BY BARRIE CLEMENT They were daunting odds.


The Conservative government didn’t want an inquiry; Her Majesty’s Opposition was indifferent at best – duplicitous at worst. The obstructive.


judiciary downright


The police certainly didn’t want a proper investigation into their self-serving lies about what happened at the Hillsborough stadium in April 1989.


The Establishment had closed ranks. Injustice? What injustice?


So what was the point in pursuing a campaign on behalf of the 96 men, women and children who died, for their relatives, for the 766 who were injured? And for the thousands of survivors, many of whom never got over it?


Sheila Coleman saw the point.


Sheila, now Unite Community co- ordinator in the North West of England, has spent the last 27 years campaigning through the Hillsborough Justice Campaign on behalf of victims, survivors and their families following a scandalous verdict of accidental death.


“This was a real grassroots campaign,” says Sheila. “Most of the lawyers ran out at the same time as the money did. But we continued to work with six of the families. We wanted a judicial review of the verdict. It meant drawing on people’s goodwill. Some lawyers worked on a pro bon basis, but we did most of the work ourselves.”


It took until March this year to win a verdict of unlawful killing. The inquest jury found match commander Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield in particular was


“responsible


was prime minster; when the police seemed to operate with impunity. They were used as her political shock troops in the miners’ strike and the Wapping dispute. The South Yorkshire police in particular seemed to operate above the law. Lord Justice Taylor’s report into the tragedy a few months later raised hopes that justice would be done by criticising South Yorkshire police for blaming Liverpool supporters.


But in the following years the families and the survivors, for ever scarred by their experiences, saw British justice at its worst. An inquest jury returned a majority verdict of ‘accidental’ death and the police resurrected their claims that drunken supporters who arrived late and ticketless were to blame.


On November 5, 1993 an application for a judicial review of the inquest verdict by six families supported by the justice campaign was rejected.


The Labour Party’s promise of a full public inquiry came to nothing in 1997 when the new Blair government ordered a ‘scrutiny’ by Lord Justice Stuart Smith which found that South Yorkshire police had changed 164 officers’ accounts of the disaster . But the government accepted Stuart Smith’s rejection of any move to prosecute. “We were stitched up and fobbed off,” says Sheila.


There followed years of campaigning by the justice group culminating in a speech by Andy Burnham to the 20th anniversary memorial speech which was interrupted with calls from the crowd for “justice for the 96”.


for


manslaughter by gross negligence” due to a breach of his duty of care.


Liverpool fans who attended that FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest


at Sheffield


Wednesday’s home ground in April 1989 were in no doubt that the police were largely to blame for allowing fans to flood into overcrowded terraces.


But it was a time when Margaret Thatcher


In September 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel, originally set up by Mr Burnham when he was culture secretary, published it report highlighting police failings and exposing their disgraceful campaign to blame supporters. Home secretary Theresa May ordered a fresh criminal inquiry into the disaster.


In December that year the verdict of the first inquest was quashed by Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge and new inquests began in March 2014. At last In April 2016 the jury delivered its verdict of unlawful


29 uniteWORKS Summer 2016


killing. And Sheila believes the justice campaign played a key role in achieving that verdict.


Unite general secretary Len McCluskey was at Hillsborough that day. “The horror of what I saw will never leave me,” he says. “Children, parents, friends – every one of them loved, every one of them who should have gone home that day but lost their lives in a tragedy that was entirely avoidable.


“Instead of being allowed to focus on grieving for their loved ones, these families then had to fight back against vile allegations of blame. They had to take on forces aligned against them, in the establishment, the police and the media, and prove that the culpability for these needless deaths lay elsewhere. These bereaved families should never, ever have been put in that position. But they took on these forces and have deservedly won.”


He adds, “Now it is time for those responsible for the UK’s worst ever stadium disaster to be held accountable, and justice truly to be done.”


The battle has taken a toll on Sheila personally. Much of her time over the years was spent monitoring the legal proceedings. Intermittent work as an academic researcher kept the wolf from the door – just.


She had to overcome her natural shyness and her preference for solitude. “The issue was ignored many years by politicians of all parties. No politician was prepared to say it was a cover-up. It wasn’t expedient to challenge the accidental death verdict because of the involvement of the police. This was a prime example of a grassroots campaign without any party political involvement.


“The odds were stacked against us, but we took on the Establishment and won. That doesn’t make me pleased, it makes me angry.


“Some people have committed suicide or tried to. Bereaved mothers and fathers have died without a doubt because of the terrible burden on them. They died without seeing justice done. People have sacrificed so much.”


Mark Harvey


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