Why Hillsborough has destroyed my faith in the police

They were above the law.

We are not talking here about a few bad apples. See PA story INQUEST Hillsborough. Issue date:Tuesday April 26, 2016. This is not only because of their role in the original tragedy means it wouldbe better to erase this infamous organisation from the historical record. Instead of getting to thetruth, they actually joined the cover-up.

This points to a deep structural problem. In 1984, WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside theLibyan embassy.

Endure

Like many others, I calculated that patriotic and brave people like these risked their lives so that therest of us could live our lives in safety. I believe he is right.

Unflinching

Home Secretary Theresa May (who also deserves congratulations for her role in making sure justicehas been done) must now do two things.

First, she must disband the disgraced South Yorkshire police. I was taught they were thecornerstone of society. She was, and is, an icon to Tories like myself.

It pains me to write this, but we should ask ourselves whether she awarded the police a measure ofimpunity in return.

It is disturbing, too, to learn that investigators are now examining whether behind-the-scenesinfluence by Freemasons was a factor in the Hillsborough debacle and the alleged cover-up thatfollowed.

Powerful force: Hillsborough match commander David Duckenfield, pictured a month after thedisaster, was a Freemason and promoted into a job he couldn't do properly

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has examined records of meetings of Masonsfrom the late Eighties.

The Match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, told the inquests he had been aFreemason since 1975 and, a year after the Hillsborough disaster, rose to become head of his locallodge, a Worshipful Master.

Duckenfield had been given responsibility for the policing of matches at Hillsborough just weeksbefore that fateful day, on the recommendation of the then-Assistant Chief Constable StuartAnderson, who had also been a Freemason up until 1985. The conduct of some of their officers in theinquest over the past two years shows that they are unreformed.

Even more important, I believe that Britain would now benefit from a Royal Commission intopolicing.

The issue of police corruption must be placed under an unflinching gaze.

For we as a nation need a police force which does not cheat, lie and invent evidence that destroysthe lives and reputations of innocent people.

This means a new culture and a new set of rules, including a much stronger Independent Police usedcars huntington beach Complaints Commission.

Officers caught forging evidence should no longer be gently allowed to retire: they should be sent tojail. All decent police officers -- the great majority -- should welcome this. But a significant elementof the police were not like that. Far more often it is the weakest and most vulnerable who are the

victims, and have their life ruined as a result.

Let's return to Hillsborough.

Andy Burnham -- shadow home secretary, who has campaigned surfcity cars for sale magnificentlyfor justice to come out -- has called Hillsborough 'the biggest miscarriage of justice of our times'.When the police concerned get caught out, they are very rarely prosecuted.

Sometimes these fabrications concern the most powerful members of society, as happened to theTory Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, who was forced to resign from his office four years ago overthe so-called 'Plebgate' incident at the Downing Street gates.

A police officer was later jailed after lying that he had witnessed Mitchell call another officer a'pleb'. I believed the police when they said the fans had broken through the exit gate. WhyHillsborough has destroyed my faith in the police | Daily Mail Online

Ashamed as I am to say it, I believed the police, and not the great city of Liverpool, when theHillsborough tragedy took place 27 years ago.

I believed the police when they said that the fans were drunk. Evidence has emerged that the SouthYorkshire Police may, in the post-battle investigations, have perverted the course of justice by lyingthrough their teeth about the threat of violence offered to them. used auto consumers beware.dealers don't really understand what they are selling. you'll have to do your own personal studywhen seeking to find a vehicle. ask the casino dealer should you an deliver the vehicle in order toyour personal mechanic. make certain you like the car you are thinking about and pay focus to thegut to not your heart because acquiring a car together together with your coronary heart will beplanning to break it and the bankLawyers acting for the families said the conclusions, at the end ofthe longest jury case in British legal history, had completely vindicated their tireless 27-year battlefor the truth. Photo credit should read: John Giles/PA Wire" width="62" height="60">Police face

questions over the influence of the Freemasons... 'Now put them on trial': Hillsborough

families call for... 'I was calling their names in the hope they'd know we were... Off-duty GP at Hillsborough describes tragedy in...

