Thread: Justice (for the 96) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on
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After yesterday's verdict that the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed, there was much talk of justice.
But what does justice look like and what are really asking for when we say that we want justice? Is there one such thing as justice, or is it a catch-all word that encapsulates a wide variety of different things?
I heard one comment that justice looked like an old Scouser grandmother grandmother kicking Kelvin MacKenzie in the stomach. I can't help but think that that lacks a certain amount of grace.
But then does grace belong with justice, or are they opposites?
This might be wider than just Hillsborough, but it seems like a reasonable starting to point to ground the conversation in, before it gets too abstract.
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
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There can never be justice. But there can be more justice than there previously was.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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I was thinking yesterday how we tend to (naturally, I might add) imbibe juries with good sense and intelligence when they agree with us and our sense of justice. The implication being that if they hadn't gone the right way, they'd be thick, uncaring bastards - rather than fixtures of a totally broken and incompetent legal system.
Of course, that's not to take away from the tragic events, the police cover-up and the false accusations levelled unfairly by the establishment in this country.
One only has to read older reports of tragedies (for example I've been reading about mining disasters and investigations which killed hundreds of people each time) to see how victims and working people got stitched up by the official system in the UK time and time again. Lied to, fobbed off, ignored, punished even.
It seems to me that long, expensive tribunals are not the way to give justice. There is no reason why any one of the families of the victims had to wait this long to hear the chief policeman admit to lying, to hear Tory politicians apologise when their forebears blamed the victims or to see Murdoch's newspapers admit to being totally totally wrong. There is no reason why evidence this compelling needed to be tested by this kind of judicial setting nor to need a jury's whim to decide upon things that seem plainly obvious to everyone.
And best of all, this wasn't even a criminal trial but simply the equivalent of a coroner's court. So doesn't inevitably mean anything with regard to prosecutions of those involved.
It beggars belief.
[ 27. April 2016, 13:23: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on
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I dimly remember Hillsborough but my knowledge of what happened is based on reading the BBC this morning. As I understand it on the day the facilities for the Liverpool spectators were inadequate both in terms of safety once in and speed of getting in. The policeman in charge made an awful mistake in opening a gate to speed things up so that a crowd surged in and the tragedy happened. If the policeman had admitted his mistake then it would have been a terrible tragedy and he might have been guilty of negligence but we wouldn't still be picking over this 27 years on.
Except there's another part about proper medical provision not being there to look after the injured. Was that someone's mistake or deliberate failure?
And lastly (again noting that I'm pretty ignorant on all this) what was so terrible was the lies and cover up and smears so that for a quarter of a century the story was that the crowd broke down the gate and caused the tragedy themselves. So justice for that part of what happened means a full admission of having lied/covered up/smeared innocent people and possibly punishment.
So where I'm going with this is that the Hillsborough tragedy isn't one big thing that needs one big "justice" but lots of different actions by different people which might need different kinds of responses now.
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on
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It will be justice when the Establishment realises that they can no longer lie, obfuscate and manipulate in order to cover up their deep contempt for ordinary people, especially, it would seem, if they come from the great city of Liverpool. As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims? Deliberate lies are not a mistake or a failure of judgement.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
It will be justice when the Establishment realises that they can no longer lie, obfuscate and manipulate in order to cover up their deep contempt for ordinary people, especially, it would seem, if they come from the great city of Liverpool. As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims? Deliberate lies are not a mistake or a failure of judgement.
It was stated on the news yesterday that in the midst of the disaster, a police photographer was sent outside to look for evidence of the crowd consuming things they should not have, and victims apparently were asked how much they'd been drinking.
Now, of course, I wasn't there or following the detail of this tribunal so have no idea who was responsible for what error and what effect it had.
But it seems to me that there is pretty good evidence here that the victim-blaming was happening soon after it happened.
And the sad truth is that whoever it was that was responsible, they've probably now been able to get away with it because nobody believed the victims for such a long time.
[ 27. April 2016, 13:37: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims?
I suppose in the climate he was operating in at the time he thought he could get away with it. As indeed he did for a long time.
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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Justice looks like the truth, recompense, and reconciliation, and yes like grace. It doesn't look like vengeance, which is nearly always nasty in human hands (or feet).
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Justice looks like the truth, recompense, and reconciliation, and yes like grace. It doesn't look like vengeance, which is nearly always nasty in human hands (or feet).
Justice is what love looks like in public.
The families deserve to see those who allowed their relatives to die held to account. That isn't vengeance.
Posted by Bibaculus (# 18528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Justice looks like the truth, recompense, and reconciliation, and yes like grace. It doesn't look like vengeance, which is nearly always nasty in human hands (or feet).
Justice is what love looks like in public.
The families deserve to see those who allowed their relatives to die held to account. That isn't vengeance.
But what does 'held to account' mean? Getting atThe Facts? (which seems to have happened). Prosecuting The Guilty? (which may well happen). Apologies and group hugs? (Which isn't going to happen). Cries of 'I hope they rot in hell'? (Which frequently happens, and probably will here).
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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I think the reason there is talk of “justice” for the 96 is the abuse of power.
South Yorkshire Police (who have now been subject to so many scandals I sometimes wonder how they haven’t been disbanded) were supposed to be a trustworthy authority there to serve the public. They shamelessly abused this position to cover up their own incompetence and shift the blame onto the very people they should have been protecting.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
I dimly remember Hillsborough but my knowledge of what happened is based on reading the BBC this morning.
I was in Liverpool at the time. I know people were there. A lad in the junior church is one of the 96. The impact on the city of not only the tragedy but the way the establishment closed ranks was palpable. A friend from Liverpool shared this on Facebook.
quote:
When justice is won, the only freedom it really delivers is the freedom to start the clocks again, not turn them back. The freedom to carry on, in a world where loved ones have been taken before their time.
Posted by M. (# 3291) on
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I don't disagree with what anyone's posted about Hillsborough.
But looking more generally, and echoing Mr Cheesy, it does sometimes seem that for some people, justice is me getting what I want.
I'm a lawyer and used to hear a lot (not much these days, for some reason - perhaps people have learned they'll get short shrift), '...and there's not a court in the land that would disagree with me!' Er - I think you'll find there is, and them disagreeing with you does not make them corrupt or unjust.
M.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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I think it's that feeling - frightening at the time - of the Establishment closing ranks, to blame the fans, which will stay with me. I think it could easily happen again.
The police, the media, politicians (with honourable exceptions), all joined in talking about drunken yobs breaking down a gate, when in fact, the police had opened it, thus releasing fans into already crowded areas.
Some of the desperate images from that day - a solitary ambulance trundling over the pitch, while fans carried bodies on improvised stretchers; people trying to resuscitate lifeless bodies on a football pitch; the police forming a line across the pitch, in case opposing fans started a fight.
I suppose it was a combination of panic, leading to multiple mistakes, followed by the lies, as a corrupt and amateurish police leadership tried to cover their own tracks.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
And lastly (again noting that I'm pretty ignorant on all this) what was so terrible was the lies and cover up and smears so that for a quarter of a century the story was that the crowd broke down the gate and caused the tragedy themselves. So justice for that part of what happened means a full admission of having lied/covered up/smeared innocent people and possibly punishment.
What is shocking is that the Taylor report, produced not long after the disaster, confirmed that police errors were to blame and that the fans weren't - but for some reason nothing ever went any further. Successive Home Secretaries repeated there was insufficient justification for another inquest or inquiry. Then Andy Burnham, who is from Liverpool, ordered the release of more papers. Suddenly records and witnesses magically became available revealing that police statements were altered, and that the police prevented ambulances from entering the grounds with the consequence that 40-odd people who could have been saved weren't. Why was none of this available in the first place?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
It will be justice when the Establishment realises that they can no longer lie, obfuscate and manipulate in order to cover up their deep contempt for ordinary people, especially, it would seem, if they come from the great city of Liverpool.
Exactly this - along with all who agreed with them, no questions asked. Including the appalling media reaction.
quote:
As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims? Deliberate lies are not a mistake or a failure of judgement.
All I can conclude is that he didn't care a jot about the victims or their relatives, just his own skin.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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I remember this being reported in Canada at the time. We were given the clear understanding that the physical structure of the stadium was deficient, and were provided an understanding that the fault was secondarily police/emergency services and fans.
The backgrounding news report discussed it and the 1984 Bhopal industrial chemical leak (which killed 3-8000 people) in India. The point made was that those who are powerful and wealthy usually can escape consequences. Justice delayed for nearly 30 years looks like justice denied to me.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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It's quite likely also that there was a police culture of save your own skin, blame somebody else, and close ranks. It's possible that there still is, and in other institutions also.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was thinking yesterday how we tend to (naturally, I might add) imbibe juries with good sense and intelligence when they agree with us and our sense of justice. The implication being that if they hadn't gone the right way, they'd be thick, uncaring bastards - rather than fixtures of a totally broken and incompetent legal system.
Indeed. Had the jury ruled the other way, would any of those calling for justice have been satisfied? Of course not - because to them "justice" means "agreeing with what we all know happened". The jury wasn't there to decide what the truth of the matter was, they were there to give legal confirmation to what everyone else knows was the truth of the matter.
Of course, in this instance I think that version of "justice" is the truth of the matter. But it's worrying to think of what might happen if (when) that version of "justice" is actually not the truth. "Everybody knows that's what happened" is a lousy way to define criminal guilt.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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I remember the people of Nottingham the following week, gathered in silence in the centre of the city. I was at the University on a Quaker weekend, and it had been planned to have a silent meeting there before the Mayor called for a two minute silence there. An alternative site was found, but some felt that joining the city's demonstration was better.
It was the deepest, most powerful silence I have known, and it could have gone on much, much longer. It seemed awkward for the Mayor to stop it.
