A good days work

Ok, one more Hillsborough blog...another recollection of the mentality of the average South Yorkshire Policeman.  

Feb 15^th 1990.  10 months to the day after Hillsborough and I finish lectures and walk upto the spot where I caught my bus home to Hunters Bar.  The bus stop in close to Sheffield City Hall and as I walk across a park, I can hear a protest, an anti-Poll tax one.  From memory this was a day or two before the big Poll tax riot in London.   

As I walk across I see a mounted police officer.  He looks familiar and I check his number, and then I know it is him, the same police officer who I been hit with his horse outside Hillsborough.  All of sudden I am back 10 months, proper flashback and can remember exactly the role this guy played outside the ground.  10 months of nightmares, barely a night when I slept through without waking up shaking.  Literally every night, scared to close your eyes because you know what is coming...

"You were at Hillsborough weren’t you?"   

 

He denied being there.  

 

"Yeah you were, I remember your number as I was going to make a formal complaint about how you were riding your horse, charging into fans.  I remember you and your face, I even put about you in my statement…"

He denied again being there.   

 

"Yeah you were, you were part of the problem, you and your mates who killed the 95 fans".  Tony Bland was not recognized as dead for a few years yet.  "You were there and none of you has lost your job.  Not one policeman sacked or disciplined or charged with anything…"

At this point word gets out among the police that there is a trouble maker and about 20 police started walking towards me from the main demonstration.  

 

"Here we they are, the murderers, does it take 20 of you to deal with one man?  20 of you not happy to hear the truth about how you murdered 95 people.  20 of you for fucks sake.  Go on, nick me, I don’t care, you tried to kill me once, what do I care if you nick me?"

The police refused my suggestion, aware that there were lots of people around and I hadn’t really crossed any line upto that point.  Not yet I hadn’t.  One copper comes up to me and asks what is my problem?  

 

 I calmly told him.  "It’s very simple, 95 fans died and not one Policeman charged with anything."   

 

"But we did nothing wrong" he says, 

"Nothing wrong?  95 people are dead and you did nothing wrong?"  "That’s right" he said "95 dead, a good days work."  

 

My response was actually quite mild, I looked him in the eye and said very calmly “You are scum, utter, utter scum”

The copper had what he wanted and I was promptly arrested and charged with threatening behaviour and verbal abuse.  My brief was a freebie one arranged through the student union and the chat was quite funny.   

 

"What did you actually do?"  

 

"I called some coppers murdering bastards."  

 

"Were there any witnesses?"  

 

"About 20 coppers."  

 

"Hmmm, think you better plead guilty on that one."

So plead guilty I did, though the 12 month conditional discharge that I received, means I am no longer classified as a criminal.  Shame the real criminals remain at large to this day.