Victims in 1989 soccer stadium tragedy not to blame, jury rules
LONDON -- For nearly three decades victims of England's worst sporting disaster, in which 96 soccer fans were crushed to death at a semi-final match in Sheffield, were blamed for their own deaths.
Their families never accepted that story. They fought back in the courts and today a jury agreed with them.
The families of the victims came with fists in air, not for justice, but for their vindication and redemption. It was also an apt time to sing the Liverpool soccer fans' anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone."
In 1989, Liverpool fans swarmed onto stadium grounds, crowding the stands in crushing chaos; 96 people were killed.
But the families of those who lost their lives were right all along about who was to blame for the tragedy 27 years ago.
Police had claimed the fans forced their way into the stadium. But a coroners' court has now ruled that it was police who covered up the fact that they allowed the stands to become so overcrowded that those in front were trampled and crushed against a restraining fence.
For the bereaved like Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son was killed, it means peace at last for his son.
Son, I want you to sleep well for the first time. I want you to rest in peace now without seeing your mums' anger," she said, choking up. "He's going to have a good sleep and that's all that matters to me."
Police and stadium officials did not have an emergency plan in place to help people that day. But Trevor Hicks, who lost two daughters that day, said police tried to misplace blame for that, too.
"In the early days we were the bad guys and the south Yorkshire police and the rest were the poor victims ... I was a vindictive snarling Whingeing Scouser ..." Hicks said.
The Scousers, which is what Liverpudlians call themselves, finally can rest assured that the rest of the world now knows what they say they knew all along.