It was a silence which should have been heard by those determined to destroy Liverpool, but who then heard the voices of the common people, or their silences? They heard the lies they wanted to hear.
[ 27. April 2016, 16:06: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Of course, in this instance I think that version of "justice" is the truth of the matter. But it's worrying to think of what might happen if (when) that version of "justice" is actually not the truth. "Everybody knows that's what happened" is a lousy way to define criminal guilt.
Thanks, that's kindof what I was meaning. I think there is a bit of distance between being a family member steadfastly saying "I was there and I know x happened" and praising a jury when the "correct" judgement is given.
Of course I understand the feeling and I can appreciate that such things are said in the heat of the moment. I was just reflecting on how the way it is perceived might impact on a jury. Maybe it was the wrong moment to vocalise that reflection, I certainly am not meaning to imply that the families are wrong to seek the truth and justice.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
It was a silence which should have been heard by those determined to destroy Liverpool, but who then heard the voices of the common people, or their silences? They heard the lies they wanted to hear.
The question still remains as to why the general public were subjected to these lies. I don't believe it was done to save the skin of one person who made one terrible decision. Hillsbourgh was an accident waiting to happen. Everything that has come out since leaves me thinking that a fan blaming agenda was already pre-constructed for when it did happen.
We are inclined to forget that in the 80s British soccer was in the midst of 25 year reign of match related disorder which the authorities were struggling to contain. People were therefore more than ready to believe Hillsbourgh was a case of the fans bringing it on themselves. However once true course of events was make clear most came to see the dreadful event as a tragedy for which no one person, or group of people, was solely responsible.
As for Justice? Justice can mean different things to different people, clearly this inquiry meant a great deal to the relatives involved and, as has been said 'this isn't the end of it'. The rest of us prefer it when the truth is out.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Indeed. Had the jury ruled the other way, would any of those calling for justice have been satisfied? Of course not - because to them "justice" means "agreeing with what we all know happened". The jury wasn't there to decide what the truth of the matter was, they were there to give legal confirmation to what everyone else knows was the truth of the matter.
Of course, in this instance I think that version of "justice" is the truth of the matter. But it's worrying to think of what might happen if (when) that version of "justice" is actually not the truth. "Everybody knows that's what happened" is a lousy way to define criminal guilt.
FWIW I was a little uneasy about the JUSTICE banners that were flown from St George's Hall when the verdict was announced. Partly because the building is owned by the city council, making it a potential interference by the executive into the judiciary, and partly because it implies the possibility of an alternative STITCHUP banner if the verdict had gone the other way.
But there are a number of reasons why I think your post is unfair:
1. This was an inquest, not a trial. It did NOT establish criminal guilt, it only established that a crime had happened. You will notice that the Hillsborough families are saying justice has been done before a single prosecution has even been opened.
2. The essential facts of the case, if not the details, were already in the public domain thanks to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, but that inquiry had no legal force, which is why the reopened inquests were necessary. To that extent, 'the jury were there to give legal confirmation to what everyone else knows was the truth of the matter', which I assume you meant sarcastically, is not far removed from a correct description of their role.
3. As mr cheesy says, 'there is a bit of distance between being a family member steadfastly saying "I was there and I know x happened" and praising a jury when the "correct" judgement is given' -- it is worth remembering just how large the former category is; I should think most people in Liverpool know someone who was there and whose account they trust.
[ 28. April 2016, 05:30: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
FWIW I was a little uneasy about the JUSTICE banners that were flown from St George's Hall when the verdict was announced. Partly because the building is owned by the city council, making it a potential interference by the executive into the judiciary, and partly because it implies the possibility of an alternative STITCHUP banner if the verdict had gone the other way.
Yes, tricky. I'm not sure what to think about that. Again, it worries me that potentially juries and judges could be swayed by the public perception of what happened and the personal consequences of deciding the thing in the wrong way.
I didn't follow the inquests at all - but as a non-legal novice it seems at least plausible that the jury could have decided that the thing was a total accident without any specific cause and exacerbated by errors which could not have been foreseen.
It seems a bit harsh if they had made that judgement to then imply that such a verdict was a stitch up.
On the other hand, maybe the jury in this situation was just acting as a mouthpiece of the people in general and it didn't really matter what they'd concluded. The evidence is on the public record and lies have been admitted. Maybe in one sense that is justice in that even if nothing else happens, the truth has been admitted by those who were there and closest to it (ie that police made a critical error, lied about it and tried to blame the victims for it). And so all those who tried to suggest that the crush was caused by drunken louts are disproved by the best available evidence in public.
quote:
But there are a number of reasons why I think your post is unfair:
1. This was an inquest, not a trial. It did NOT establish criminal guilt, it only established that a crime had happened. You will notice that the Hillsborough families are saying justice has been done before a single prosecution has even been opened.
Well OK, I guess that could be a way to read Marvin's post, but I read the final sentence as being a comment on the practice of law not this inquest in particular.
It seems to me that we are here caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand, it seems a bizarre notion of justice if a court cannot accept something which was witnessed by many, which was recorded by TV cameras and which was admitted by those who made contrary statements at the time.
If we're into the business of thinking that the police/military/mineowners (thinking again of the 19 century inquests I've been studying) couldn't possibly have been acting from the worst motives and therefore that the truth cannot have been as it appears to the general population then it is hard to think that this is justice either.
When the mines blew up in South Wales, there were inquests which regularly found nobody to blame. Mineowners were free to continue with the most basic of health and safety improvements and the grieving were given very minor compensation payments. Terrifyingly, the accidents just kept happening.
In my view, from a distance of 200 years, it is hard to describe these inquests as justice.
In several generations, will this inquest with all the monies and time spent on it be considered justice?
quote:
2. The essential facts of the case, if not the details, were already in the public domain thanks to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, but that inquiry had no legal force, which is why the reopened inquests were necessary. To that extent, 'the jury were there to give legal confirmation to what everyone else knows was the truth of the matter', which I assume you meant sarcastically, is not far removed from a correct description of their role.
Again, I plead ignorance, but did the police admissions come out at the MIP? I understood that they only came at this panel due to dogged interrogation by the barristers of those in charge under oath.
quote:
3. As mr cheesy says, 'there is a bit of distance between being a family member steadfastly saying "I was there and I know x happened" and praising a jury when the "correct" judgement is given' -- it is worth remembering just how large the former category is; I should think most people in Liverpool know someone who was there and whose account they trust.
To me the issue is that it took the longest coroner's inquest in history to get this result. It strikes me that there must have been at least as much evidence as remains today at the time - and hence it took a considerable effort by the justice system to ignore the evidence and to persist with the belief in the police and the authorities.
That's the real problem here; it might well be the case that there remains insufficient evidence to achieve the standards of legal proof against any individual.
Once again, the establishment has been proven to have been acting to protect its own. We'd rather not face the truth or have to account for our actions (in this, in the various terrible child abuse cases and so on), they seem to be saying, because that would jeopardise our position of power in society - and we can't have that.
Instead, the "little people" are expendable, ignorable, blameable. Also taxable and disposable.
It takes a huge effort to ever hold the establishment to account and the time it is, it largely doesn't matter. They seem to believe that the fact football grounds have had their safety improved and that long-retired senior policemen are held to account - in the vaguest of senses - is sufficient to close the book on these unnecessary deaths.
That, I'm afraid, is the real problem here. If you or I had been so incompetent as to cause an accident on the motorway killing a coachload of pensioners whilst fiddling with a mobile phone, it is extremely hard to imagine us avoiding prosecution for 20+ years. If we make statements about dead politicians or make silly jokes about airports on twitter, we face jail time in short order. If we are caught up in a riot and unwisely take a bottle of water from a broken shop window, we establishment punishes us to the full extent allowable under the law.
But if we're actually part of the establishment which allows people to die because we don't happen to like football fans, which publishes untrue allegations in national newspapers about those fans, which lies to our faces on national television, which writes horrible letters to the victims' families - apparently on behalf of the Prime Minister of the time - nothing happens.
You sit pretty for 20 years, and if you are really unlucky you might have to answer some uncomfortable questions in a courtroom which has no jurisdiction to punish you. For the vast majority of those who hold power in this situation as with many others, absolutely nothing negative happens to you at all.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
On the other hand, maybe the jury in this situation was just acting as a mouthpiece of the people in general
Of course, in a sense that's what a jury is supposed to be. You take x members of the public and show them the evidence and let them draw their conclusions on behalf of people in general, in theory at least if you take any group of people and show them the same evidence they'll reach the same conclusion.
The problem comes when the jury walks into the court on day one of the inquest or trial having already had some access to the evidence and conscious of the views of large parts of the population. But, in a case like this I can't see how that can be avoided and you just hope that the jury tries their best to form their verdict on what they've heard and their deliberations without the influence of 20 years of media coverage.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of course, in a sense that's what a jury is supposed to be. You take x members of the public and show them the evidence and let them draw their conclusions on behalf of people in general, in theory at least if you take any group of people and show them the same evidence they'll reach the same conclusion.
Yes, it appears to be based on the idea from Greek philosophy that "the ethical" is whatever a group of right-minded Greeks agree it is.
The problem is that this doesn't work. Unqualified people asked to make judgements on complicated cases often make mistakes and are swayed by the powers of rhetoric of those making the arguments rather than the evidence.
Unfortunately the system of judiciary (which make the vast majority of decisions in this jurisdiction) who are supposed to be trained professionals obviously also is fatally flawed in that they're also part of the establishment.
quote:
The problem comes when the jury walks into the court on day one of the inquest or trial having already had some access to the evidence and conscious of the views of large parts of the population. But, in a case like this I can't see how that can be avoided and you just hope that the jury tries their best to form their verdict on what they've heard and their deliberations without the influence of 20 years of media coverage.
