular criticism that we could make is that no attempt was made when they took these Polaroids to group the photos by, say, sex or age or anything like that, that, you know, they could have categorised groups together and been like, who are you looking for?

Oh, your son is 17. You just need to look in this particular part of the board. Rather, it was just like, have a look at this particular part of the board rather it was just like have a look at this board have a look at all of these victims who are dead and see if you can support your loved one like it's just such a horrendous way to deal with what was already a devastating process for these grieving families and so those searching for missing family members would come inside like i said they would be asked to look at the board see if they recognize their loved one on the board of all of the dead people that they had identified and then they'd have to tell the staff there the corresponding number on the Polaroid photo of their beloved

family member and then the body would be brought to them to identify. After having learned that their family member was dead, the bereaved would then immediately take into the section of the gym to be interviewed by police. And although this was meant to be an identification process, that is the key purpose of what they are doing in that gym at this point, what it really was, was the beginning of a criminal investigation. And this was the beginning of the spin. The mourning families of the Liverpool fans who died that day were questioned relentlessly about how many pubs they'd visited before the match and how much alcohol their dead loved ones had had.

In the BBC documentary about the Hillsborough disaster, one woman described that she had broken down at the sight of her dead son and then she pleaded to take him home. But she was callously told by a police officer that her son was now, quote, property of the coroner. What the fuck? Yeah, that's pretty... It's like all the stuff that's happened to this point, right? Incompetence, stupidity, like lying, ass covering. Then all the stuff that happens afterwards, it's more ass covering, right? To avoid responsibility that we're going to go on to talk about.

The level of callousness with which some of the police officers and some of the authorities seem to have dealt with the victims on the day is kind of shocking in a different way, though. It's like, why so cold to these people when such a horrendous thing has happened? It's hard to wrap your head around. Yeah, and it's the blame narrative, isn't it? So as we said earlier on, the South Yorkshire coroner, by the name of Stefan Popper, had his own motives for keeping the bodies where they were. He had a very close relationship with the police and he was in fact helping the senior police officers

responsible for the safety of the fans on that very day protect themselves. Popper took blood samples from every dead Liverpool fan in that gym, including children as young as 10, in order to support the lies that Chief Superintendent David Ducanfield had started to spew as people were dying in the crush earlier that day. Taking alcohol blood samples from children as young as 10. I mean, fucking fuck. Yeah, it's awful. It is. It's exactly what you said, though.

It is a way to let's see what we can find. If we just find enough, we can use that to prop up this blame narrative that the police have already started to build. Yeah. Just hours after the match was called off, all of the officers present at the stadium gathered at the police road traffic department and senior officers told the rest of the force that they may not make any notes in their pocketbooks about what they had witnessed that day. And back then, a police officer's pocketbook was sacred. An officer would write down absolutely anything and everything he or she deemed to be important or of interest. And for your senior officer to directly and explicitly tell you not to write down a single thing after you witnessed a disaster where 96 people died that same day is unbelievable.

This again proves that it isn't like this happened, everybody is in so much shock, they can't believe what's happened and then later down the line they start to try and cover things up. Or that they genuinely, you know, even if we were to be kind, they genuinely believe that people had caused the crush on, you know, and it wasn't to do with bad policing or anything like that. And then it's later revealed to be such an inquiry and then they're trying to cover up. They know already the day of, within hours, within moments, that this was their fault. And that's why they're trying to cover up. They know already the day of, within hours, within moments, that this was their fault. And that's why they're doing this. And I think that tells you everything you need to know

insofar as how premeditated this institutional cover-up was. So David Ducanfield and the other senior officers who were present at the game were set on protecting themselves. Like we just said, there was arse covering from the very moment it happened. And this was very, very clear to the lower-ranking officers were set on protecting themselves, like we just said, there was arse covering from the very moment it happened. And this was very, very clear to the lower-ranking officers who had been told not to write down anything in their notebooks, and many of them were not happy about it. Four days later, the South Yorkshire Police Federation,

along with all of the officers present at the tragedy, gathered at a pub in Sheffield to make their official witness statements. 400 statements from officers were recorded that day and senior officers doctored 164 of these. That is unbelievable. Oh, it's illegal. Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. It's unbelievable and unbelievably illegal. That's well over a quarter of the statements they have doctored. And 116 of the 400 statements which had originally contained criticisms of the senior officers were actually completely removed from the record. Let's be clear about what those senior officers did here.

