Should people be free to bushwalk unprepared?

A Victorian bushwalker in NSW has been fined on charges of “lack of planning or preparation”. The 29-year-old man, name unknown, went off on a long walk last Saturday  in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. He was leaving from Newnes and heading east across the rugged Wollemi National Park to Colo Heights. He carried a kilo of potatoes and an unknown quantity of naan bread which he estimated would last him three days.

He told friends who dropped him off he would meet them at the other end on Wednesday at 3pm. When he didn’t rendezvous at the appointed time, his friends alerted authorities who mounted a search and rescue operation. With the help of two helicopters, they found him just four hours later on the track. The first helicopter spotted him and the second winched him out of the Wolgan Valley. According to Police, the man had suffered a minor ankle injury and declined treatment. Police took him to Katoomba station for questioning before giving him a $500 infringement notice.

None of the media covering the story stated why this was an offence (they were all too obsessed with the spuds and naan) but they did quote NSW Police Force Rescue commander Brenton Charlton who said the route through remote terrain was extremely difficult to complete safely and had taken much longer than estimated. "Getting the basics right with trekking is so easy - all people have to do is notify the police or other responsible person of their trip intention and carry a personal locator beacon," Charlton said. "Making use of available technology, together with some commonsense trip preparation, could mean the difference between life or death."

Whatever about that quantity of food being sufficient for three days,  it is clear the man was underprepared. Though some people on that bushwalk forum said the walk was possible in three days, even a modicum of research would have uncovered it was likely to take much longer. According to this site devoted to walks at Newnes, the track to Upper Colo is listed as a very hard grade walk that takes seven days. The walk “ is for experienced and well prepared walkers only! Country traversed is rugged and there are no tracks beyond Annie Rowan Creek.” Its advice is “Check with your local bushwalking club before attempting this one.”

Clearly the Victorian did not take this into account. But should that be an offence? And should all bushwalkers be forced to take a “personal locator beam”?  PLBs are distress radio beacons which transmit location information about individuals directly to Search and Rescue forces letting them know that the owner is in grave and imminent danger. They retail on Gumtree for around $225 second hand though Blue Mountains police apparently do give them out for free. When Briton Jamie Neale was found alive after being missing in 2009 for 12 nights, Blue Mountains police superintendent Tony McWhirter told media they have free PLB for bushwalkers so they can locate them. However since then, the law has changed.

The NSW police media release (which was the basis for all media stories - no journalist did original research) did state why the fine was activated. It was issued under the National Parks and Wildlife Regulations of 2009 for engaging "in activity that risks the safety of self/others". The relevant clause is 22(1)(d) which reads “Sporting, recreational and other activities
(1) A person must not in a park:
(d) engage in any activity or recreational pursuit that involves risking the safety of the person or the safety of other persons or damaging the environment.
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units.”

As a contributor to a NSW buskwalk forum said, the fine was troubling. “Guy sounds like an idiot", said colinm, “but I don't see that it necessarily warrants a fine. Since he's a Victorian, I bet he doesn't contest the charge, so is a bit of a soft target.” So should bushwalkers be forced to be prepared or should anyone have the right to go out and do what they want? Was it necessary for an expensive search and rescue operation to be mounted when the man was just four hours late? And what equipment should be compulsory on any trip? These angles were not covered by media. In their efforts to make the trekker look like a fool, the naan bread proved more alluring than the nanny state.

The Courier-Mail and the 1971 Brisbane Springbok riot

Today’s Courier-Mail has a front page splash that purports to tell the “real story behind a Queensland political myth”. The article is about former premier Peter Beattie’s involvement in the 1971 Springbok tour riot in Brisbane and a vintage picture of the former Premier complete with impressive 70s style moustache adorns the front page. The article is based on a newly released police dossier which the Courier-Mail trumpets as “Forty years on, the facts come out”.

The bland inside headline of “Two sides to every story” hides far more than it reveals. With Beattie among 400 protesters facing off against 500 police there were at least 900 sides to this story, not to mention the important parts played by politicians, the unions and the media, of which the Courier-Mail was the most craven example. Given the subsequent revelations about Queensland’s police corruption and their role in the brutal repression of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era with the complicity of the media, a 64-page police dossier from the time is hardly to be trusted as an independent verification of what happened. Nor is today’s article the first time “the facts” have come out about the 1971 riot.