And that's another reason why this system doesn't work. It isn't reasonable to expect people in today's world to make judgements only based on what they hear in the courtroom. Life just isn't like that any more.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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So, are you suggesting we abandon trial by jury? If so, what would you replace it with?
IMO, there are two major factors to consider. First that whatever trial system there is it absolutely has to be fair. And, second it has to be seen to be fair and accepted as fair by the general population.
Jury trials can sometimes fail on the first point - when the jury doesn't understand complex issues, or is swayed by rhetoric rather than evidence. But, one of the roles of the judge is to try and limit those effects, the judge is there to see that the trial is conducted in a manner that allows the jury to produce a fair verdict (at least, that was how the sheriff described his role both times I was called to jury service and could attend).
On the second point, I can't think of anything that could surpass a jury trial when it comes to confidence that the trial has been as fair as it could be.
Of course, there are issues such as the prosecution failing to pass on evidence that might help the defense, police not following all valid lines of enquiry that might have indicated someone else was guilty etc. But, those are going to be the same whether you have a jury trial or a different sort of trial.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
... It isn't reasonable to expect people in today's world to make judgements only based on what they hear in the courtroom. Life just isn't like that any more.
Sorry. Have I read that right? So you want judges, juries etc to base their decisions on what they haven't heard in court.
What extraneous matter do you want them to take into account? 'He/she must be guilty or he/she wouldn't be here'. 'He/she must be guilty because they're working class/an upper class twit/black - choose your category.' Or 'because the Murdoch press/people on Facebook say they are'. Is that what you want? Or 'they can't be guilty because I was at school with their mother', or 'he belongs to the same lodge as me' or 'because members of the union should stick up for each other'. Which is it to be?
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Again, I plead ignorance, but did the police admissions come out at the MIP? I understood that they only came at this panel due to dogged interrogation by the barristers of those in charge under oath.
The fact that the police shouldn't have opened the turnstiles, should have closed a tunnel, and should have had a sufficient view from the control room was part of the Taylor Report in 1990. The fact that the police prevented ambulances from entering the stadium was revealed by the HIP.
In many ways this wasn't even a cover up - it was more of a 'we give such a small part of a shit that we're not even going to bother covering it up'.
I suppose my general point is that if two government inquiries say that Dr Black was killed with the revolver in the billiard room, one is not unduly usurping the function of the inquest jury if one claims that the only correct verdict is that Dr Black was unlawfully killed.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, are you suggesting we abandon trial by jury? If so, what would you replace it with?
Of course, in a very large number of cases are not jury trials already.
Personally, I think trial by relevant experts is good enough for the IPCC and it ought to be good enough for legal trials.
Of course, I also appreciate that there are problems with this idea - such as who are the experts and how are they appointed - but those are also part of the current system.
quote:
IMO, there are two major factors to consider. First that whatever trial system there is it absolutely has to be fair. And, second it has to be seen to be fair and accepted as fair by the general population.
Jury trials can sometimes fail on the first point - when the jury doesn't understand complex issues, or is swayed by rhetoric rather than evidence. But, one of the roles of the judge is to try and limit those effects, the judge is there to see that the trial is conducted in a manner that allows the jury to produce a fair verdict (at least, that was how the sheriff described his role both times I was called to jury service and could attend).
They would say that, of course. The reality is that the judge and expert witnesses have a massive impact on what is shown to the jury and therefore have a massive impact on the result. We all assume that the judges are fair and that juries come to fair decisions, but it appears that this is not the case.
quote:
On the second point, I can't think of anything that could surpass a jury trial when it comes to confidence that the trial has been as fair as it could be.
I guess you must be easily pleased. I wouldn't trust 12 ordinary people to make judgements on complicated science, so I can't really see why they should be expected to make judgements on complicated criminal trials.
quote:
Of course, there are issues such as the prosecution failing to pass on evidence that might help the defense, police not following all valid lines of enquiry that might have indicated someone else was guilty etc. But, those are going to be the same whether you have a jury trial or a different sort of trial.
This certainly is a problem of the adversarial system we're used to, but it doesn't have to be like that. If we were actually interested in getting to the truth and not about "winning", it is possible that the system would be much better.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Sorry. Have I read that right? So you want judges, juries etc to base their decisions on what they haven't heard in court.
I don't believe that it is possible for anyone to come to a jury without any influence from the outside and nor should it be expected that juries only make judgements based on what they hear.
In the simplest scenario, should a statistician be allowed to come to their own conclusions about the risks presented to them in a jury based their education and experience? According to the law they shouldn't, but as we know "experts" have been misleading juries with dodgy stats for many years, with corresponding miscarriages of justice.
The system appears to expect juries to be something they're not: stupid, untrained, inexperienced and generally ignorant of the world. Hence it seems to think that they can simply absorb the arguments presented and decide within a vaccum which they believe.
Reality is not like that.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, are you suggesting we abandon trial by jury? If so, what would you replace it with?
Of course, in a very large number of cases are not jury trials already.
It probably depends on what you mean by "a very large number" and "cases". In England and Wales (according to Wikipedia) the provision for trial without jury was only introduced in 2007, and then only in very restricted instances. That is for criminal trials in the Crown Court and for inquests where the death occurred in prison/police custody, or if there may be a case under health and safety legislation. So, that's all but a few cases for anything that is, or might be (in the case of inquests), a criminal charge. I can't imagine things being different in the rest of the UK.
quote:
The reality is that the judge and expert witnesses have a massive impact on what is shown to the jury and therefore have a massive impact on the result.
The expert witnesses are called by the prosecuting or defending lawyers, and so probably that should be the "judge and lawyers". The way the Sheriff explained proceedings at the start of jury service, his duty was to ensure things were fair and legal - so he could rule on whether evidence was relevant. But it was the duty of the lawyers to build the cases for the prosecution and defence. That includes asking sensible questions of witnesses (expert or otherwise) and calling their own witnesses (expert or otherwise).
quote:
We all assume that the judges are fair and that juries come to fair decisions, but it appears that this is not the case.
Who assumes that? The whole point of the legal system is to introduce checks and balances all over the place in recognition of the fact that judges and juries are not infallible and make mistakes. If judges are fallible and sometimes unfair, why would removing the jury change that? But, the jury makes the decisions tempering the influence of the judge. And, multiple people on the jury introduces the wisdom of the group to temper bias and fallibility of individuals. And, if all else fails there are courts of appeal.
quote:
I wouldn't trust 12 ordinary people to make judgements on complicated science, so I can't really see why they should be expected to make judgements on complicated criminal trials.
With some help, I see no reason why 12 ordinary people couldn't make a judgement on complicated science. Have someone who is gifted in communicating science explain the subject, on a one-to-few basis and given both time and willingness to try and understand and most people will be able to understand even very complicated things well enough to make a judgement. Give the jury that help too, and they'll be at least as able as anyone else to make a judgement. It requires the lawyers to do their job and question expert witnesses so that the jury understands. It requires the judge to explain the law (which is one of those things the Sheriff told us he will do). But, again if the officers of the court aren't doing their job properly in helping a jury understand a case then they're not likely to do their job any better without a jury present.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims? Deliberate lies are not a mistake or a failure of judgement.
One word: fear.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It probably depends on what you mean by "a very large number" and "cases". In England and Wales (according to Wikipedia) the provision for trial without jury was only introduced in 2007, and then only in very restricted instances. That is for criminal trials in the Crown Court and for inquests where the death occurred in prison/police custody, or if there may be a case under health and safety legislation. So, that's all but a few cases for anything that is, or might be (in the case of inquests), a criminal charge. I can't imagine things being different in the rest of the UK.
Magistrates sit without juries. Appeal courts and higher courts sit without juries. Most coroners court cases sit without juries. Various other legal tribunals operate without juries.
I accept I was wrong in what I wrote before: what I meant was that the legal system already operates in many different avenues without juries.
I'll shut up now.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
As for Duckenfield, I think everyone can understand, even if they can't excuse, the paralysing panic that beset him as the situation unfolded. But who understands why he sought to blame the victims? Deliberate lies are not a mistake or a failure of judgement.
One word: fear.
I think it's more complicated than that. There was a common mindset, that football fans were drunken yobs. So arguably the police were set up to stop fighting, not to ensure crowd safety.
So we see police with dogs being called out, and police lined up on the pitch, to stop opposing fans fighting, just as people were choking to death in the pens.
So the police were horribly unprepared to deal with safety issues. But they could not admit that - and here we get the very common motive of self-protection and closing ranks. At all costs, the police reputation had to be protected, and then politicians and the media swung into line with all the lies.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's more complicated than that. There was a common mindset, that football fans were drunken yobs. So arguably the police were set up to stop fighting, not to ensure crowd safety.
I think it goes beyond even that - after all, the tactics of crowd control were adopted quite widely in 80s UK, and the same force was also responsible for bad policing at Orgreave.
There was a time when working class people were openly spoken about as an 'other', and the police were quite happy to act as the enforcers of a set of policies that was ultimately going to impoverish them.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Liverpool forgive me. Hmmmm. They shouldn't. God does, that's His job, but Liverpool shouldn't be burdened with having to forgive anyone.
Liverpool, I'm so sorry for believing the lies 27 years ago.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's more complicated than that. There was a common mindset, that football fans were drunken yobs. So arguably the police were set up to stop fighting, not to ensure crowd safety.
I think it goes beyond even that - after all, the tactics of crowd control were adopted quite widely in 80s UK, and the same force was also responsible for bad policing at Orgreave.
There was a time when working class people were openly spoken about as an 'other', and the police were quite happy to act as the enforcers of a set of policies that was ultimately going to impoverish them.
Absolutely. Arguably, the police at that time were infected with the Tory anti-working class ideology, that working class people were the enemy within. Furthermore, the working class in Liverpool may have been seen with particular loathing.
This came out in the infamous Sun headline ('The Truth') and story, that fans were urinating on the police, pickpocketing the dead, and so on, because that's what people in Liverpool do.