Doctoring official statements which are meant to be used as evidence in a situation where 96 people have died is nothing short of a criminal offence and an outright perversion of the course of justice. But it wouldn't be until years later that this crime would come to light. And we will come back to this. But for now, let's look at the characteristically disgusting behaviour of the UK's best known national shit rag, The Sun. The Sun, if you are not in the UK, just to be clear, it is a tabloid newspaper and it is... It's gutter press. It is. It is. It's like, if I had a hamster, I wouldn't even buy it to shred up

to put in the base of it because it's just like, I wouldn't want to give them the purchases. It is trash. And the same day that this meeting in this pub was taking place and all of these official statements were being doctored or destroyed, The Sun published David Duckenfield's lies under the headline, The Truth. They claimed that fans who were there that day, as the tragedy had unfolded, had pickpocketed the dead, urinated on those being crushed from above,

spat on a police officer giving cpr and the article even claimed that some of those who were there that day had sexually assaulted the body of a dead female fan they are really like what are the worst things i can think they're throwing everything they can think of at the wall they're precisely i hate to say this but like we're like the sun is trash it's gutter press absolutely i assume in 1989 it probably had quite a high circulation though it still does it still does yeah so a lot of people would have seen oh yeah the truth and also it's you know the 80s where people buy the newspaper from a physical shop so even if you're they say hollywood is where dreams are made a

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Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Or not picking up the sun and buying it. You're seeing that headline in the newsagent. That's a very good point, yeah. And the journalist who wrote this piece later spoke up about his outrage, saying that he had tried to make it as clear as possible that these allegations were just that, unproven allegations.

But the senior editor of The Sun had decided to rewrite that article and present the allegations as facts. And as much as we rag on journalists, it is always the editor that has the final say. And if they rewrite your shit, there's nothing you can do about it. Paul Middup, the former secretary of the South Yorkshire Police Federation, even went on television and said this. They, meaning Liverpool fans, arrived very late, only a few minutes before the game was due to start. They had been drinking

very heavily. They wouldn't accept what police officers were trying to tell them. They wouldn't accept any direction at all. They were hellbentent on getting in there and that's what they were going to do. There is an estimation that 500 plus were there without tickets. They were pushing and crushing and very, very strong and the police officers there were virtually overwhelmed and couldn't hold them back. I don't think they were virtually anything. No. And it's also just like, again, the shifting of the blame onto the victims. And we know for a fact, as we've said, and we'll go on to talk about what the inquiries found, they opened that exit gate. They weren't there to move people into the right places. They didn't postpone the game. They could have delayed it. They people in more slowly more safely more steadily through these turnstiles you will get in before the game starts no announcements like that were made because they didn't make a decision to postpone the game they were like fuck it let's just carry on so catalogue of errors and you can see here that very very quickly they're taking an

official stance where they're not going on tv and saying you know we're not going to talk about it until the inquiry comes or some sort of resolution is made from the get-go. They are publicly making official statements that this was the fault of the fans. So, of course, everybody around the country who would have been watching this story, why wouldn't they believe the official narrative? They're seeing it in the sun and they're seeing it come out of the mouths of police officers. Dr. Stefan Popper, our coroner from earlier, oversaw the inquest into the deaths at the coroner's hearing in 1991. And based on just one doctor's opinion that all 95 people who died on the day of the disaster had either already died or were in fact brain dead by 3.15pm that day, Popper decided that any and all evidence of police and emergency services actions past this time was to be declared inadmissible that is unbelievable they've just decided based on one doctor's opinion

that everybody was either dead or past the point of saving by 3 15 p.m that day so whatever the police or emergency services did after that or authorities it doesn't matter because it was already too late first of all let's you know let's unpick this little decision by stephen popper because first of all how the fuck could the coroner who wasn't even there on game day say with any degree of certainty that everybody was officially dead by 3 15 p.m there is no way on earth that you can get a body even a body that has died you know within hours and say pinpoint it to within minutes of death, to say they were dead by 3.15pm is ludicrous. Yes, absolutely.

And this decision was made despite the fact that a 15-year-old boy named Kevin Williams, who died that day at Hillsborough, uttered the word mum at 3.30pm. In fact, a policewoman named Deborah Martin had actually held Kevin in her arms as he died and she had recorded his time of death as 3.50pm. But because her statement went against the official narrative, PC Deborah Martin actually received a visit from another female police officer who instructed her to change her statement, saying that they needed to, quote, round off the story.