The best story of what happened when the white South African rugby team came to Brisbane during the Apartheid era was told in 2004 by Raymond Evans' “Springbok Tour Confrontation”, a chapter in Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History (edited by Evans and Carole Ferrier).

Evans began his account with an ABC audio tape of Sounds of the Seventies. Protesters and foreign journalists (the local ones at the Courier-Mail stayed on the police side of the line) recounted events with fear audible in their voices. “[The police] just chased us with a big grin on their faces,” said one. “When people got to the bottom of the hill, they realised they had been trapped. I think that’s when they started to be brutal,” said another.

The voices were describing the events of the cold winter’s night of Thursday, 22 July 1971. The Springbok tour party was staying at the Tower Mill Motel on Brisbane’s Wickham Terrace. They were separated from the 400 protesters by a line of 500 quasi-military style police officers. The protest turnout was poorer than expected partly because of the police intimidation and partly because Brisbanites bought the official line “sport and politics should not mix”.

That this cliché was an easily exposed fiction did not matter - the media did not expose it. Both federal and state political leaders were quick to use the tour to bolster their faltering credentials. Fast-fading Liberal PM Billy McMahon provided RAAF transport after civilian carriers refused to carry the Springboks. He also opened up Enoggera Barracks to house the additional police Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen called in.

But while the Springboks did not save the PM, it amply served the Premier. Joh was in the job less than 2 years and still untested when he began to try out anti-democratic practices which became familiar in the next 16 years. Eight days before the game, he declared a State of Emergency to secure the Exhibition Grounds, suspending civil liberties for a month in the process. The legislation gave police carte blanche to treat protesters as they liked. The day before the Mill protest, 200 students marched to the city centre. 36 were arrested as police applied excessive force. TV cameramen and press photographers were also hassled by police and had their film confiscated.

Trade unionists kept out of the protests believing the convenient lie about sport and politics. But unions had make life awkward for Joh in the lead-up. The game had to be played at the Exhibition Grounds because BWIU unionists blackbanned essential plumbing works at the Ballymore rugby ground. The BWIU also halted the production of police batons and the AMIEU stopped the transport of police horses to the demonstration. But on the night of the protest, most sports-loving unionists stayed away from Tower Mill. It was students like Beattie who filled the police cells that night. It was easier to demonise the students in the media as hippies and long-haired layabouts. The other major protesters were Aboriginals who paralleled South Africa with Queensland. This was a truth the media could also ignore. After all, weren't Queensland's Aboriginals, as Joh said, "living on clover"?

The numbers of students, aboriginals and academics outside the Mill was swollen by plain clothes police who acted as agent provocateurs. With no warning, the line of uniformed police marched forward and ordered the protesters to clear the footpath. The demonstrators were forced to flee down the steep and pitch-dark hill into Wickham Park. The police attacked with fists, batons and boots as plain-clothes colleagues joined in. Some protesters escaped by jumping an eight metre high embankment into the busy traffic of Albert Street below. Some were simply thrown over.

Others still, including Beattie, sought sanctuary in the nearby Trades Hall building near Jacob's Ladder (now demolished to make way for the IBM building). One unionist saw a girl held and punched by police while a youth (later identified as Beattie) was also jumped on and held to the floor. Two of the three police attacking him were forcibly ejected from the building and the third became frightened when he realised he was alone. The last policeman, Lindsay Daniels left the injured Beattie alone and became quiet. He was wearing two different police numbers at least one of which was wrenched off by students who now greatly outnumbered him.

Outside, 50 police attempted to gain entry to the building. When ambulance officers were allowed admission, police followed them in and were restrained only because they were accompanied by an inspector. Beattie was taken under armed guard to the orthopaedic ward of the Royal Brisbane Hospital for observation of suspected spinal injuries. According to the Courier-Mail report, two doctors told police no excessive force was used in the attack.

According to another report years later quoted by Evans, Beattie said he was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest though he was the one assaulted. “I will never forgive or forget what happened next,” Beattie said. “I was verballed by the police who manufactured the most incredible statements about the whole thing.” Beattie was later released on bail and police never pressed charges.