Class war, eh?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Aye. It's like the propaganda of the deed that is the farce of The War on Drugs, which is a race war on top of class war.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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Can I draw your attention to the letter halfway down this page, from Bill Taylor of Matlock, not only about what he saw on the day, but what he did not hear when he phoned his witness statement in.
Guardian letters
Scarey stuff. And apparently Blair was involved in preventing Andy Burnham setting up an inquiry in case it upset Murdoch.
I wish, at times, I believed in Hell. Perhaps a very long time in purgatory will do.
[ 28. April 2016, 16:04: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Owen Jones has an article somewhere in the Guardian about whether it could happen again. Well, assuming that the police are less corrupt, and less amateurish, possibly not.
However, as Owen says, you can't rule out an ideological tie-up between a right-wing government and police and media, over some issue. Immigration, for example.
I thought that Hillsborough was hell.
[ 28. April 2016, 16:28: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Owen Jones has an article somewhere in the Guardian about whether it could happen again. Well, assuming that the police are less corrupt, and less amateurish, possibly not.
I think that there is still a tendency to close ranks. It belies for me the talk of 'a few bad apples' - there is still a culture of support that tolerates such things. Which is in turn then tied into the modern tendency to spin via PR.
There was a closing of ranks after the De Menzes shooting - but it was the very well resourced PR/press group within the Met that was responsible for spreading various rumours about De Menzes (including the false charge that he had been a rape suspect). Similarly in the case of Tomlinson - or the much more recent case of the students arrested at SOAS (which went swimmingly until video evidence surfaced that proved that the officers were misrepresenting events).
quote:
However, as Owen says, you can't rule out an ideological tie-up between a right-wing government and police and media, over some issue.
TBH I don't really think it's gone away - generally the police have too often acted as praetorian guard for the interests of the powerful.
[ 28. April 2016, 17:22: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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Not only could it happen again, I have no doubts whatsoever that it will. Maybe it won't be football supporters but, say, if Jeremy Hunt can pin the death of a single hospital patient on striking doctors, especially if the patient is a police officer, a soldier or a pregnant woman, he won't hesitate to do so for one moment. And the press (we know which papers) will print the story almost before they are asked to.
After all, it could be twenty-five years before the truth is out, by which time the lie will have served its purpose.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Why do some of you assume that it's only a right wing establishment that closes ranks to protect itself. Do you imagine that the KGB, the Stasi or the Chinese establishment would behave any differently?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Why do some of you assume that it's only a right wing establishment that closes ranks to protect itself.
I don't think anyone implied that. It just so happens that establishment in this country is largely right wing.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Well, the prime example of a left establishment protecting itself is the Soviets, who eventually became gangsters in their maintenance of power. Ditto Mao and his henchmen.
It's not a prerogative of the right, but in the UK, it's been the right who have called the shots.
Hillsborough is an interesting sub-text to Thatcherism, I bet she hated to see the topic discussed. Bernard Ingham's comments are quite well-known now, as he bought into the Sun line totally, and wrote a well-known letter to a Liverpool fan, about tanked-up yobs turning up late, blah blah blah.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Why do some of you assume that it's only a right wing establishment that closes ranks to protect itself. Do you imagine that the KGB, the Stasi or the Chinese establishment would behave any differently?
Or New Labour. ...
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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I have only today put together two things, and wondered about what happened to people.
The day after the disaster at Heysel, my sister and I were driving up to walk over Kinder Scout, with my very young nieces. We stopped at a service station, where we saw a group of Liverpool supporters come in. We didn't know how to react. The group included youngsters, and were certainly not going to have been involved. But we had bought into the story, and where we might have shown sympathy to people who had been through something awful, we just walked past with eyes averted.
Those young lads might have been among the 96, or the fathers with them, and I have only now thought of that. I had forgotten the incident completely.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Why do some of you assume that it's only a right wing establishment that closes ranks to protect itself. Do you imagine that the KGB, the Stasi or the Chinese establishment would behave any differently?
Or New Labour. ...
Which wasn't exactly what I would call left wing.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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I was reading an article earlier called Hysel the 'the forgotten tragedy '. Wasn't aware that the account of the event at the time being flawed. It did after all result in a 5 year ban of English clubs from European tournaments.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Justice looks like the truth, recompense, and reconciliation, and yes like grace. It doesn't look like vengeance, which is nearly always nasty in human hands (or feet).
A big Yes to truth; the truth about what happened is what the families and all who were there are entitled to. And shame on those who have lied and concealed the truth; by their actions they have forfeited any sympathy.
Reconciliation is for those involved to offer or reject. No entitlement to that.
You're right that vengeance is nasty. The fact that people suffered and died does not mean that there has to be someone to blame, someone to punish. It makes a more dramatically satisfying story if there's a villain, but real life doesn't always make a good story. Those who won't be satisfied until a culprit has been found and punished have discarded justice in their hunger for retribution.
Recompense ? I have trouble with that one. Who should pay recompense and how much and why ?
There is no necessary proportionality between the wrongness of what any individual did and the scale of the consequences to which their action contributed.
Nobody intended what happened. Not the fans pushing and shoving at the back of the crowd unaware that they were killing those at the front. Not the police who opened a gate thinking that this would get fans in to the match quicker and thus reduce the frustration. Not the people trying to run a successful football club in an old stadium. Not the architect who originally designed the stadium with other situations in mind.
Better to forget recompense, forget vengeance, forget the "us & them" element which seems to have crept in to far too many of the above posts.
Better to try to develop a no-blame culture where the truth comes out straight away and the focus is where it should be - on rapidly learning how to do things better so that it doesn't happen again.
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
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The findings confirm one thing that many have known for years - the Police (up to possibly the late 1990's) were structurally corrupt and will do anything to secure a conviction or deflect blame. The only real revelation about the Police has been the scale and cynicism of this latest cover up. It is still possibly today although less likely as video recordings from personal cameras can provide independent evidence.
I'd never speak to a Police Officer, if stopped, unless my mobile phone was running.
There are of course many excellent officers who perform their duties with humanity and humour. but, they remain I guess - and from what I see -in the minority. It is sobering to think that the advent of Street Pastors has reduced crime in town centres partly because the Police are not winding up people to provoke fights - there are now impartial witnesses.
Talk of class warfare is not wide of the mark. Thatcher had a particular thing about Liverpool - just like the Doctors are finding hat the Tories have a thing about the NHS. They just don't like it. They all carry a stone a long time before they throw it - they have long memories of past defeats and of real or perceived slights.
The roll call against SYP is a long pne - Orgreave, Rotherham, Hillsborough. The 1980's were seemingly a time for Police to get off on a bit of violence in controlling mobs - I've even Police Officers boast of their antics n the Miners Strike, which, if perpetrated by members of the public would amount to GBH.
One thing must be done immediately: change the law to stop Police taking retirement to avoid prosecution. It would even be politic to revamp the whole service and bring retirement and pension provision in line with other public servants.
The final step must be to bring in a new leadership team for SYP who have no connection with the area, possibly even to disband SYP and start again. Lastly institute a ban on all employees of the state from being involved with masonic and associated bodies - there was/is a significant element of that in SYP, both to gain promotion and to close ranks.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Justice looks like the truth, recompense, and reconciliation, and yes like grace. It doesn't look like vengeance, which is nearly always nasty in human hands (or feet).
Recompense ? I have trouble with that one. Who should pay recompense and how much and why ?
Better to forget recompense, forget vengeance, forget the "us & them" element which seems to have crept in to far too many of the above posts.
Generally, it seems that those seeking recompense, or compensation, use those phrases as a cover for seeking to punish. It's a standard principle that, subject to some exceptions in defamation and deliberate assault*, damages are to compensate and not to punish.
*I am speaking of here and probably Canada, NZ and England. Can't speak of elsewhere.
[ 29. April 2016, 07:55: Message edited by: Gee D ]
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Again, I plead ignorance, but did the police admissions come out at the MIP? I understood that they only came at this panel due to dogged interrogation by the barristers of those in charge under oath.
This is part of the current scandal, resulting in the suspensions at SYP. At the time of the HIP the Chief Constable accepted the findings and apologised on behalf of SYP. Their barristers then headed into the ensuing inquest and dredged up the same old cliches about the fans being to blame/drunk/late etc. This was one of the reasons the inquest took so long - even though the facts about police behaviour on the day and the cover up were already in the public domain and had already been officially accepted (but not in a court of law) by SYP. There's plenty of claims that this is normal legal process - and it may be. But it looks very much like SYP wanted to say the right things in public but seek some sort of official exoneration in the legal process to somewhat save face. Sick really.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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My implication that Heysel reporting was flawed was based on my memory of having the impression at the time that the mass of Liverpool fans were involved. Reading about it now, it was clearly only a small number of them, and also a small number of the Juventus fans. The group we saw would have not been part of it at all, but we couldn't really process that, because of the sentences of the type "the Liverpool fans stormed towards the Juventus fans".
This style of reporting was probably not the result of the deliberate lying that has been a marker of the shocking Hillsborough misrepresentations, but it was there.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Nobody intended what happened. Not the fans pushing and shoving at the back of the crowd unaware that they were killing those at the front. Not the police who opened a gate thinking that this would get fans in to the match quicker and thus reduce the frustration. Not the people trying to run a successful football club in an old stadium. Not the architect who originally designed the stadium with other situations in mind.
Better to forget recompense, forget vengeance, forget the "us & them" element which seems to have crept in to far too many of the above posts.
Better to try to develop a no-blame culture where the truth comes out straight away and the focus is where it should be - on rapidly learning how to do things better so that it doesn't happen again.
The person who causes an accident on the motorway killing a bus full of pensioners because they were distracted by their phone did not "intend" to kill them. That doesn't mean that somehow they are not responsible for their deaths.
