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The Report: Hillsborough

Hillsborough

04/10/2012

BBC Radio 4 - The Report, Hillsborough

Why has it taken more than 20 years for the truth about Hillsborough to emerge?

Jenny Chryss asks why, after 96 Liverpool fans died at Hillsborough in 1989, decades of investigations failed to uncover what really happened in Britain's worst sporting disaster.

On 15 April 1989 Liverpool Football club were to play Nottingham Forest in the semi-final at Hillsborough in Sheffield. 96 Liverpool fans died after a crush developed in over-crowded stands. Subsequent investigations and media reports suggested that drunken fans had burst into the ground causing chaos and fatal overcrowding. Police witness statements supported this account and formed the basis for two decades of subsequent inquiries. But last month a new report revealed that witness evidence was widely tampered with and that some fans could have been saved by a better emergency response. Jenny Chryss examines the history of inquiry and misinformation into the disaster and asks why it has taken so long for truth to finally emerge.
Producer: Gail Champion.

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