The legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power

Abstract

In April 1989, ninety-six men, women and children, supporters of Liverpool Football Club, died in a severe crush at an FA Cup semi-final at hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield. hundreds were injured and thousands traumatised. Within hours, the causes and circumstances of the disaster were contested. While a judicial inquiry found serious institutional failures in the policing and management of the capacity crowd, no criminal prosecutions resulted, and the inquests returned 'accidental death' verdicts. Immediately, the authorities claimed that drunken, violent fans had caused the fatal crush. Denied legitimacy, survivors' accounts revealed a different story criticising the parlous state of the stadium, inadequate stewarding, negligent policing, failures in the emergency response and flawed processes of inquiry and investigation. Reflecting on two decades of research and contemporaneous interviews with bereaved families and survivors, this article contrasts the official discourse with those alternative accounts -the 'view from below'. It demonstrates the influence of powerful institutional interests on the inquiries and investigations. It maps the breakthrough to full documentary disclosure following the appointment of the hillsborough Independent Panel, its research and key findings published in September 2012. the campaigns by families and survivors were vindicated and the fans, including those who died, were Phil Scraton is Professor of Criminology in the Institute

Conclusion

“…Phil Scraton's work with the Hillsborough Independent Panel, referred to in Chapter 9, and over many years with the survivors of Hillsborough and the families of those who were unlawfully killed, is another example of how research and attention to detail can contribute to calls for justice. 15 Academic work should be an art of listening, Back argues, rather than a science of data collection and analysis that reduces people to objects. 16 I mentioned Naeem Inayatullah's knowledge encounters and Stuart Hall's ethics of generosity in the introduction; both entail listening too.…”

Undercover Research: Corporate and police spying on activists. An introduction to activist intelligence as a new field of surveillance.

“…Other investigative research methods to 'liberate' information (Scraton 2013) include the Freedom of Information and the Data Protection Acts; evidence presented in related court cases; press and professional press databases; reports of official reviews, Parliamentary Hansard, and so on. Interviews with involved actors to verify details are a further important source of information that is not yet in the public domain.…”

Contested Deaths and Coronial Justice in the Digital Age

“…The coronial context is critical because state talk around contested deaths is on full display at inquests (see e.g., Pemberton 2008;Razack 2015;Scraton and Chadwick 1987;Sim 2004) and finds resonance in media practices. The media plays a key role in how deaths in contested circumstances are represented; the corollary of this, as Ryan Erfani-Ghettani has stated, is that 'the media shares no small part in denying justice for the bereaved ' (2018: 255;Hogg 1988;Scraton 2013). While alternative accounts might be promoted through media that question state talk, these are considered rare (Pemberton 2008: 256).…”