Justice does not just mean everyone holding hands and saying "oh well, that was just an accident which killed 250 miners - never mind, could have happened to anyone, let's just carry on as if it never happened."
If a mine-owner should be considered responsible for an explosion caused by the rush to profit leading to unsafe practices and the motorway driver deemed to be responsible for the accident due to his negligence, then why shouldn't senior police officers (and others) be held to account for actions which were directly responsible for deaths, for the apparent actions which downplayed the seriousness of the incident leading to a lack of ambulances, and for the continued lies about their part in the drama?
Why is it that when those in senior positions in the military, civil authorities, multinationals and others cause deaths by their negligence we are all supposed to "develop a no-blame culture" but when anyone else does something which doesn't even approach the seriousness the book is thrown at them?
Can it be that there is one rule for an armed policeman on the street shooting an involved bystander and another for the man who says something in public you'd hear old ladies say on almost any bus-stop?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Yes, exactly. The whole point of the category of manslaughter is that it's non-intentional. The idea of getting rid of it in the spirit of no-blame, is inane. It would mean that irresponsible drivers, builders, engineers, and in this case, policemen, would get off scot-free, if people are killed.
Then you would start to get the growth of revenge ideas, as the law would no longer be dealing with such killings.
At least, in this case, the families have some sense that the law recognizes their grievances; to get rid of that would actually be dangerous.
Posted by Eirenist (# 13343) on
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We keep talking glibly of 'holding people to account'. I have never been very clear as to what is meant by this. A criminal trial? What outcome do we have in mind? Prison? A fine? or just public obloquy - which is what these people are already experiencing. What punishment could be greater than living with the knowledge of the deaths they have been responsible for?
And who is to be held responsible? Those who gave the orders that led to the deaths? Those rank and file officers who carried them out? Those who spread misinformation about what happened? Those who gleefully passed it on, perhaps believing it?
Where is the raking over of the coals to stop? If not a criminal trial, the outcome of which must be uncertain, are we to have an interminable series of civil proceedings, or an equally interminable public enquiry? What could this add to what we know already, and what can it produce, beyond fees for the lawyers involved (and I speak as a retired lawyer).
Those involved are already standing in the pillory. We know who they are. Yes, by all means reorganise the policing in South Yorkshire - but not as a matter of class vengeance on Mrs T.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Eirenist wrote: quote:
Where is the raking over of the coals to stop? If not a criminal trial, the outcome of which must be uncertain, are we to have an interminable series of civil proceedings, or an equally interminable public enquiry? What could this add to what we know already, and what can it produce, beyond fees for the lawyers involved (and I speak as a retired lawyer).
Well, it's only because the families persisted, in the teeth of all the denigration of the fans, that the facts have come out. To call this 'raking over' suggests that the families should have quit earlier; as the Spectator argued, they were 'wallowing in victimhood'.
I doubt if there will be endless public enquiries - what for? Presumably, the CPS will decide on any prosecutions.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
We keep talking glibly of 'holding people to account'. I have never been very clear as to what is meant by this. A criminal trial? What outcome do we have in mind? Prison? A fine? or just public obloquy
All of the above for commiting perjury.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My implication that Heysel reporting was flawed was based on my memory of having the impression at the time that the mass of Liverpool fans were involved. Reading about it now, it was clearly only a small number of them, and also a small number of the Juventus fans. The group we saw would have not been part of it at all, but we couldn't really process that, because of the sentences of the type "the Liverpool fans stormed towards the Juventus fans".
This style of reporting was probably not the result of the deliberate lying that has been a marker of the shocking Hillsborough misrepresentations, but it was there.
I was too young to know anything about Heysel, but reading about it now puts some context to the Hillsborough disaster.
It isn't too much of a stretch to think that the police and authorities believed that football was a "a slum sport played in slum stadiums increasingly watched by slum people", that Liverpool fans deliberately crushed a few of their own and that they deserved to suffer for being louts rather than treated by paramedics.
Of course the police should have been able to see beyond the blindness of their prejudice. But maybe the lines of command jumped to a conclusion and were blind to the truth of what was playing out in front of them.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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Some of those thoughts have also come to myself mr cheesy.
I've only ever had a passing interest in football, but was a silent Liverpool follower in school days when it was the done thing to support a particular club.
I well recall the morning after Heysel and saying to a work colleague about being ashamed. Now that could have been down to the reporting of it, more likely it was a reflection of just how low many of us felt football had sunk generally.
The atmosphere and feel of English football is totally different now from what it was then. Sad indeed that it took something like Hillsbourgh for that to have happened.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The whole point of the category of manslaughter is that it's non-intentional. The idea of getting rid of it in the spirit of no-blame, is inane. It would mean that irresponsible drivers, builders, engineers, and in this case, policemen, would get off scot-free, if people are killed.
Manslaughter is a useful concept. If I've understood it right, it refers to cases of unpremeditated but deliberate killing, or causing death through deliberately committing a lesser offence.
You cannot commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity. It involves criminal intent, but a lesser intent than murder. It may be a temporary intent resulting from provocation by the actions of the other party, or intent to commit a lesser crime (beat him up, scare him with a gun, whatever) and thus subject the victim to a risk of death.
So a driver who deliberately flouts the law on mobile phone use whilst driving, or builders who cut costs by not meeting fire safety standards may well be guilty of this.
But when an unforeseen disaster-event occurs, what is important is to rapidly understand what happened and why, to prevent similar events happening again. After Hillsborough, there were football matches in old stadiums the following Saturday. After the Kings Cross fire, other tube stations continued to operate.
Where there is no apparent criminal intent, hunting for scapegoats whose crime is only to have failed to foresee can get in the way of that important task of prevention through understanding.
If everyone had perfect foresight, there would be no accidents.
Preoccupation with finding someone to punish for what are essentially accidents increases the pressure for the culture of cover-up which nobody wants.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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Agree there Russ, particularly with your last sentence.
Duckenworth has repeatedly expressed deep remorse for the action he took. Locking him up for the rest of his days won't achieve anything.
Following the exit gate being opened to avoid a crush outside, there were a number of blunders made that afternoon. Poor communication and the holding back of medics for vital moments being the worst. The cover up that followed is a somewhat different matter to my mind.
Hillsbourgh has already resulted in football matches being changed for the better, it's now looking set to do the same for the South Yorkshire constabulary.
[ 30. April 2016, 08:47: Message edited by: rolyn ]
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
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The jury's decision in this case resembles that of the OJ Simpson trial.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
The jury's decision in this case resembles that of the OJ Simpson trial.
In that the families of the victims have finally had an official verdict on what actually happened (which is the purpose of an inquest)? That families who have lived for decades with conflicting reports of what happened, of friends who were there saying something that the police accounts would say was incorrect now knowing that it was the police accounts that were incorrect, deliberately so? Families now able to move on without being forever stuck in the limbo of not having an official account that truthfully stated the facts of the event.
Yes, very much like the OJ Simpson case. Except, there has been no criminal conviction and no one is facing any prison time.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
You cannot commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity.... So a driver who deliberately flouts the law on mobile phone use whilst driving, or builders who cut costs by not meeting fire safety standards may well be guilty of this.
This seems like a contradiction. Isn't using one's mobile phone stupidity? It certainly isn't criminal intent. If I'm such an idiotic driver that I don't notice a zebra crossing and mow someone down I have no intent, but my lack of insight has led to a death and I may well be guilty of manslaughter.
I think we have to conclude that there are some forms of stupidity which are criminal.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Duckenworth has repeatedly expressed deep remorse for the action he took. Locking him up for the rest of his days won't achieve anything.
Yes it will. It will allow him to say 'Yes I am guilty, and I have served my time.'
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
scapegoats whose crime is only to have failed to foresee
Let's look at what the jury were actually asked to rule on ...
quote:
Unlawful killing: Are you satisfied, so that you are sure, that those who died in the disaster were unlawfully killed? To answer 'yes' to this question, the jurors must be sure of the following:
Firstly, that Ch Supt David Duckenfield owed a duty of care to the 96 who died
Secondly, that he was in breach of that duty of care
Thirdly, that the breach of Mr Duckenfield's duty of care caused the deaths
Finally, the jury must be sure that the breach which caused the deaths amounted to "gross negligence."
That's quite a bit stronger than just 'failed to foresee'.
What people are forgetting is that the disaster didn't just happen instantaneously. The police should have been watching the crowd movement as it happened via CCTV. That they didn't realise what was unfolding suggests either they weren't watching their screens or they didn't care.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think we have to conclude that there are some forms of stupidity which are criminal.
Yes I suppose we have -- driving without due care and attention, reckless driving, and then dangerous driving.
But then you might expect police ought to know about such matters.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
So a driver who deliberately flouts the law on mobile phone use whilst driving, or builders who cut costs by not meeting fire safety standards may well be guilty of this.
You are ignoring history. The structural problems with how the stadium laid out were well known, and it was recognized that these caused problems with crowd control at certain hot spots. The semi final had been played in the same venue in each of the previous years.
You are also ignoring the deliberate lies and distortions that sought to shift the blame elsewhere.
Posted by dyfrig (# 15) on
:
]Originally posted by deano:
The jury's decision in this case resembles that of the OJ Simpson trial. [/QUOTE]
Wn interesting comparison... which of the conclusions do you think were mistaken? Was it question 7 you had in mind? Or something else?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's quite likely also that there was a police culture of save your own skin, blame somebody else, and close ranks. It's possible that there still is, and in other institutions also.
In the US we call this the Blue Wall. Cops are forbidden from admitting one of their members might be criminally at fault for anything. Cops reaching over or around the wall face repercussions.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
You are also ignoring the deliberate lies and distortions that sought to shift the blame elsewhere.
