A Day In The Life...

Three police officers whose "honesty and integrity" have been questioned by the police watchdog will not face disciplinary action over allegations that they lied to try and discredit Andrew Mitchell at the height of the plebgate affair.

So reports the Guardian. It was pretty clear at the time that the policeman's account was somewhat inconsistent, not that means anyone will be disciplined. Interestingly though the former Tory whip states:

"It is a decision which will undermine confidence in the ability of the police to investigate misconduct when the reputation of the police service as a whole is at stake.

Well yes but it's hardly anything new, but the only reason it makes the news in this instance is precisely for the reason he is a former Tory whip. Mitchell continues:

"My family and I have waited nearly a year for these police officers to be held to account and for an apology from the police forces involved. It seems we have waited in vain."

At this point one might consider that those of Liverpool have waited nearly 25 years for police officers to be held to account in one of the biggest police corruption scandals in UK history. A cover up that went right to the top of the political tree and remained so for years. Mr Mitchell's concerns are not police corruption per se but those that affect him directly

As someone who has been stopped and searched under a Section 60 (a policy introduced incidentally by the Tories) more than once and had £20 notes ‘confiscated’ from my wallet because “they could potentially be used as weapons” the disclosure that policemen have; “honesty and integrity” issues comes as no surprise whatsoever.

Cover Ups Are Like Buses...

...you wait for ages for one and then... Hillsborough, the cyclist Lance Armstong and the current travails surrounding the BBC regarding Jimmy Savile. It was pretty clear from the outset that claims of decades of child abuse on BBC premises wasn't a story that was going to fulfil Alastair Campbell's 11-day rule, despite the BBC's very obvious dragging of heels on an investigation. And so it's proved.

Last night's Panorama programme was a much touted programme by BBC news all day of an investigation of itself. Among other details, it contained accusations that the BBC had a paedophile ring operating on its premises and, as Biased BBC notes; "it really doesn’t get much more serious than this".

Bristling from the News International phone hacking scandal, gloated over by the BBC, naturally the likes of the Sun are indulging now in a little schadenfreude

The BBC is obviously panicking, the scandal is set to taint a great deal of their output, particularly as Children in Need is coming up in a few weeks. Yet so far its response is found largely lacking. Its defence under such scrutiny, for its failures, is interesting as articulated by BBC Director General George Entwistle today:

[Mr Entwistle] added that the Panorama programme pointed to the BBC's health as a media organisation, rather than being a "symptom of chaos", because it showed the organisation's capacity to investigate itself. He said no other news organisation in the world would do this.

That the BBC think this is compliment to its organisation says a great deal about its mentality. I wonder if they would have applied the same logic to banks doing the same over libor rates, or MPs over expenses or News International over phone hacking?

And then, is having a 1 hour programme, moved to a much later slot outside prime time, to investigate another programme's axing of basically a 10 minute segment on decades of abuse that went undetected, really tantamount to 'investigating itself'?

The second part of the defence, one echoed by a recent disgraceful episode of Have I Got News For You was that it was partly at least the newspapers' fault:

Mr Entwistle points out that, for years, no other newspaper or broadcaster carried out an investigation into the Savile abuse allegations.

But they did or at least tried to, notably the News Of The World in 1971, and when the Sun attempted to print a picture proving that he visited the Jersey care home despite denials he threatened to sue.

And it's worth remember that this is the BBC making the accusations, which by its own admission (my emphasis):

...is the largest broadcast news operation in the world with more than 2,000 journalists and 44 newsgathering bureaux, 41 of which are overseas...has an annual budget of £350 million (2004/05).

BBC News is highly respected both in the UK and around the world, from the World Service which reaches a global audience of more than 150 million listeners with hundreds of bulletins in more than 40 languages every day, to the BBC's flagship television news programme The Ten O'Clock news programme on BBC One.

BBC News 24 was launched to be the best UK television news channel. We compete to be the best, with our emphasis being first-hand coverage of the latest breaking news with a commitment to depth, context and intelligent analysis.

And yet despite all that, it was unable for decades to expose a possible paedophile ring on its own premises even though rumours were constant and that it was an open secret. So what is the BBC criticising here - the failure of largely loss-making newspapers for not hacking Jimmy Savile's phone to get at the truth?

Revealingly the BBC's arguments are backed up by articles with a similar tone in the Guardian:

In fact the BBC has an entrenched need to kick itself hard when under editorial attack. Every senior editor has a gene that makes it a major worry if his or her programme isn't leading the media pack when the corporation has apparently done something wrong.

The noble reason for this acute and sometimes embarrassing navel- gazing is the need to protect the BBC's impartiality and integrity.

...and the Independent:

...only by further damaging its own reputation could the BBC even begin the process of mending it. Last night's film was grim and depressing – but it was also very difficult to think of any other organisation, media or otherwise, that would have exposed itself to such a painful self-laceration. It's not over by a long stretch but Panorama may have started to restore some trust.

