Duckenfield is cleared of manslaughter

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A controversial decision but in my opinion the correct one. On the day he made some bad decisions and was out of his depth which led to the deaths of 96 people.

However the jury felt his mistakes did not amount to manslaughter. Understandably the victims families are upset but justice doesn't mean you get your way just because your are grieving.

I suspect that the jury will have taken into account the events prior to that day. The stadium should never have been chosen and he should not have been put in charge due to lack of experience however others were responsible for those decisions.

The families may never be able to move on but its time the rest of the country does. This happened 30 years ago and it shouldn't have taken decades for the truth to come out but making scapegoats is not justice.

One more point

The one good thing that came from this terrible tragedy was that they got rid of those bloody fences, it could have been any teams supporters at almost any ground it could have happened to over the years, The main people to blame are Thatcher and her football hating cohorts who wanted to treat us like scum.
I feel really sorry for the families of those that died as they need to have closure and someone taking responsibility for this will help them .

I did read the last hilsborough report, being of an age where I was treated like crap by the police, and was a copper at the time which seriously pissed me off, it was the system that failed the fans, duckenfield was out of his depth but I couldnt see him ever being found guilty of manslaughter, the police on scene made a decision which killed 96 fans which they have to live with, when you are faced with a situation like this decisions are made some, hindsight is a great skill to have

Edited by thegreatlardino (28 Nov 2019 7.46pm)

They're justified, and they're ancient
And they drive an ice cream van

So many failed systems over the years. The authorities attitude towards football and its hooligans then. Stadia design to control hooliganism the biggest disaster by miles being the fencing. Policing with limited experience. Decision making, what would be the outcome of crushing if the gates weren’t opened? When witnessing potential disaster, probably hard not to release the gates. Failure to have gates in the fencing unbelievable. Acknowledgement by the football authorities that we were fencing in ‘animalas’ not people so why bother with gates in the fencing. But by far the biggest failure in this tragic story is the legal system. 30 years? .......30 years? That is the biggest failure. We are now in different times. So much has been learnt and changed since.
We now have a blame culture and literally hundreds of regulatory departments set up over the past 30 years to help avoid risk, accidents and so forth. Health and safety being the biggest relevant to this.
Political correctness, snowflakes, mamba pambies, we are oh so different now than we were then. And the attitude that someone has to be blamed is a today culture that wasn’t the same 30 years ago.
To blame Ducksworth in light of change for criminal negligence would be absurd and thankfully hasn’t happened......yet.
In that era, going on a kop was risky and dangerous every game. Going on the Homesdale was dodgy enough.
This wasn’t t the first Liverpool ‘hooligan’ fan tragedy. And it certainly wasn’t football’s only disaster.
Stadia, policing,seating, no fences, far less hooliganism. We have moved on , things have improved immeasurably. That is the genuine outcome. Those poor victims lives have led to today’s new world. An improvement for the masses. To blame and single out one man from 30 years ago is totally wrong and although our ludicrous legal system took 30 years so far which in my world would be illegal, well it finally got there yet without any attempt to console the sufferers by helping them understand that their losses were part of the creation of the improved new world of mass spectator live sport

i watched the cctv video posted earlier in the thread & it proves nothing really...at the end of the whatever way you feel its just a tragedy that 96 people lost their lives at a football game.

much like almost 2000 other palace fans, last time i was on a terrace was p’boro away and my partner was scared as there was the wave movement at times and she was feeling uncomfortable. luckily i could assure her it was safe as i know the stand wasn't over crowded.

for whatever reason that day the liverpool fans didn't have that luxury.

‘Football isn’t instant coffee. You have to work at it. You must grow the bean, grind it.’ Ian Holloway