That's after the event, and I've said I've no sympathy with it and the families are entitled to the truth.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
If I'm such an idiotic driver that I don't notice a zebra crossing and mow someone down I have no intent, but my lack of insight has led to a death and I may well be guilty of manslaughter.
I think we have to conclude that there are some forms of stupidity which are criminal.
Guilty of "Driving without due care and attention", but not I think manslaughter. "Manslaughter" does not mean "causing death by accident". It's a specific legal term for situations where intent is diminished but still present.
I defer to Eliab on matters legal, but my understanding is that English law works on the basis that everything is permitted that is not explicitly prohibited.
So society makes safety laws to prohibit actions that are unacceptably dangerous to others. Particularly covering use of dangerous things like cars, poisons, fires, weapons or explosives. And most of us don't know the detail of these laws because acting sensibly and responsibly is almost always enough to fulfil one's duty under these laws.
If you're doing something that's stupidly risky to others but isn't covered by one of these laws, the police may well have discretion to "move you on" or stop you from doing it, without formally charging you, but that wouldn't mean that what you were doing was a criminal act.
ricardus quoted "duty of care", which is something else. That seems to me something like a consumer right. If you pay a taxi driver to take you to the airport and he drives in a dangerous manner, then as well as committing an offence of "dangerous driving" against society at large, he has wronged you by choosing to set aside his duty to offer your person the level of care that is implicit in your contract with him.
But I could be wrong...
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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Russ, you seem to be confusing "death by accident" and "death in a car accident". Different usages of the same word.
I can't speak of elsewhere, but history is that juries were very reluctant to convict of manslaughter in cases arising from collisions, whether car/car or car/pedestrian. A whole string of special offences were then created, such as dangerous driving causing death, to overcome this reluctance. But should there be some fatal occurrence in a factory or mine, it is quite possible for a jury to convict of manslaughter if they were satisfied that there had been an act of gross negligence by a mine owner or factory operator. Perhaps some molten metal is to be poured into a mould; an owner who did not provide proper shielding could well be convicted of manslaughter. The same applies to a mine owner who decides that the regular provision of roof supports is overly generous and should be halved to reduce costs. OTOH, the mine owner would not be liable if, totally unknown and undiscoverable, the supports had been eaten away internally by termites and totally lacked strength. That would be an accident.
Take another example. I want a new factory built. I have no experience as an architect, engineer or builder, so I engage all 3 for the work to be carried out. I also engage a certifier to let me know if the work has been carried out in accordance with the plans and any relevant statutory requirements. Unknown to me, the certifier is corrupt and a crook; he wrongly certifies the building, which collapses with great loss of life. I would not be liable there, but those who breached their obligations may well be.
Posted by Tukai (# 12960) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of course, there are issues such as the prosecution failing to pass on evidence that might help the defense, police not following all valid lines of enquiry that might have indicated someone else was guilty etc. But, those are going to be the same whether you have a jury trial or a different sort of trial.
We have a case of this in Australia, which also raises many other issues about "what is justice? " : the murder of ACT police Commissioner, Winchester in 1989, for which David Eastman tried in 1994, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
After numerous appeals , sufficient doubts about the fairness of the trial were raised that the there was a judicial inquiry in 2014 that found that his trial was not fair in several of the senses raised by Alan Creswell. The inquiry quashed the conviction, but did not unequivocally find Eastman not guilty. In fact the judge left open the possibility of a retrial! By that time Eastman had already served nearly 20 years in prison, which in practice means he was about to be released anyway, albeit as a broken and weakened man.
So what use could a retrial possibly serve? How could it be justice? Even if he is found guilty he would be free to walk out the door almost the next day, having already done his time in gaol for the very same "offence". And that's even disregarding the many difficulties with the original evidence, notably the forensic evidence which has been completely discredited and/or lost, and of the unreliable memory of any surviving witnesses of events more than 20 years ago, and of the impossibility of finding a local jury who have not heard of the case, which has been continually in the news, not least in the past 5 years.
Many commentators believe that the main reason why the Prosecutors office has continued to push for a retrial which is now to proceed is to cover up the incompetence of the original police investigation and prosecution, and perhaps to delay those offical bodies being sued for wrongful imprisonment - shades of Hillsborough in the OP.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Russ, if I may go back to what you originally said on this, quote:
Manslaughter is a useful concept. If I've understood it right, it refers to cases of unpremeditated but deliberate killing, or causing death through deliberately committing a lesser offence.
You cannot commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity. It involves criminal intent, but a lesser intent than murder. It may be a temporary intent resulting from provocation by the actions of the other party, or intent to commit a lesser crime (beat him up, scare him with a gun, whatever) and thus subject the victim to a risk of death. ...
I regret to say that is wrong. So much that follows, also is.
Deliberate killing, whether planned or unplanned, is murder. So, in England and Wales, is intending to cause somebody grievous bodily harm, but they then die.
Manslaughter is an anomalous offence. This has been recognised by lawyers for many years. The late J.W.C. Turner, father-in-law of Robert Runcie was outspoken on the subject.
Normally, to commit a criminal offence, you have to have intention. However, with manslaughter, you can't have an intention, because if you did, it would be murder. Manslaughter is therefore killing somebody negligently. You can indeed "commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity". But that poses the question, how negligent do you have to be for that negligence to be criminal.
You can't steal, embezzle or defraud someone negligently. If you injure someone negligently and they don't die, that's not usually a criminal offence. They sue you. You have to compensate them.
But if they die, that becomes different.
Gee D is right that the reason why offences were introduced specifically relating to causing death by dangerous driving was because in the 1920s and 1930s it was difficult to persuade juries to convict people of manslaughter, when it seemed so random whether a collision had occurred or been averted, or whether someone was injured or killed.
It is difficult to be precise about where the boundary falls between just negligence and manslaughter negligence.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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There is of course the finding of manslaughter where the accused used excessive force in response to extreme provocation.
Other bases for murder in NSW include commission of an act with reckless indifference to human life (rarely relied upon, because of the difficulty in drawing a line between that and negligence) an act done in the course of committing an offence punishable by a sentence of life or for 25 years or more. It's near impossible to see how what happened at Hillsborough comes within any of these.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
You are also ignoring the deliberate lies and distortions that sought to shift the blame elsewhere.
That's after the event, and I've said I've no sympathy with it and the families are entitled to the truth.
It does though always come back to What is the Truth .
As I recall it was only 48hrs or less that the 'gate broken down by fans' account was replaced with the true account -- that being a deliberate order was given to open the gate.
This truth we keep harping on leaves me thinking something else is going on. I mean did this thing go right to the very top? A conspiracy dressed as a cock up? If it did then rest assured, partial truth is all we'll ever get.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
You are also ignoring the deliberate lies and distortions that sought to shift the blame elsewhere.
That's after the event, and I've said I've no sympathy with it and the families are entitled to the truth.
As leo alludes to above, some of that constituted criminal offenses in itself.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
"Manslaughter" does not mean "causing death by accident". It's a specific legal term for situations where intent is diminished but still present.
Manslaughter can include an intention to kill where there is diminished responsibility, 'abnormality of mind', loss of control, or a suicide pact. They are all what is called 'voluntary manslaughter'.
'Involuntary manslaughter' (where there is no intention to kill) includes manslaughter by gross negligence and manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act.
Because juries proved very reluctant to convict motorists of manslaughter, the offence of causing death by reckless driving was introduced, and subsequently changed to the more objective test of causing death by dangerous driving. It is occasionally referred to as 'motor manslaughter'.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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Come to that, actual intention to kill is not required for a murder conviction, in some cases - via the principle of "joint enterprise" - nor is actually having killed someone. I don't know if joint enterprise can be applied to manslaughter by gross negligence.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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Russ, you can commit manslaughter by negligence. A Guardian article last week fully outlined the extent of SYP’s failure to prepare adequately at Hillsborough. (I won’t link because it’s quite long but you can find it easily enough with Google.)
The police commander was changed a mere two weeks prior to the match, despite the officer who had been in charge for the identical match the previous year, and who knew the ground well, having done a basically good job that time round. Duckenfield, who was brought in to replace him, had not been to Hillsborough in ten years and never once walked around the ground prior to the day. He was unaware of where the turnstiles were and how they worked. He also didn’t know about the congestion problem that frequently happened at the Leppings Lane end and had no plan in place to deal with it. Had he known, it’s inconceivable that he would have ordered the gate opened without closing the tunnel. During the build-up to the match he stayed in his control room from beginning to end and at no point went out to find out where the people were building up. The result of all this is that 96 people died. To my mind this is unquestionably negligence on a criminal scale.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Guilty of "Driving without due care and attention", but not I think manslaughter. "Manslaughter" does not mean "causing death by accident". It's a specific legal term for situations where intent is diminished but still present.
I think you are missing that there is a distinction between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. You have been talking about voluntary and granted negligence doesn't fit that definition. However it is specifically mentioned under involuntary manslaughter.
[ 02. May 2016, 11:07: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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The change of command at short notice is a detail the media have been teasing the public with for some time. Reporters and analylists usually say no explanation was ever given by SYP as to why this was done. Always hinting at something a bit smelly.
The speed at which the cover up swung into action certainly leaves one guessing. And indeed had such efficiency been employed in the moments following the initial blunder then there is little doubt the death toll would have been significantly reduced.
The image of the Liverpool goalkeeper's futile attempts to pull down the steel cage has stuck in my mind. How is it he was aware of the seriousness of what was happening when a large number of police apparently weren't?
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Russ, you can commit manslaughter by negligence. A Guardian article last week fully outlined the extent of SYP’s failure to prepare adequately at Hillsborough. (I won’t link because it’s quite long but you can find it easily enough with Google.)