Good ol' Auntie, nothing to see here...

The Ramifications Continue

From the Independent:

Senior lawyers at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were handed detailed analysis of the police cover-up of the Hillsborough disaster 14 years ago but decided to take no action against any officers involved, the senior lawyer who led a private prosecution on behalf of the families says today.

In a withering attack on the criminal-justice system in The Independent, Alun Jones, QC says the Director of Public Prosecutions needs to explain why his office did "absolutely nothing" in 1998 after considering a line-by-line analysis of tampered reports by South Yorkshire police.

Successive Home Secretaries also did "absolutely nothing" when requested to open the Hillsborough case, including Jack Straw in 1998, who responded, as follows, to the accusations of amended statements by South Yorkshire Police:

"There are bound to be questions, however, about whether anything in this process might amount to misconduct of a criminal or disciplinary nature. Lord Justice Stuart-Smith considers it would not. It would in theory be possible to instigate a further police investigation to confirm this conclusively, but I think the outcome would be a foregone conclusion, and I do not consider that such an investigation should be instigated."

That Jack Straw did nothing in the face of the evidence, and now having been caught out, must surely account for this childish and cynical outburst in order to deflect attention away from himself.

What is clear, though, is the cover-up and corruption went right to the top.

Hillsborough

The Hillsborough disaster was a watershed moment in British sporting history. Not only and obviously for the poor 96 souls who lost their lives, and their families, but also the impact it had subsequently on sporting grounds. It instigated a revolution in stadium safety both here and in world football.

It was, however, a disaster that wasn't a one off, it was a long time coming and inevitable. When the initial reports came in on that fateful Saturday most fans knew immediately which end of the ground it was in - crushing in antiquated terraces was the norm. I'm sure I wasn't the only to view the images on television and think to oneself: "there but for the grace of God go I..."

At the time Britain's grounds could claim the worst safety record of any other developed nation, despite no fewer than eight official reports into crowd safety between 1924-85. Hillsborough was no freak, and we all knew it, it was the culmination of complacency, neglect, low investment, bad management and prejudice. It's no coincidence that in the 20 or so years since the famous Taylor Report, who recommended significant changes to stadia safety, that no major incident has occurred, yet in the 20 years prior to 1989, we had involving British fans; Ibrox 1971, Bradford fire, Heysel, and of course Hillsborough.

We also knew from the outset, that Hillsborough was a cover-up, particularly by South Yorkshire Police. Whatever ones thoughts on the game of football, or the futility of sport in general, a parent with a child in a so-called civilised society should be able to attend a sporting game on a Saturday afternoon and return home safely after. And when that doesn't happen there should be a proper inquiry into all institutions involved. With Hillsborough, though, it was clear from the start that a major cover-up ensured: UEFA, FIFA, the Thatcher Government, MPs (even recently), the media, the coroners, and most notably South Yorkshire Police all closed ranks (for many years Sheffield Wednesday refused to have a memorial at their ground, like it was an embarrassment). The blame was pinned quite decidedly by Lord Justice Taylor on South Yorkshire Police.

Yet today I'm surprised with the contents of the publication of an independent report into the disaster. I must confess that I was cynical from the outset: the files would be delayed 'till the 30 year rule comes in 2019, they would be redacted and they would be incomplete. But I was wrong, and even for a hardened cynic like myself, when it comes to the behaviour of police at football I'm rather taken aback by some of the revelations:

• Some 164 police statements were amended, he says. Many removed comments attacking the police.
• Officers carried out police national computer checks on the dead to impugn their reputation.
• Blood tests were also taken from the dead to see if they had been drinking, including from children.
• At the time of the Taylor Report [Margaret Thatcher] was briefed by her private secretary that the defensive and – I quote - “close to deceitful” behaviour of senior South Yorkshire officers was “depressingly familiar.”
  And it is clear that the then government thought it right that the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire should resign.
• Evidence that a number of the dead survived "for a significant period" beyond the 3.15pm cut-off point imposed at the original inquest
• ...a box of files containing police statements littered with hand-written notes saying ‘remove the last page’, ‘exclude the last paragraph’ and ‘rewritten as requested’.

This is wholesale corruption and cover-up by the authorities, one that hasn't come to light in detail for over 23 years.

The absence of a coroner’s report applying a verdict compatible with this assertion, or the experiences of all those who witnessed and survived Leppings Lane, is as incomprehensible and reprehensible as the actions on that initial April day.

When the coroner, Stefan Popper, decided the deaths were accidental 90 days after April 15 - on the grounds of what we can now see was tainted and doctored evidence - his judgement became emblematic of the most insidious representation of the second, institutional disaster; of the deceptions, the cover-ups, the lies and the closeted public 'servants' who idly kept their distance and shuffled off to their comfortable retirement as peers of the realm when they knew justice had not been done.

I haven't had time yet to read through the entire report but tribute must be made to the 'justice for the 96' campaign who never gave up.