The day after, angry students at the University of Queensland held a political strike. That night protesters significantly outnumbered police at the Mill and officers refrained from repeating their tactics from the night before. The day after was the Saturday of the game. Just 6,000 attended instead of the anticipated 30,000 full house. With the Oval ringed by barbed wire, protesters demonstrated in nearby Victoria Park instead. 2,000 people turned up faced by 900 police. Led by Labor Senator George Georges, marchers went down Fortitude Valley and into the city conducting the first sit-in at Queen Street. Violence was minimal during the day as Labor MP Bill Hayden urged caution. But the peace did not last.

After some outbreaks of violence in the city, a thousand gathered once more at the Mill that evening. Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod commanded his men to drive the protesters down into the park once more. Whitrod, who was inside the motel, claimed the police charge was in response to a rock thrown into a motel window. The offending missile was never produced and glaziers called to fix the window insisted the fall of the glass suggested it was broken from inside. But with country officers present threatening a no confidence motion in Whitrod’s “soft handling" of demonstrators, he was determined to act tough. He was supported by Joh who wanted to “stop all this business of going soft on all these demonstrations” because he could see it “leading to complete anarchy”.

The only anarchy in town that weekend was caused by rampaging police officers sanctioned by the Government while the Courier-Mail looked the other way. 40 years on, the paper is as cowardly as ever, preferring to concentrate on the irrelevant issue of whether Beattie called the police “pigs” rather than question the nature of the assault. The Springbok riot set the template for one and half decades of police brutality and corruption sanctioned by an undemocratic Premier who could hose down a meek press simply by “feeding the chooks”.

Federal Court to rule on The Australian's terrorist leak source tomorrow

The Federal Court will reveal tomorrow whether it will allow Victorian Police name the source of the leak to The Australian’s journalist Cameron Stewart over last year’s Melbourne terrorist arrest operation. On 4 August 2009 the Australian printed Cameron Stewart’s exclusive. The article quoted Australian Federal Police commissioner Tony Negus saying the AFP had disrupted a “terrorist attack that could have claimed many lives”. Four men were arrested in Melbourne in Operation Neath after 400 police raided homes in the city’s northern suburbs. The four were said to have been inspired by Somalia’s Islamist Al Shabaab and about to attack a military base using semi-automatic weapons.

A great story, and Stewart had gotten the inside scoop. The Australian had learned of the operation a full week before it occurred and agreed to hold off on publication until the morning of the raid. But Victoria Police were incensed to find out the details of the operation hit the streets for the first run of the paper in the early hours of this morning and criticised it for potentially jeopardising a series of early morning raids, calling it an “unacceptable risk”. The Australian rejected the claim, saying the story was held up from early editions while the raids took place. According to the paper’s then editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, "only papers that were sold at newsagents after the raid, and those destined for home delivery, had the raid story on page one."

The online outlet Crikey later found out the edition with the story in it was available in some retail outlets at 1.30am, some three hours before the raid started. While few if any papers were purchased, thefts of papers outside agents are not uncommon and those that do buy papers at that time of the morning include taxi drivers, which happened to be the occupation of some of the suspects. So it is fair to say, the integrity of the operation could well have been jeopardized by The Australian’s actions. But it is also arguable the operation should have been brought forward as soon as the AFP realised its secrecy was compromised.

On 9 August the police corruption watchdog got involved. In a media release Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity commissioner Philip Moss announced they would investigate an alleged security breach relating to Operation Neath. The announcement said the ACLEI investigation was part of a coordinated response by State and Federal law enforcement and integrity agencies, including the Office of Police Integrity (Victoria). “ACLEI’s focus will relate to the involvement, if any, of members of the Australian Federal Police in the alleged security breach,” the release said.

In March, Stewart won the Gold Quill for outstanding journalism at the Melbourne Press Club's annual Quill Awards dinner. In his acceptance speech for the award Stewart said he couldn’t speak about the incident due to reasons of legal confidentially. He painted the case as one of press freedom and said the lack of shield laws for sources and journalists was a disgrace. “What none of you know here is that it's been a very, very difficult and ugly legal battle behind the scenes,” he said. "But let me tell you that it is a real fight in this country for press freedom because it is a very ugly battle that we face and I hope that every single person in this room does what they can to stand up for it.”

