{"id":173328,"date":"2025-12-03T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173328\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:46:10","slug":"police-response-to-hillsborough-report-causes-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173328\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Response to Hillsborough Report Causes Outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South Yorkshire Police Federation has caused outrage by calling the IOPC\u2019s Hillsborough report \u201ca significant waste of taxpayers\u2019 time and taxpayers\u2019 money.\u201d <\/p>\n

Well this taxpayer is fine with their money (\u00a3150 million) being spent when needed to hold people in positions of power to account.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, after 13 years of work, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) released a report<\/a> into the Hillsborough disaster that is critical of the police.<\/p>\n

It named 12 officers who would have faced gross misconduct hearings if they weren\u2019t now retired or deceased.<\/p>\n

\u2022 READ: Police watchdog release Hillsborough report \u2013 12 officers named & 327 statements altered<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The union for the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) said in a statement<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\u201cThe report is a significant waste of taxpayers\u2019 time and taxpayers\u2019 money. It is not fair or balanced. <\/p>\n

\u201cFormer police officers \u2013 some of whom are very elderly and some who have sadly passed away \u2013 do not have any kind of due process or the ability to formally respond to the allegations made in this report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are opinions of the IOPC essentially being dressed up as statements of almost fact. We emphasise that these are just allegations. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur former colleagues do not have and have not had the right to reply to any accusations. They should not face trial by media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with this context that we should rightly question the value of this much delayed report and its multi million pound cost to the public purse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report doesn\u2019t help anybody involved in the Hillsborough disaster. Our thoughts remain with all those affected by this terrible tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LIVERPOOL,<\/p>\n

The statement is callous and shows how little the mentality of the SYP has changed in the 36 years since the disaster.<\/p>\n

Former chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son James, rightly reacted with anger.<\/p>\n

She told Sky News<\/a>: \u201cThey say some of the officers have died. Oh, well my son didn\u2019t reach the age of 85. He died for no reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo reach an old age like they have, how lucky are they? How dare they insult us like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Charlotte Hennessy, whose father James died at Hillsborough, said: \u201cWell our loved ones didn\u2019t get to live to have that privilege. We refute their contention that they have not had the right to reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur understanding is that anyone named to the report would have either been interviewed or had the opportunity to respond to any criticisms levelled. Shame on every single one of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The SYP Federation\u2019s line about them not wanting to \u201cface trial by media\u201d is particularly callous, given the Hillsborough victims had their reputation dragged through the mud in the press largely due to lies told by the police themselves.<\/p>\n

IOPC deputy director general Kathie Cashell said the 97 unlawfully killed, their families and survivors \u201chave been repeatedly let down before, during and after the disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cFirst by the deep complacency of South Yorkshire Police in its preparation for the match, followed by its fundamental failure to grip the disaster as it unfolded, and then through the force\u2019s concerted efforts to deflect the blame onto the Liverpool supporters, which caused enormous distress to bereaved families and survivors for nearly four decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were let down again by the inexplicably narrow investigation into the disaster conducted by West Midlands Police, which was a missed opportunity to bring these failings to light much sooner.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calls to strip knighthood from Norman Bettison<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Former police chief Norman Bettison was Chief Inspector at the SYP in 1989, before controversially being appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside Police in 1998.<\/p>\n

Ian Byrne MP for West Derby has tabled an Early Day Motion<\/a> in the House of Commons urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to immediately recommend to the King that Bettison be stripped of his knighthood.<\/p>\n

This is \u201cfor the reason he is unworthy to retain it and in order to preserve the integrity of the honours system; and expresses the importance of this action to Hillsborough families and survivors, given that this action is the only remaining meaningful sanction Bettison can face, owing to his retirement from the police service in 2013, as officers who retired before 2017 cannot face charges despite IOPC conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was awarded his knighted in 2006 for \u2018services to policing\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The South Yorkshire Police Federation has caused outrage by calling the IOPC\u2019s Hillsborough report \u201ca significant waste of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,95419,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-173328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-hillsborough-disaster","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}