It's not a story, though, is it? I mean, it is a story. It's a lie. Yeah, it's completely fictional. It's fabrication, yeah. So on the 26th of March 1996, so we're talking seven years after the tragedy, the inquest run by this coroner, returned the verdict of accidental death. And this was, of course, another enormous blow to the bereaved and furious families of those who had died. They had been hoping for a verdict of unlawful killing or at the very least an open verdict. So saying that the coroner couldn't confirm what had happened one way or another.

But they were definitively saying accidental death. And the families of the victims had also hoped that there might have been manslaughter charges to be brought against the officers who had been present at the disaster. But with accidental death being the ruling, that was obviously no longer going to be a possibility. After the disaster, Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to lead an inquiry into the causes of the tragedy.

The Taylor inquiry ran for 31 days from the 15th of May to the 29th of June 1989 and concluded that policing on the day, quote, broke down and, another quote, the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. That doesn't fit in with the story, does it? No, the nicely rounded off story with all of its round corners. This report also focused on the decision to open the secondary gates and the decision not to delay kick-off, as had been done at other venues and other matches. The football club, whose stadium it was, Sheffield Wednesday, was also criticised for the inadequate number of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end, and the poor quality of the crush barriers on the terraces. The report also noted that even

though there was no way to calculate exactly when each individual pen or enclosure had reached its maximum capacity, it should have been obvious that by 2.50pm, pens 3 and 4 were over full, and opening gate C was the dumbest decision it was humanly possible to make. The official capacity of the central pens was 2,200, but a health and safety executive found that this number should have actually been reduced to 1,693. That is not an inconsequential difference. No, no. My god. So what we've got is a max capacity that was actually far larger than it should have been in the first place. And even on top of that, the actual estimated number of people in the pens at kickoff was almost double. So about 3,000 people.

So even if they had still believed that 2,200 was the appropriate number to put in there, they were still 800 people at least over what their already overinflated safety capacity was. And as for the accusation that the Liverpool fans were drunk and disorderly, Lord Taylor dismissed this as the bullshit it was. And he said very, very clearly in his report that most of the Liverpool fans weren't even drunk and acknowledged that these accusations were just the work of the senior police officers trying not to concede any responsibility for their catalogue of bad decisions. But still the police force representatives at the inquiry stuck with their story that the fans were to blame for the disaster, essentially spitting in the faces of the families

of those who had died, those who were injured and those who were traumatised by what they had witnessed that day. I think that's the other thing, isn't it? Like 96 people die, hundreds are injured. But all the people who saw these bodies of unconscious dead men, women and children being taken onto the pitch, some of the accounts that you read of this, like what had happened to these people's bodies when they were being crushed, the trauma is so far reaching within the people who were affected by this.

And for the police to say this even after a public inquiry found that they were to blame and it wasn't the fans to say no no it's still that's still definitely not what happened it's despicable i mean public servant is that not is that not the word i mean no it's not it's It's institution servant is what it is. Yes. So the situation for the families after this absolute fucking shit show only got worse in 1997 when the Labour Party came into power and the then Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered another investigation into the events to be performed this time by Lord Justice Stuart Smith. This is the thing that I always find very perplexing. I can't speak to whether this happens in other countries, but I know it happens here. Whenever a reporter,

an inquiry doesn't seem to quite find what we want it to, we just keep doing them until it does. Yes, yes, absolutely. We'll just do another one. This is the problem. We amass so much data on various different things, but we're just like, oh, cool, great. Let's move on. We take absolutely no steps to fix what the inquiry find and then just say it solved itself. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like the McPherson report. Yeah, yeah.

We're just like, the report in and of itself is good enough. We don't need to do the recommendations that are then coming out of this report. Yeah, it's a mess. So this new inquiry that was put in place by Jack Straw, it really is just horrendous. Lord Justice Smith at a meeting with the bereaved families, said the following. I, like, can't even say it. He says, quote, Have you got a few of your people, or

are they like the Liverpool fans who turn up at the last minute? He doesn't seem biased at all. He seems like exactly the man to run this inquiry. He later apologised and said that his little comment, his little jokeette, was not meant to offend.