The police commander was changed a mere two weeks prior to the match, despite the officer who had been in charge for the identical match the previous year, and who knew the ground well, having done a basically good job that time round. Duckenfield, who was brought in to replace him, had not been to Hillsborough in ten years and never once walked around the ground prior to the day. He was unaware of where the turnstiles were and how they worked. He also didn’t know about the congestion problem that frequently happened at the Leppings Lane end and had no plan in place to deal with it. Had he known, it’s inconceivable that he would have ordered the gate opened without closing the tunnel. During the build-up to the match he stayed in his control room from beginning to end and at no point went out to find out where the people were building up. The result of all this is that 96 people died. To my mind this is unquestionably negligence on a criminal scale.
Put like that, though, immediately poses the question of who the accused should be. Institutions of all kinds and in every country have a long tradition of putting the wrong person in charge and then throwing the book at them when things go wrong. Described that way, it looks more like corporate than individual manslaughter. If that is what you are hinting at, I would agree with you, but it's unlikely a trial could be anything other than a waste of time since it would have to proceed on the law as it was in 1989, not as it has been since 2007.
Also, what's the point of imposing a huge fine on a police force, which is paid for by the taxpayer? The money just goes round in circles.
And if SYP were prosecuted, that opens the other unmentionable. It would look deeply unjust if Sheffield Wednesday isn't in the dock as well.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
D-field was unaware of where the turnstiles were and how they worked. He also didn’t know about the congestion problem that frequently happened at the Leppings Lane end and had no plan in place to deal with it. Had he known, it’s inconceivable that he would have ordered the gate opened without closing the tunnel.
..... and given this, also inconceivable that someone in that position would have opened that gate without first taking a minute to send an officer into tunnel to see where the flood of people would end up.
Had there been crush victims outside the ground it would back the panicked decision story. To my knowledge there weren't, meaning there was time to make a decision based on knowing what the consequences of what such an action would be.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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On whether I think there is institutional responsibility - yes and no, to my mind. I think Duckenfield himself had a personal responsibility to prepare for policing the match which he did not perform. That he had apparently not even bothered to ask for a map of the place (he didn’t know how many turnstiles there were) is to my mind unforgivably negligent.
On the question of why the change of officer, the Guardian article I mentioned earlier suggests that the reason is that the previous commander, Mole, was busted down as a punishment following a bullying incident involving some of his rank and file officers. He claims that he offered to hand on his policing plan for the match to Duckenfield; Duckenfield denies this. It’s difficult to know. In all events, I think Duckenfield’s woeful lack of preparation cannot be entirely blamed on institutional causes. He had a personal responsibility to do the best job he could under the circumstances and I don’t think he took it anywhere near seriously enough, largely because he was only thinking about “trouble” and not about crowd flows.
I do think the higher ranks of SYP bear responsibility for the removal of Mole, OTOH, especially if the Guardian is indeed right about the reasons why it happened. ISTM that public safety wasn’t high up on their agenda when they made that decision. Furthermore, there is definitely institutional responsibility in relation to the shameful cover-up that happened afterwards.
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
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quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
[...] I think Duckenfield himself had a personal responsibility to prepare for policing the match which he did not perform. That he had apparently not even bothered to ask for a map of the place (he didn’t know how many turnstiles there were) is to my mind unforgivably negligent. [...]
Despite the hung jury in his first trial, with the evidence now marshaled and ruled on by an inquest jury, the manslaughter case against Duckenfield looks strong. The key questions are whether the fatal crush was reasonably foreseeable, and whether he was negligent.
It was undoubtedly foreseeable. With its bottleneck and pens, the Leppings Lane stand was a well-known high risk zone. Not only did the stand see an eerily similar crush in '81, which led to serious injuries (fatalities thankfully averted by opening the side gates, no sudden flow, and lack of subdivisions at the time), it got precarious when Liverpool played there in the '88 F.A. Cup semi-final, a crush only averted when the tunnel to the center pens was sealed.
As for potential grounds for negligence, that's already been detailed. He didn't familiarize himself with an area he should've known was a death trap. He didn't manage the crowds on the day. He didn't even post a couple stewards by the tunnel to radio through reports on overcrowding. If he'd shut the tunnel half an hour or so before the match, delayed kickoff, and had officers or stewards divert fans to the side pens, it would likely have passed off without serious incident.
He's of course presumed innocent, and may be able to defend against the charge, but with a case this strong, against decisions leading directly to 96 deaths, he should at least stand trial. If Duckenfield gets a total walk on involuntary manslaughter, it's hard to see who shouldn't.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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That reminded me that after Heysel, some people were prosecuted for manslaughter, including some Liverpool fans, I think, but also a police captain, and some football bureaucrats. Some fans were jailed.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Russ, if I may go back to what you originally said on this, quote:
Manslaughter is a useful concept. If I've understood it right, it refers to cases of unpremeditated but deliberate killing, or causing death through deliberately committing a lesser offence.
You cannot commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity. It involves criminal intent, but a lesser intent than murder.
Normally, to commit a criminal offence, you have to have intention. However, with manslaughter, you can't have an intention, because if you did, it would be murder. Manslaughter is therefore killing somebody negligently. You can indeed "commit manslaughter by accident or stupidity".
But that poses the question, how negligent do you have to be for that negligence to be criminal.
With manslaughter, you can't have an intention to kill because if you did, it would be murder.
You can be "at fault" for contributing to a death which you did not intend, either by
- intentionally carrying out an unlawful act (e.g. threatening behaviour with a firearm which accidentally goes off, arson of a building where you didn't know someone was inside), or
- intentionally omitting to fulfil a duty, deliberate neglect of responsibility (such as going off down the pub when you're supposed to be at your post).
But if you have no wrong intention - if you are putting due effort into obeying the law and fulfilling your contractual duties - and yet you still manage to make a mistake which has fatal consequences for someone, then I suggest to you that that is not a crime. But either of the words "accident" or "stupidity" may be appropriate.
Thinking after the event of all sorts of things that one could or should have done is easy. What seems reasonable in hindsight can seem unnecessary at the time, without requiring a careless or reckless attitude.
i think we have to be careful with the word "negligent". It can mean merely that someone omitted to do something, or can mean that someone took an overly-laid-back attitude, or can mean that the speaker thinks the action or inaction unreasonable and therefore culpable.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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Is there a lawyer in the house? I mean one qualified in English criminal law?
Posted by dyfrig (# 15) on
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I just tend to look stuff up on Wikipedia nowadays.
Like this.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
<snip>i think we have to be careful with the word "negligent". It can mean merely that someone omitted to do something, or can mean that someone took an overly-laid-back attitude, or can mean that the speaker thinks the action or inaction unreasonable and therefore culpable.
Yes there can be degrees of negligence. To establish a charge of manslaughter, English law requires gross negligence to be proved. There is quite a lot of case law on this, not easily summarised, but those interested in reviewing it can find more here. (BTW, I am a lawyer, though not currently practising or insured to give advice!)
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But if you have no wrong intention - if you are putting due effort into obeying the law and fulfilling your contractual duties - and yet you still manage to make a mistake which has fatal consequences for someone, then I suggest to you that that is not a crime. But either of the words "accident" or "stupidity" may be appropriate.
And again I would direct you to the question the Hillsborough jury were actually asked.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I would direct you to the question the Hillsborough jury were actually asked.
Taking the second of the four questions, what does it mean to be "in breach of" one's duty ?
If a soldier's duty is to catch his enemy and his enemy is west of him but he travels east instead, is the mere outcome - the fact that he has gone the wrong way and thus failed to catch him - a breach of duty ? Does doing one's duty require success ?
Or is it a breach of duty if he has standing orders or standard procedure (like "listen for the enemy's footsteps") which should have led him in the right direction, and in the heat of the moment he doesn't do that ? But not a breach of duty if such orders or procedures leave it to his discretion which way to look first and he just happened to choose wrongly on a 50/50 chance basis?
Or is it only a breach of duty if he deliberately intends to go to where he suspects the enemy isn't, acts from a lack of dutifulness ?
Is it that you wish to punish failure, or punish not sticking to the standard procedures, or punish wrong intent ?
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
There is quite a lot of case law on this, not easily summarised, but those interested in reviewing it can find more here.
Thanks for the link, BroJames. Picking a sentence out of the first case cited:
"In order to establish criminal liability the facts must be such that in the opinion of the jury the negligence of the accused... ...showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State"
To disregard something is an action. This says that you can't convict someone for a risk they should have known about, they have to know it and actively disregard it. You can't disregard what you don't know.
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
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It hinges not on what the accused actually knew, but what a hypothetical "reasonable person" in their position should've known.
It's already been established that there's enough evidence to bring Duckenfield to trial, and to put the case against him to a jury (he walked 'cause it hung).
Posted by St Deird (# 7631) on
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What Byron said. Manslaughter and negligence laws place a great deal of importance on the "reasonable person".
If I drop a brick on someone's head, it will probably harm them. But the question isn't whether I expect it to harm them - I might be an idiot, and completely out of touch with the laws of physics. The question is whether a reasonable person in my position would expect my actions to cause harm - in which case, I'm culpable for the harm caused whether I expected it or not.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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The point about what a "reasonable person" may be expected to do is another reason why a jury trial is important - it is upto a group of ordinary citizens to decide what may be expected of a "reasonable person". Of course, the defense will put forward arguments why a reasonable person could not have foreseen the consequencies of their actions, and the prosecution why a reasonable person should have - but it's the verdict of ordinary people that actually decides what's reasonable.
In this case, would a reasonable person in charge of policing a major sporting fixture walk around the ground to familiarise himself with the layout? Would a reasonable person review past incidents of congestion at the Leppings Lane entrances, and other incidents of relevance to the fixture?
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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Alan,
Think back, if you would be so kind, to the last time that you took your children out to a public place that you had not been to before. The Globe theatre, a sporting event, a concert, whatever. Did you go through any records to ascertain whether or not any incidents had occurred there which might mean that it wasn't a safe place to take your children ? Did you personally reconnoiter the place beforehand ?
