The inquests 2: A shot across the bows

We go through our options. We could picket the inquests, we could go now to the press, my idea is to shut down the M6/M62 interchange every day for a week. With banners, get arrested, back the next day. Maybe the M25 too. Cause merry fucking hell. Direct action is all these bastards understand. Try the nice approach and you get shafted, time to take the gloves off.

Whatever we do is for one purpose only, to let the Coroner know “We are here” and “We are going nowhere”. Let him think about his summing up and about the appropriateness of including Question 7 at all. He is due to break in early January and to start his summing up we estimate in February. We guess he will already be preparing his summing up, certainly in his mind.

The summing up is important too, as a Coroner who is (as we suspect) determined to shaft the fans, can almost direct a jury to a certain finding. We agree on our strategy. Calmer and saner voices than mine prevail and we agree to write a polite letter. (Apparently “Oi Goldring you cunt, shaft us and we promise we will make you wish you were never born” doesn't cut it.) I go along with the consensus that it needs to be polite or we risk antagonising him and making things worse.

Our letter would set out our concerns and would ask the Coroner to consider these when he is summing up. It is really a “shot across the bows” - all our arguments will have already been made – but coming from some survivors, he will know we are around and not in the mood to take a share of the blame.

We co-opt some help. Chris and Jim are experienced in the campaign, Jim was with us in the pub too. Chris is good mates with Tim and knows senior people in the HJC very well. They are rock solid and are fully committed to helping with our letter. Four has become six. Ade often comes back with legal input, only later do I find out it is his wonderful girlfriend, a lawyer! Six has become seven.

We identify a number of legal arguments/concerns we wish to put to the coroner, namely

The arbitrary split of the 96 (exonerated) and the fans (not exonerated)

The inclusion of Q7 when no new evidence has been presented

The “May have” supplementary question that sets such a low bar and is so ambiguous, as to be meaningless in our opinion.

The fact that fans were not represented at the inquests and could not defend our reputations.

In a nutshell, we aren't happy, we are here and we are going nowhere, as per our strategy. We toy with whether we should ask for Interested Party status but know the families would not want this. It would hold things up and they have already been waiting for years. We would suddenly become the least popular people on Merseyside. The guys who held up the inquests for a month whilst they got a legal team together.

So we agree to state on our letter, that due to our desire not to hold up proceedings, we merely ask that our concerns are passed onto the Coroner for his consideration when he is summing up. We know the families have been to hell and back many times and these are the inquests for their loved ones. Is it our place to interupt them at all? We share many worried communications, emails, texts, phones calls and meets in the pub debating our best move. The families are key here, but we have our own reputations to defend. This is a proper tight rope and how to proceed in our interests without causing them anguish from delays is difficult.

We decide to run our letters past the families' legal teams and past the key people / leaders in the two family groups. We are confident the HJC guys will be onside, 2 of our gang know people at HJC personally. But no one has knows anyone at the HFSG. I know a HFSG family member, but only loosely through a Facebook campaign page.

We travel en mass to Warrington, paying our own train fares, hotel expenses. It is important we build some relationships here, with key players. If things go tits up at the inquests, we could be hung out to dry. The general public has no more appetite for the campaign for justice and many family members do not have the energy. To be blunt, many are dying off. Stalwarts of the HJC like Maureen Church and John Glover are no longer able to fight for the reputation of their children. We do not have the funds.

One of the most shameful aspects of the cover up, is how many people, good honest people, have not lived to see their children vindicated. Not lived long enough to pick up their death certificates, denied that basic right by the deceit and lies of so many people. The list is long and if I try and complete it I would only upset some by missing out important people. But that injustice is one that can never be righted, can never be corrected. Shameful doesn't seem adequate, but that is the only word I know that gets close.

This really is the last chance saloon it seems, so we need to do all we can to make sure the Coroner's summing up is a fair one. The morning we arrive is tense as the Coroner is to start his summing up. We have heard rumours that the family lawyers are unhappy, but we have not seen sight of the draft summing up sent to the lawyers prior to the Coroner delivering them.