As a result of the ACLEI / OPI investigation, a Victorian policeman was identified as Stewart’s source and suspended for leaking the information. When ACLEI and OPI drafted a report into the source of the leak, The Australian won an injunction prohibiting its publication. The case currently before the courts attempts to overturn that injunction. However the two police forces involved have broken ranks. Margaret Simons in Crikey said last week court documents show ACLEI has cut a deal with The Australian and has agreed not to publish any of the information they have obtained about the newspaper during their investigation and will also allow The Australian to review any report it writes that refers to the paper or its employees.

The Victorian agency is understandably unhappy with its federal counterpart and going ahead with the request to overturn the injunction. Simons has been covering the case from the courtroom for the last few days using the Twitter hashtag #ozleak No-one is prepared to make a call on what way the court will judge. But the case does put into question dodgy practices in the media and police. Both Simons and Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes have publicly questioned whether Stewart deserved a high journalism accolade for his work on a story that could so easily have gone drastically wrong. Was it great work in the interest of the public’s right to know or merely “a policeman blabbing to a journo about a legitimate terrorist investigation” as Holmes put it? Either way, Stewart may find nasty repercussions if he is ever forced to confirm the source in a criminal investigation.

Mick Keelty resigns as Australian Federal Police boss

Australian Federal Police (AFP) chief Mick Keelty announced his resignation this morning after eight years in the job. Keelty had two years left on his contract but will finish up on 2 September which will mark 35 years in his police career. Keelty’s term in office has been dotted with controversy and he refused to comment publicly today. However, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chose to praise Keelty’s contribution to public service including his work on the Bali bombings and the Jakarta Australian embassy bombing. "What I'd like to say to Mick on behalf of a grateful nation is, 'Well done', and the nation owes you a debt of gratitude for the service you have rendered," he said.

Not everyone senses that debt of gratitude. In 2005, the father of one of the Bali Nine drug mules sharply criticised Keelty for knowingly allowing Indonesian police to arrest the nine, rather than allowing them to fly to Australia and arresting them in Sydney upon their return. Bob Lawrence, father of Renae Lawrence said at the time, "as far as I'm concerned, and excuse the expression, [Keelty] is an arsehole. These kids were forced into this...they should have been either arrested at the airport here or followed to get the big guys. I don't know how [the Australian police] can sleep at night.”

The bungled case of Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef also seriously damaged Keelty’s reputation. The AFP did everything in their power to get a conviction related to the Glasgow bombing including leaking biased and misleading material about the prosecution. The Commonwealth was eventually forced to drop the case after admitting errors in evidence. Keelty refused to admit responsibility and continued its investigation into Haneef well into 2008. As Bernard Keane wrote today in Crikey, “Keelty persisted with the fiction that somehow Haneef might yet turn out to be a terrorist [and] even when the AFP finally called a halt to its $8m persecution of the man, it insisted ‘that some long standing overseas inquiries are yet to be fully resolved.’.”

Former head of the National Crime Authority QC Peter Faris told SBS World News tonight that although Keelty’s reign had started well, the Haneef affair “left a bad taste in the mouth”. He also told the ABC today that his resignation was linked to the Haneef case and he was merely waiting for a reasonable time after the inquiry into the matter before resigning. Not surprisingly, the government have rejected this analysis (or at least rejecting the suggestion he was pushed) with Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland saying the decision was "entirely the decision of the Commissioner".

Keelty leaves behind a 6,500 strong federal police organisation that celebrates its 30th anniversary a month after his farewell. The favourites to replace him are the two deputy commissioners, Andrew Colvin (head of national security) and Tony Negus (head of operations). Either will have big shoes to fill as the AFP has wide-ranging powers to deal with matters such as counter-terrorism, human trafficking and sexual slavery, cyber-crime, peace operations, protection and other transnational crimes.

But while Keelty has expanded the organisation, critics say he has done so at a high cost of transparency. On ABC’s 4 Corners in November last year, Sally Neighbour charted how a “once lionised” AFP was now “ridiculed for apparent bungling, excessive secrecy and cosying up to political masters.” Neighbour says the Haneef affair was just a symptom of deeper problems that beset the AFP. Keelty’s high profile leadership style and politicisation of the organisation caused a damaging split within the organisation. One former officer told Neighbour that “the AFP's major objective has been to look good whilst at the same time avoiding public scrutiny and accountability.”

