Long fight for truth and dignity for those who could not speak
by Bishop Nick Baines, Yorkshire Post:
I REMEMBER where I was on April 15, 1989. I was leading a youth weekend at Rydal Hall in Cumbria, eager to finish a walk in the hills so I could catch up on the Liverpool versus Nottingham Forest FA Cup semi-final being played at the same time. My brother was at the match in Sheffield, and I knew a few other people who had been lucky enough to get tickets.
I got back and turned on my car radio. I couldn’t understand what was going on – even the commentator on the BBC sounded so traumatised that for a long time he simply assumed we all knew. As the news then became clearer, so did the horror begin to dawn.
In the end 96 people died. That is enough for everyone in Liverpool to be connected in some way with someone bereaved. The classic journey of bereavement has shock giving way to anger, anger to grief, and grief to acceptance.
However, here, it seems that the grief exploded in a sea of flowers and mementoes at Anfield, while the anger slowly burned. It burned for nearly a quarter of a century before a new inquiry was sanctioned.
It is still hard to buy a copy of the Sun newspaper in Liverpool today. Shameful allegations of fans’ alleged sub-human behaviour pushed grief aside and fired an anger that has simmered ever since.
Police behaviour, doctoring statements and all the other stuff now well-documented put the reputations of the officers concerned ahead of the grief of bereaved people.
Now a verdict of unlawful killing has been returned, this time on the basis of proper investigation and fully-informed inquests.
Bishop Nick Baines, a Liverpudlian is Bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales
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