Hillsborough files blame ‘drunken Liverpool fans’
The documents show that four days after the tragedy, a member of Thatcher’s No 10 policy unit met senior Merseyside officers who told her Liverpool fans turning up without tickets had been a “key factor” in what happened.
Ninety-six fans died in a crush on the overcrowded terraces at the stadium in Sheffield, where Liverpool were due to play an FA Cup semi-final in Apr 1989.
There was deep anger after South Yorkshire police, who were responsible for policing the game, blamed Liverpool fans who turned up drunk, late, and without tickets for what happened.
However, the papers, obtained by BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, suggest that view was shared by colleagues on Merseyside itself.
They include a note addressed to Thatcher dated Apr 20, 1989, headed “Merseyside Police views on Hillsborough” and marked “Confidential”.
It contains an account of what was said to be a long-planned meeting between the No 10 adviser and the then Merseyside chief constable Kenneth Oxford and other senior officers.
According to the note, Oxford said: “A key factor in causing the disaster was the fact that large numbers of Liverpool fans had turned up without tickets.
“This was getting lost sight of in attempts to blame the police, the football authorities, etc.”
Another officer was said to have directly blamed the supporters. “One officer, born and bred in Liverpool, said that he was deeply ashamed to say that it was drunken Liverpool fans who had caused this disaster, just as they had caused the deaths at Heysel,” it said.
Thirty-nine people had died at the Heysel stadium in Belgium, when rioting Liverpool fans charged Juventus fans before the 1985 European Cup final.
Oxford, who died in 1998, was also said to have expressed concern at the way Liverpool’s ground at Anfield had been turned into a “shrine” by grieving fans.
“He deplored the press’s morbid concentration on pictures of bodies. He was also uneasy about the way in which Anfield was being turned into a shrine,” the note stated.
The programme said none of the papers it had seen referred to the views of the South Yorkshire force.
The Hillsborough Independent Panel, set up in 2009, is reviewing official papers on the disaster.
Families of the victims reacted angrily to the views expressed by Oxford and his colleagues about the fans.
Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son, James, died in the tragedy and who now chairs the Hillsborough Families Support Group, branded the comments a “disgrace”.
“They watched videos of what happened that day and they (have seen) survivors running along with bodies and maybe people who may be still alive on hoardings. They were the heroes that day,” she told The World at One.
“I find all of that absolutely appalling. Ninety six lives and he was uneasy about it made into a shrine.
“The people who were there that day — the survivors, the fans — all needed somewhere to go to show respect and to be grateful that no more had died. He was ashamed that was made into a shrine. How appalling is that?” Aspinall asked.
Sheila Coleman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign said she was disgusted but not surprised at the police comments.
“Those of us who were around Liverpool in the 1980s are well aware of Ken Oxford’s racist and bigoted views, Presumably, he recruited senior officers with a similar mindset,” she told the radio programme.
Coleman also expressed concern at the timing of the leak and the fact none of the papers related to the South Yorkshire force.
“That makes us very suspicious of how this information was leaked,” she said.
“We find it a strange coincidence that this information is leaked only days after we found out the panel are not going to report until the autumn.”
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