You didn't ? But you were responsible for their safety. You had a duty of care. How could you possibly be so unforgivably reckless as to not take the most elementary precautions to check what was known about the safety of the place. Or check what would be obvious from a simple visual inspection ? Did you have a total disregard for your children's safety ?
My guess would be that - just like most other people - you assumed it was safe because you had no particular reason to think otherwise. You knew that people had been holding this sort of event in the same venue for some time, and you'd never heard any media reports of any safety issue.
You might, if the event was recent, have kept an eye out for people of Middle-Eastern appearance acting suspiciously...
Nothing personal, just trying to make the point that what now seems to you reasonable is inevitably coloured by your knowledge of what happened.
Because you know that this disaster happened, your idea of what "crowd control" involves now includes guarding against safety risks. So your idea of "reasonable behaviour" for a person with crowd control responsibility now includes pro-actively seeking out safety risks and guarding against them.
But that's not what you personally do in situations where the story that's playing in your head isn't a story about safety.
The underlying story in the heads of the police on that day was probably a story about preventing petty crime and public disorder. Keeping the peace, keeping rival groups of fans apart and keeping groups of angry fans from trashing the neighbourhood. Focussing on the sort of things that happened at the dozens of matches they'd been to before.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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But, there is a big difference between an individual going to a football match and having the reasonable expectation that the worse that can happen is their team losing, and a senior police officer being in charge of the crowd control issues of the game.
But, if we change situations. How many of us remember fire drills at school? Certainly they were common before Hillsborough and aren't a modern safety-conscious society construct. Would you expect that the people given the tasks of ensuring all the children get out onto the playground know where the emergency exits are? Would you expect them to regularly check they aren't blocked? Would you expect them to know that they may need to make sure there's someone at the stairs telling people to take care, because there have been occasions when someone tripped on one of the steps? As reasonable people, when we send our children off to school we don't ask whether the teachers and other staff know the emergency exit routes and the alternatives if the nearest one is blocked - we have a reasonable expectation that the staff know that and will act to keep our children safe in the event of a fire.
Why is it unreasonable to expect that those staffing a football match have the corresponding knowledge of how crowds move through their ground? And, more importantly, why is it unreasonable to expect the person in charge to have that knowledge?
Because the alternative interpretation of your comment is that the fans should have done that research themselves. That they should have known that the Leppings Lane tunnel gets congested. And, do what exactly? Get there early to avoid the delays that causes? Well, it was the fans who were there early who died? Say "they've opened that gate, but we don't trust them to know what they're doing and our research says it's unsafe for us to enter the ground that way"?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
The underlying story in the heads of the police on that day was probably a story about preventing petty crime and public disorder. Keeping the peace, keeping rival groups of fans apart and keeping groups of angry fans from trashing the neighbourhood. Focussing on the sort of things that happened at the dozens of matches they'd been to before.
Further to what Alan says above, it was known to the police that crowd control was problematic around that particular ground. It was further known that there were issues around the Leppings Lane end - with a crush in 1981 causing multiple injuries leading to alterations to the terrace. There were issues with overcrowding in 1987 and 1988 - again at Leppings Lane.
And so it's not accurate to imply - as you do above - that it should not have been at the forefront of their minds.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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Don’t have children of my own, but, thinking about the last time I took my friends’ children out for the day…
When I turned up at the zoo with them, I assumed that we could walk around safely without them getting charged by a bison or bitten by a snake because the people running the zoo are aware that they have dangerous animals on the premises and have taken suitable precautions. The reason I didn’t personally check that the anaconda was appropriately secured is not that I hadn’t thought about the danger. It is that I assumed that the people running the zoo had done so and therefore I didn’t need to. Had a dangerous animal escaped and harmed one of the children you can bet your life that their parents would sued the living daylights out of the zoo. Not knowing that an enclosure was unlocked, for example, wouldn’t get them off the hook. They should have checked.
The senior police officers at Hillsborough are not in the position of me, the lowly punter turning up at the zoo with a couple of small children. They are in the position of the zoo owners, who are expected to take reasonable precautions for the safety of the paying public and who should expect to get in trouble if they don’t and someone gets hurt.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
There is quite a lot of case law on this, not easily summarised, but those interested in reviewing it can find more here.
Thanks for the link, BroJames. Picking a sentence out of the first case cited:
"In order to establish criminal liability the facts must be such that in the opinion of the jury the negligence of the accused... ...showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State"
To disregard something is an action. This says that you can't convict someone for a risk they should have known about, they have to know it and actively disregard it. You can't disregard what you don't know.
Picking a sentence out of the first case cited is not the best way of managing the material presented. The key cases are Bateman and then Adomako with some clarification from the Attorney General's Reference No. 2 of 1999. The four points established by Adomako indicate the importance of the breach of duty question to the inquest jury quote:
The prosecution [must] establish that the defendant:
- Owed a duty of care to the victim
- Was in breach of duty
- The breach of duty caused death
- The defendant's conduct was so bad in all the circumstances as to amount in the jury's opinion to a crime.
The point is that disregard can be an act of negligence (i.e. an omission rather than a positive action). It is not required that the defendant knew of the risk and ignored of it. It is enough that the defendant ought reasonably to have known of the risk, but was so grossly negligent in his actions that (whether by failure to identify the risk, or failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent it) he was responsible for the death.
In effect the legal situation is that a person cannot advance a defence that they did not, in fact, know of the risk, when as a matter of fulfilling their duty they simply ought to have been aware of the risk.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
... The senior police officers at Hillsborough are not in the position of me, the lowly punter turning up at the zoo with a couple of small children. They are in the position of the zoo owners, who are expected to take reasonable precautions for the safety of the paying public and who should expect to get in trouble if they don’t and someone gets hurt.
Not quite. The directly comparable role is occupied by the managers of the football ground.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
You might, if the event was recent, have kept an eye out for people of Middle-Eastern appearance acting suspiciously...
I'm going to assume that's a general "you", because Alan is far too intelligent and decent to engage in idiotic racist profiling. The guy's Italian, FFS.
quote:
... Because you know that this disaster happened, your idea of what "crowd control" involves now includes guarding against safety risks. So your idea of "reasonable behaviour" for a person with crowd control responsibility now includes pro-actively seeking out safety risks and guarding against them....
Jesus H. Tap-dancin' Christ, what's your crowd control expertise based on? Years of practice getting in and out of the confessional and directing traffic in the church parking lot? Hillsborough was NOT a unique and unforeseeable event:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnden_Park_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Nacional_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Nacional_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Kathmandu_stadium_disaster
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
You might, if the event was recent, have kept an eye out for people of Middle-Eastern appearance acting suspiciously...
I'm going to assume that's a general "you", because Alan is far too intelligent and decent to engage in idiotic racist profiling. The guy's Italian, FFS.
quote:
... Because you know that this disaster happened, your idea of what "crowd control" involves now includes guarding against safety risks. So your idea of "reasonable behaviour" for a person with crowd control responsibility now includes pro-actively seeking out safety risks and guarding against them....
Jesus H. Tap-dancin' Christ, what's your crowd control expertise based on? Years of practice getting in and out of the confessional and directing traffic in the church parking lot? Hillsborough was NOT a unique and unforeseeable event:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnden_Park_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Nacional_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Nacional_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Kathmandu_stadium_disaster
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
The more one looks into the the Hillsbourgh disaster the more it becomes apparent it was foreseeable. But as with most of the safety cock-ups through Thatcher's reign, it was a case of action then reaction. NOT --- Oh, this is avoidable, we'd better try and avoid it from happening.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
The four points established by Adomako indicate the importance of the breach of duty question to the inquest jury The prosecution [must] establish that the defendant:
- Owed a duty of care to the victim
- Was in breach of duty
- The breach of duty caused death
- The defendant's conduct was so bad in all the circumstances as to amount in the jury's opinion to a crime.
Surely step 2 in that list ought to be "What was the content of that duty"? Determination of the content of a duty of care is an essential in tort law and equally so in crime. From an Aust perspective, the reasoning of the Law Lords is not persuasive, and in particular the manner in which R v Syemour was distinguished.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
The four points established by Adomako indicate the importance of the breach of duty question to the inquest jury The prosecution [must] establish that the defendant:
- Owed a duty of care to the victim
- Was in breach of duty
- The breach of duty caused death
- The defendant's conduct was so bad in all the circumstances as to amount in the jury's opinion to a crime.
Surely step 2 in that list ought to be "What was the content of that duty"? Determination of the content of a duty of care is an essential in tort law and equally so in crime. From an Aust perspective, the reasoning of the Law Lords is not persuasive, and in particular the manner in which R v Syemour was distinguished.
I agree that in order to decide whether there was a breach of duty, the content of that duty has to be established. Indeed, some content for the duty may need to be established in order to answer the question whether the defendant owed a duty of care at all. My reading of their lordships decision on Seymour was that, in essence, Seymour is effectively a development on Lawrence. Lawrence was about the construal of the word 'reckless' in the Road Traffic Act 1972, and that is not relevant to the offence of manslaughter by gross negligence.
In the Hillsborough inquests, the guidance to the jury is set out on page 30 of the General Questionnaire to the jury. It does, as you suggest it needs to, set out the content of the duty of care.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
Thanks for that link to the general directions. The original events at Hillsborough did make the headlines here, but none of what seems to have been gong on since has - barely a mention of the inquest findings. I did not know that the directions were available.
I am not sure that the High Court here, nor the NSW Court of Appeal, would agree with your second sentence though - it's not an area I practice in, but my reading of cases over the last decade or so has been that the conflation of the content of a duty into determining the very existence of one is an error.
I had read the Lords' decision - not a very strong one and the attempt to use a change in legislation to justify distinguishing a general statement is not convincing.
[ 13. May 2016, 22:22: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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