Our worst fears are confirmed when as we sit outside in the common area, family members come out of the HJC room in tears. One who knows Tim has tears down her face. “Good luck lads, you're going to need it, they are sh*tting on you big time.”

Slowly word comes out, that the Coroner's summing up is pretty much a public execution of the fans. He has even included 7 pages from 'pissgate woman' as she is known, a local resident who complained vociferously about Liverpool fans urinating in her garden. Whose evidence was so inconsequential that she admitted she knew nothing of the events at Leppings Lane. Yet her evidence was to be given large billing by the Coroner.

Then there was the evidence of SYP, to be presented without reference to the cross examination and to the photos and audio visual that helped the family lawyers take it apart during the inquests. To present for example Lomas' evidence as if it were accepted is do such a disservice to justice as to convince everyone, the lawyers, the family members, that we are being set up. The families are given their unlawful killing and the SYP get to pin some of the blame on the fans. That way everyone is happy.

Not quite Mr Coroner, not everyone, cos we are not happy, and we soon learn neither are family members. They, and I mean every one of them we speak with at the inquests, agree with our views. They see a slight on the fans, as a slight on their loved ones who died. We were next to them when they died. 30 of them came through Gate C with me. Whilst the SYP and commanders' lawyers can argue, we are not of course accusing the 96, that is exactly what they are doing.

And so it is, that we are met warmly on our visit. A leading member of the HJC approaches us. He has seen a copy of our proposed letter to the Coroner and indicates his strong support. “My brother” he says “was a fan, until he died. Blame the fans, you are blaming him.” Similar sentiments are heard from many family member attending the inquests. Someone points out that Margaret Aspinall's husband, Trevor and Jenni Hicks were all at the match and are no more likely to accept the authorities blaming the fans than we will.

Emboldened we agree to put the letter to the Coroner. We have been clear, we do not want to hold up proceedings, we merely wish the Coroner to consider our points, to ensure a fair summing up, not one that over-emphasises evidence against the fans and barely mentions evidence that exonerates us.

We get the response from the Coroner's solicitor, which I will paraphrase in non legal terms. “Who exactly are you? You have no legal standing so I won't pass on your letter. Now fuck off.”

Seriously? We are in the frame for contributing to / causing the deaths for 96 fellow fans and we cant even write a letter? We can't even have one little voice amongst the 112 legal teams paid for by the state? Our polite request, to consider some issues is met with a “Fuck off”, nicely dressed up in legal speak with the threat that we would be in contempt of court if we publicise our knock back.

We are enraged and we are emboldened. Every family member we have spoken to has done more than say they are “ok” with our intervention. They have encouraged us, told us they agree with all our arguments and tried to reassure us that we will not be alone if things go badly on Q7. The anguish on our faces must be clear as time and again people approach us to reassure us and to thank us for our trying to help. We all want the same thing and it is becoming clear that we have the support of the families, certainly every family member we have spoken with at Warrington.

So we decide, knowing the families we have spoken to are supportive, that we will ask for legal status, we will ask for Interested Party status. If that is the only way our views can be heard / considered then fair enough. We know what this means, it means we will possibly hold up the inquests. If awarded we will get a legal team who will have access to the summing up and will be able to put its submissions like all the other Interested Parties. Could we also put up witnesses as other IP s have? Could we call back witnesses and have our team re-examine them? Witnesses like PC Scott who the family legal teams went easy on as he was in a wheelchair. We are less forgiving, given the nature of his evidence which is toxic and damaging to our reputations.

And so it is that four of us, myself, Ade, Richie and Tim put our names to a letter formally requesting Interested Party status be granted. We are, if successful, about to risk becoming the most unpopular people on Merseyside outside the SYP. We may have the whispered support of the families' legal teams and the family members we know, but that can't be publicised. We will just be 4 trouble makers, 4 Jonny-come-latelys who are interfering in a legal process that is nothing to do with us.

Except it is to do with us, as we are being accused and we are demanding our right to defend our names and reputations. It may mean public and/or private criticism, but we believe we have every right to defend our reputations.