Oh, well, that's all right then. And it won't come as a surprise either that Stuart Smith's report completely backed Stephen Popper's coroner's inquiry. All that evidence relating to events taking place after the 3.15pm should just be ignored. What a fucking arbitrary thing to say. Like's ludicrous yeah and they also said that another inquiry would not find any new material worth putting before the director of public prosecutions or the police complaints authority which might make them reconsider their decisions that had already been taken so basically they're saying there's nothing out there so he might as well not look yeah they're like there's nothing that could possibly be found that would make

anybody here involved in this institutional cover-up reconsider the decisions that have been taken. And he even acknowledged that, yes, senior police officers had indeed illegally doctored over 100 official statements given to them by other officers, but he still said that it didn't convince him that any further action should be taken. So what we're looking at is an institutional cover-up, and then another institutional cover-up, drowning the families of the dead. How can you acknowledge that senior police officers doctored official police statements made by other police officers and say that no further action needs to be taken? How is that a conclusion that can be come to?

It's not like they're even saying that's not what happened. Yeah. They're like, it did, but don't worry about it. Well, authority figures in this country aren't particularly used to taking responsibility for their actions. Like, yeah, it happened, but don't worry about it. Yeah, quite. But all hope was not lost. Many of the family members who died that day never gave up,

and they never stopped campaigning for justice and truth. Anne Williams, the mother of Kevin Williams, the 15-year-old boy we mentioned earlier, became one of the most outspoken Hillsborough activists and campaigned tirelessly for justice. She fought hard for a new inquiry into the disaster and despite having no legal training, she successfully won a number of legal attacks on the first shambolic inquest. Sadly, Anne passed away from cancer in 2013, but was posthumously awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. She did, however, live to see the formation and final report of the independent Hillsborough panel, which was put together by the

British government in 2009 to investigate the disaster. Another thing about Anne Williams is, I don't know if you saw this, Hannah, I think you did. I think we talked about it, is that there is a miniseries just called Anne. I believe it's a four-part ITV series. I thought it was BBC, but I think it might be ITV. But again, if you're not in the country and you want to watch it, because it's basically the story of her fight for justice for not just her son, but the other 96 victims of Hillsborough. And it's Maxine Peake.

Oh, I like her. I like her and it's Maxine Peake. Oh I like her. I like her. Yeah Maxine Peake plays Anne and yeah it's gotten really really good reviews and I thought it was very fucking punch you in the eyes painful to watch. And this independent inquiry found that the Liverpool fans were not at fault and the crush took place due to poor decisions made by the senior police officials at the match. This final report also revealed the many institutional cover-ups carried out by the authorities and the panel concluded that up to 41 of the 96 people who had died on that day might have survived had the emergency services reactions and the coordination there been better. So basically saying almost half of the people that died could have survived if after all the fuck-uppery

that had already happened, if things had been better in the aftermath and you didn't have people like Ducanfield going out and immediately making press statements about how this had been the fans' fault and instead if you'd have focused on how to minimise the loss of life, half those people could have lived. And if you're thinking like how could they say, half those people could have lived. And if you're thinking like, how could they say, you know, half of these people could have survived? Basically, the panel

looked at the post-mortem examinations and found that some of the victims may have had heart, lung or blood circulation function for some time after being removed from the crush. The report also stated that placing fans who were merely unconscious on their backs, rather than, as we know, in the recovery position, would have resulted in so many deaths due to airway obstruction. The panel also went on to say that even though the Taylor report dismissed the idea that alcohol contributed to the disaster, this bullshit lie had stuck.

So, as you'll remember, there's the first report, and then there's the second report, and then the one that comes out that's just ignored and then they do another report, said that alcohol was not involved because Liverpool fans were not drunk. But this report finds that even though that had been disproven, it was too late because people already believed that. The panel also said that they had uncovered documents that confirmed that repeated attempts were made to find supporting evidence for alcohol being a factor and that available evidence was significantly and intentionally misinterpreted. What a shock. A second coroner's hearing was also held in December 2012 and in 2016 a panel of jurors

reached a verdict of unlawful killing of the 96 people who died and we know that there were 97 people who died but by this point the final were 97 people who died, but by this point, the final victim hadn't yet passed away, because like we said at the start, he didn't die until 2021. The chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son died that day, had this to say when the verdict came out. Let's be honest about this. People were against us. We had the media against us, as well as the establishment. Everything was against us. The only people that weren't against us was our own city.

