Apologies Emerge From All Quarters As Hillsborough Truth Comes To Light

Hillsborough: Justice Should Not Have Taken This Long

We all need to acknowledge our complicity in allowing the Hillsborough cover-up to perpetuate 23 years of lies.

Hillsborough: The Lies End

The publication of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel represents the complete vindication of the families of the 96 and their campaign for the truth.

Sun Editor Offers Up Late, Weak Apology For Coverage Of Hillsborough Disaster

The Sun and Liverpool Football Club have rather notoriously not been the greatest of friends. On April 19th, 1989, the newspaper ran a reprehensible front-page piece on the Hillsborough Disaster, spreading a horrendously distorted version of the facts under the spectacularly ill-judged headline of 'The Truth'. The sub-headlines, which painted the Liverpool fans involved (better known as 'the victims') as barely-human thugs weren't any better.

The editor responsible, Kelvin MacKenzie has now, more than 23 years later and only after evidence was unearthed that he participated in what amounted to a huge cover-up of the basic facts, offered up an apology:

Today I offer my profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool for that headline. I too was totally misled. Twenty three ago I was handed a piece of copy from a reputable news agency in Sheffield in which a senior police officer and a senior local MP were making serious allegations against fans in the stadium. I had absolutely no reason to believe that these authority figures would lie and deceive over such a disaster. As the Prime Minister has made clear these allegations were wholly untrue and were part of a concerted plot by police officers to discredit the supporters thereby shifting the blame for the tragedy from themselves. It has taken more than two decades, 400,000 documents and a two-year inquiry to discover to my horror that it would have been far more accurate had I written the headline The Lies rather than The Truth. I published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong.

In other words, it was wrong but it wasn't my fault; don't shoot the messenger. Charming. At some point, one of the people directly involved in this mess -- whether that's the police who helped demonise the victims to preserve their own image or those involved in the pack of lies which masqueraded as coverage -- will have the guts to take some measure of responsibility. Apparently, that won't be today.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron Apologises to Hillsborough Families

David Cameron has issued a public apology over the Hillsborough Disaster after a new report looking at unseen documents was released.