Sunday, February 17, 2013

Hillsborough Families To Sue Liar

Guido Fawkes (http://www.order-order.com ) might have chosen a better time to declare that arch-liar Kelvin MacKenzie was his "ethics adviser" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/15/guido-fawkes-paul-staines-interview ). Fawkes, or Paul Staines, to give him his real name, was speaking just a few days before the Hillsborough families announced that they were going to sue MacKenzie for "malfeasance" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/16/hillsborough-families-sue-kelvin-mackenzie ).
The reptile who was described by Trevor Hicks as "a low-life" offered crocodile tears when the Hillsborough Independent Report was released last year. MacKenzie's true venality is something the families have always known & highlighted: "Although MacKenzie offered 'profuse apologies' last September after the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel exposed the article's allegations as wholly unfounded, lawyers for the families also accuse him of adopting a different approach privately."
MacKenzie isn't the only one to finally face the reckoning. The families also indicated their intention to bring proceedings against South Yorkshire Police & Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.
Proceedings against the South Yorkshire force are clearly necessary from a moral perspective. However, there is also a financial aspect which the Guardian report relates with damning clarity:
"Families received payouts as low as £3,500 for the deaths of loved ones, sums later dwarfed by settlements to policemen, who were awarded up to £330,000 after suffering post-traumatic stress from witnessing the crush on the stadium terracing."
That the police officers' "suffering" was judged to be almost a hundredfold bigger than that of the families is an often overlooked aspect of the greatest cover-up in British legal history.
MacKenzie et al can be in no doubt that their moment of reckoning looms larger by the week. Staines might wish to reconsider his admiration for a proven liar.

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