The Awful Truth

"Look, can't you see what's going on?" Liverpool fan Trevor Hicks shouted across at a senior South Yorkshire policeman. "There's trouble down there. It's not a pitch invasion. For Christ's sake give them a hand."

Hicks stood at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium. He wore a leather jacket and jeans. He stood level with the police control box in one of the outside pens, and there was room to sit down. But the central pens contained far too many Liverpool supporters. That was obvious to Hicks.

"If I had my fuckin suit on you'd take notice of me, but because I've got my leather jacket on I'm just a bloody football supporter," Hicks shouted. "Can't you see there's a problem? You must be able to fuckin see."

Hicks could see that the people in pen three were being crushed, and he knew his two teenage daughters were in there somewhere. He had become separated from them when he went to buy a programme. He knew that the Liverpool fans climbing the perimeter fence to get on the pitch were trying to escape the crush. Hicks thought the police must be able to work that out. Yet the police were backing away into a restraining position on the pitch. They weren't helping the fans. Surely the men in the police control box watching the CCTV footage could see that Liverpool fans were in trouble? The box was close enough to the crushing.

"Can't you see what's going on?" Hicks shouted again. He was a pillar of the community, the managing director of a company working for a household name in security. He had worked closely with the police for seven years. He respected them, understood the difficulties of their job and sympathised with them for the pressures on their family life. You might say Trevor Hicks was an Establishment man. Until now.

The senior policeman looked at Hicks with contempt. "Shut your fucking prattle," he said.

Hicks grew desolate with concern. He now really feared for the safety of his two daughters. He couldn't believe that the police weren't helping. He knew this was a serious incident.

The date was Saturday 15 April 1989.
Liverpool v Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final.
The time was moving very slowly towards three o'clock.
And it felt like the police and spectators were on opposite sides.

The above extract, from the excellent book Football Nation by Andrew Ward and John Williams, is just one of many individual accounts of the events of that Saturday in April 1989 capable of chilling you to the bone. Or bashing your head against a wall while crying tears of sorrow and rage; whichever reaction you're more inclined towards. Because each of these eyewitness reports, when you read them, paints a crystal-clear picture of how easily the human tragedy of the Hillsborough Disaster could have been avoided.

Today - twenty three years and five months after the event - the Government finally admitted, on the findings of an independent panel, that South Yorkshire Police Force were grossly negligent in their handling of the situation, entirely culpable for the disaster, and in the aftermath of the tragedy, attempted to cover up their incompetence by falsifying witness statements and performing immediate checks for blood alcohol level and previous criminal convictions among those who died. Of the 96 victims, the panel's medical advisor concluded that up to 41 could have been saved by receiving medical attention sooner. Furthermore, reported communications between South Yorkshire Police and Downing Street after the disaster are, mysteriously, no longer on record. Indeed, the only documented reaction from Margaret Thatcher that has been released for public viewing came after the initial investigation had been concluded, in which she baulked at the idea that her favourite strike-breakers were to blame in any way: "The broad thrust is devastating criticism of the police. Is that for us to welcome? - M.T." And ladies and gentlemen, if they released that statement because it's the least shocking and offensive thing Maggie said about Hillsborough, then you know the stuff they've got under lock and key must be pretty fucking sickening.

But today isn't the day for fingerpointing. Today's for the families of the bereaved, and for the survivors of the disaster who've carried psychological scars ever since. I send my best wishes out to Trevor Hicks, who told the BBC this evening that he and the other Hillsborough families would press for criminal action against those now found to be responsible. And hopefully he'll find a measure of justice for that day that ended savagely for him and so many others twenty three years ago:

The television images were stark and scary. Of all the day's participants only the media people, accustomed to their clock culture, had a sense of time. For Trevor and Jenni Hicks, running around trying to find their girls and each other, the only sense of time was 'daylight' and 'darkness'. Their two daughters, Vickie and Sarah, had died in the crush.