That's why I'm so grateful to my city and so proud of my city. They always believed in us. But the question remained, was anybody going to face criminal charges? In the end, despite an enormous Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation and multiple attempts to prosecute David Duckenfield for the manslaughter of 96 people, only one person has ever to date been convicted for anything

related to the Hillsborough disaster. Graham Mackerel, the then Sheffield Wednesday secretary, was fined £6,500 for a safety offence. He's been basically nowhere in the narrative at all. No, no, no, no. And they're like, Graham Mackerel,

this whole situation happened because of Sheffield Wednesday's stadium. You know, obviously we can point to the fact that the stadium wasn't designed in the most optimal way for the number of people that were there. For example, they were massively overestimating the safety capacity within those fenced off pens. But the fact is, like we said, these games had been happening at sheffield wednesday for years before that fa cup finals fa cup semi-finals these things had been happening there previously without 96 people dying yeah so

to blame it all on the stadium feels like another giant lie so whether you knew about this story before or not, a question that might have been on your minds while we were telling you all of this might have been, how could Hillsborough Stadium, a venue like I just said that had hosted the semi-finals of the FA Cup two years in a row before this, without any major incidents, suddenly find itself the setting of such a nightmare disaster. Well, this is in no small part due to another horrible fucking incident which took place in October 1988, six months before the semi-final match. A new 20-something recruit to the South Yorkshire Police Force had been lured to a post office late one night in Ranmore, Sheffield. When he got there, two men armed with handguns, dressed in army fatigues and wearing balaclavas, tackled him to

the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back. His face was in the wet mud and he was shaking uncontrollably when his attackers pulled his trousers down and pointed their guns at his head. He then heard a click and saw a flash, but it wasn't the gun going off. It was a camera. Suddenly, all he could hear was hysterical laughter, and the men took off their balaclavas, only to reveal that they weren't actually

homicide or criminals about to execute him. They were, in fact, his colleagues, and this brutal attack was apparently a bit of harmless hazing. A fun sort of prank for the new recruit. And that new recruit, no doubt traumatised and humiliated, went home that night and told his wife what had happened. Next morning, he filed a formal complaint against his superiors.

The resulting investigation found that the group of officers were all from Hamilton Road Police Station, and they'd also included an inspector. Four officers, including that inspector, and two sergeants were forced to resign. Two other sergeants were demoted, and two constables were fined. The story hit the headlines and local MPs felt pressure to take action. Shortly after the resignations, in March 1989, Chief Superintendent at the time, Brian Mole, was transferred to Barnsley

as a part of a a quote, changes to the structure. And although the hazing prank wasn't cited to be a reason for the move, it definitely was. And you might be thinking, what on earth are we talking about this for? Well, this decision to move Brian Mole to Barnsley from Hamilton Road Police Station would prove to have fatal consequences. Brian Mole had repeatedly been praised for his crowd control at Sheffield Wednesday football matches and it was actually because of him that the stadium had been reinstated as an FA Cup semi-final venue after a previous suspension due to issues with crowd management and ground safety. So this is the thing, Hamilton Road police station is the police station that has jurisdiction over

Sheffield Wednesday stadium which is Hillsborough Stadium. So whoever is the police station that has jurisdiction over Sheffield Wednesday Stadium, which is Hillsborough Stadium. So whoever is the chief superintendent there would have been directly responsible for this. And again, I don't know a huge amount about football stadiums and about football, but I assume if they are holding FA Cup semi-final games there, it is a pretty major stadium in the country. No? Okay. It plays host to some pretty major games, let's say that. And you have a man here who is highly experienced in dealing with that particular stadium. He's familiar with it. He's been praised for his work there. And Brian Malt actually oversaw the FA Cup semifinals in both 1987 and 1988 without any major incident, making him the most experienced match commander in that police force at that time. Which is a valuable thing to say when your police force has jurisdiction over a football stadium. But the decision was made to transfer him just 21 days before the 1989 semi-final. And as we know, the man to take his place, overseeing the safety of over 50,000 football fans, was the completely untrained and inexperienced David Ducanfield.