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At last for them there is justice.

Second, Britain as a society needs to learn some big lessons.

They start with the troubling recognition that some of the assumptions made by decent people aboutthe police force were wrong.

We were right to think that many brave and upright men and women served in the force, helping tomaintain the fabric of society. Three years ago, the South Yorkshire force referred itself to the IPCCover events at Orgreave coking plant, near Rotherham, 31 years ago.

But after analysing hundreds of documents, the IPCC decided not to launch an investigation, eventhough it found evidence. used auto consumers beware. dealers don't truly know what they areselling. you will get to do your own study when seeking for a vehicle. ask the dealership should youan carry the car to your own mechanic. be certain you such as the vehicle you may be thinking aboutand also pay interest to your gut not to your own coronary heart because acquiring a car alongtogether with your coronary heart is likely to break it as well as the bankof misconduct, andaccusations that miners were beaten unconscious by officers.

It was not only in South Yorkshire, of course, that corruption has been an ugly stain on the police.

A series of special Mail investigations were sparked two years ago by the news that thousands ofdocuments had been mysteriously shredded which related to a police investigation into endemiccorruption in detective squads in South London in the Eighties and Nineties.

This paper also examined in depth the failure of the Metropolitan police to investigate properly themurder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 by a gang of racist white youths.

It was feared that widespread corruption among detectives may well have thwarted justice in thatterrible case.

The impression one draws is that something went very badly wrong with the police back then -- andit is idle to think that the service has turned its back entirely on the rotten culture that manifesteditself after Hillsborough.

Rotten

Too many officers are still at it today. So what went wrong?

Chaos: Hillsborough's Leppings Lane end at 15.07 - when many behind the goal were already dead

or fatally injured

The police were a vital arm of the British state in the Eighties as bloody battles were fought againstcriminals, football hooligans and trade unionists.

Mrs Thatcher needed the police to take on the miners. The South Yorkshire police lied, and lied andlied again over Hillsborough.

Then another police force, the West Midlands, were asked to investigate. Consider the Hillsboroughinquest itself.

It lasted twice as long as it should have done because the South Yorkshire police went on telling thesame lies that they told nearly 30 years ago.

Of course the overwhelming majority of today's police officers are honest and dedicated publicservants.

Rush: The scene outside Gate C at the Leppings Lane turnstiles at Hillsborough, where an estimated2,000 fans were allowed into already packed parts of the stadium

However -- and I know that this will sound very shocking -- those who spend time in the Britishcourts are horribly aware that a small but disturbing minority of police officers continue to fabricate,misrepresent and cover up evidence in order to secure convictions in court. I could see they often did an heroic job.

Just four years before Hillsborough, in 1985, PC Keith Blakelock had been murdered in cold blood ona North London estate. When they said it was all the fault of the Liverpool fans, I instinctivelyaccepted the police version of events.

This was not because I am or was then against Liverpool, or the city's magnificent fans and uniquefootballing heritage.

Fans in the top tier of the away end at Hillsborough help those in the crowded lower tier as thecrush unfolds

But I had been brought up to support the police. Only the corrupt will resist.

In this age of renewed terror, we need a diligent, resourceful and honest police force more thanever.

The Hillsborough families have gained justice -- now is the moment for society to learn the lessons ofthis long, drawn-out tragedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3560552/PETER-OBORNE-Corruption-27-years-lies-Hillsborough-destroyed-faith-police.html. Families of the 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsboroughdisaster declared that justice had finally been done as an inquest jury ruled the victims had beenunlawfully killed in a tragedy caused by police blunders. It was unthinkable to my generation thatmen and women of such moral stature should lie, cheat and fabricate evidence.

Yet we now know that is exactly what some of our policemen did.

So first and foremost, yesterday's verdict is a vindication for the families and the friends of dead fans-- and an entire community -- who for an outrageous three decades have been obliged to endure theirgrief in the face of smear and innuendo.

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