Two days before kick-off, the police had a pre-match press briefing. A policeman who was actually at this briefing was on the BBC Hillsborough documentary too, and he remembered that Ducanfield didn't even know what teams were playing at the match. He called Nottingham Forest Nottinghamshire. A small mistake, sure, but does speak volumes not only about how little he knew about football, but how very unprepared he was for the monumental responsibility that was about to fall on his shoulders. On the morning of the game, the officers at Sheffield Wednesday had one final briefing led by Ducanfield. During

this briefing, he didn't once mention crowd safety. Instead, he focused on how to arrest people in the crowd for offences. And then he ended his long speech by saying, I do believe we're covered for every eventuality. The idea that he thinks that he's got everything ready to go. We're covered. I've got it. I've got it figured out. We're fine. Just arrest anybody causing a scene. Don't worry about their safety. Worry about arresting them. Yeah. 54,000 people were there that day. And this man, during the final police briefing,

the police's job being there to manage crowd control, he doesn't mention crowd control once. Fucking hell. But nothing really happens to him. No, no, nothing happens to him. And I know it's like a series of things that led to this horrendous incident happening. But the idea that Brian Mole was removed from his post 21 days before this tragedy happened,

in which 96 people died and eventually 97 people died is just unbelievable. Yeah. What a fucking story. It is honestly horrendous. And I think like it's not just what happens. Obviously, the nightmare of that. It's not just what happens obviously the nightmare of that it's not just the fucking cover-up afterwards it's how deep that is and how many decades these families of these victims had to fight for any sort of recognition any sort of justice as to

what had actually happened to their loved ones on that day I think the whole thing is just a really sick reflection of a lot of sick shit that is quite pervasive in our society, unfortunately. Yeah, absolutely horrific. Thank you so much for listening. We're actually going to be donating the proceeds that we make from this episode's ad revenue to not necessarily a Hillsborough charity because they don't tend to exist that much anymore. But we're actually in touch with a lady who's named Charlotte Hennessy, whose father actually died at Hillsborough. And we are going to be donating the proceeds of this episode to her son's football team. Absolutely. She sent us a picture of him and he and his team are absolutely adorable.

They're babies. They're like seven. They are. And they are in need of some new kit. So before I start crying over children. Yeah, we're going to be doing that. And Charlotte has also been kind enough to agree to do an interview with us about the situation that obviously touched her family so much in that she lost her father at this disaster. So look out for an interview with Charlotte and us that will be coming out in the next week or so. Thank you again, Charlotte, for taking the time to send us a big long email about everything that you guys went through in the fight for justice and for taking time to do the interview. And yeah, it's fucking horrible shit yeah really really truly awful but thank you for

listening it's important stuff that everyone should talk about and no one should forget so that is hillsborough for you that we're doing the podcast show yes yes yes so we'll be doing a sort of industry talk for podcasters really and agents and stuff and then we're also doing a live show at islington assembly hall you can find the link for tickets uh probably in the episode description if it's there yet but we don't know ask sgm and we are doing one of our story swaps that they usually save for halloween but for live shows they work quite well so that's what we're going to be doing and our topic is urban legends it's going to be a lot of fun that urban legend story swap by me and hannah live on stage will be taking place at islington assembly hall on the 27th of May.

And I think it's at 7pm, 7.30pm, something like that. Check the website. You can get your tickets there. And we can't wait to see you all face to face. Yeah, we love Islington Assembly Hall. We did our first ever big London show there. One of the nicest teams, actually, at Islington Assembly. Bobby was my favourite.

If you're still there, Bobby, I love you. All right. So as you know, we, Bobby, I love you. All right. So as you know, we finally got to the end of our Patreon backlog. And from now on, we'll be doing $20 and up. Patrons will be the only ones getting shout outs on the show. So for this week, we're going to say big $20 style thank yous to Becky Ford, Jess Robson, Nabilia Mumtaz, Brittany Harrington, Kiefer Britton, Tessa Michelle Daly, Lisa Forch, Elizabeth Lewis, Rosie Lennon, Heather Blood, Natalie Page, Lauren Broadhurst, Hannah Scar, Leslyn, HeatheramingBeast, Lauren Jones, Zoe Bataliga, Tracy Gozalesk, Melanie Fetterhoff, Alison Kintz, Rosemary Henderson, Caitlin Stackhorn, Ashley Letner, Marlon Perito, Amanda Uppedaya, Thank you ever so much for your support, guys.

We love you entirely very much. And we will see you next time or on Under the GV for something else entirely. Bye. Goodbye. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise

and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.