Keelty had earlier outlined what he had in mind by way of media scrutiny when he made a speech at the Sydney Institute in January 2008. Keelty said that there should be no public comment made about terrorism investigations until each matter has been finalised in court. He also called for a limitation of criticism of the AFP and other government agencies. "I understand it can be difficult to wait for the chance to freely express ourselves but I do believe to best serve the public interest and to attain the full enjoyment of all our rights we must sometimes delay that expression," he said.

However the former journalist at The Australian who exposed the AFP’s wrongdoing (much to the then Howard Government's embarassment) in the Haneef affair did not agree. Hedley Thomas (who is now head of PR for Queensland Gas) won a Walkley award for his coverage of the affair. Thomas was sharply critical of Keelty’s Sydney Institute speech: "On the one hand he was saying that defendants and suspects deserve a much better go in the court of public opinion and that the media should treat them more kindly," he said. "But the facts are that in the Mohamed Haneef case and others, it's been the police and security agencies and the politicians using police information that have smeared the character of the suspects before they've even been charged." With Keelty gone, the AFP can now begin rebuilding trust in its competence and resume a more guarded approach to using its vast and under-scrutinised powers.

The Hillsborough Disaster: “They're killing us, Bruce, they're killing us”

Today’s article commemorates the 20th anniversary of Britain’s worst football disaster: the Hillsborough tragedy which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans. The facts in this article are mostly drawn from the official Taylor Report (attached in zip file) as well as the personal recollection of Liverpool's then goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar.

On Saturday 15 April 1989, Liverpool were drawn to play Nottingham Forest in an English FA Cup Semi-Final. It was a repeat of the 1988 semi between the same two clubs and the FA chose the same neutral venue that was a “success” the previous year: Hillsborough, Sheffield. However Liverpool fans were not pleased. South Yorkshire police would only agree to the 1989 game if they repeated the 1988 arrangement where Liverpool fans were held in the smaller “away” end of the ground so they could be funnelled quickly back to the motorway westward to Lancashire.

As a result Liverpool were allocated 24,000 tickets compared to Forest’s 30,000, despite the fact that Liverpool’s average home attendance was substantially higher than the Nottingham club. And because there was less standing room at the away end, Liverpool’s allocation was more expensive as well as smaller (the game cost £12 to sit and £6 to stand). Liverpool had tried to switch ends in 1988 but police were adamant. They said it would have involved rival supporters crossing paths and “creating a risk of disorder”. And when the two teams were drawn to play again in 1989, police held to the previous year’s precedent saying “any change would lead to confusion”.

However the one key change that did lead to confusion was in the South Yorkshire constabulary itself. In 1988, policing was the responsibility of veteran Chief Superintendent Brian Mole but he was replaced as local commander just three weeks before the 1989 game. His replacement was newly promoted Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield. On the day, the new man at the helm had control of 1,122 police officers (38 per cent of South Yorkshire’s total force). However Duckenfield had not personally policed a match at the ground in ten years before the game.

Sheffield Wednesday (Hillsborough's owners) also had 376 stewards on duty on the day. They were assisted by a computerised operation which issued a warning pulse when any section of the ground got to within 15 percent of its permitted capacity. However what the system could not do was monitor the distribution of fans in each pen within the section. Unlike the Kop end where the Forest fans stood, the away end at Leppings Lane was divided into pens so that home and away fans could be segregated in the event where both had to be accommodated at that end of the ground. Although in theory it was the stewards (representing the owners) who were responsible for seating arrangements at the ground, in practice it was police who managed it. And police procedure was to let the fans “find their own level” within the pens.

It was a warm sunny Spring Saturday that greeted those fans as they approached Hillsborough that day. The 3pm kickoff was a 54,000 sell-out and many more people came to Sheffield without tickets. Although some Liverpool fans drank heavily before the game, there was no sign of any alcohol trouble. The mood was good-humoured. An hour before the game, Forest fans greatly outnumbered Liverpool inside the ground. The one train from Merseyside arrived at 2pm and its 350 passengers were escorted to the ground by police. By now, those who drove to Sheffield were also in the area and the crowd was becoming congested in the narrow streets around Leppings Lane. There was no longer a separate queue for each turnstile but one great phalanx of people across the whole approach area.

But there was still no sign of panic. Police monitoring the situation on video cameras at 2.30pm still reckoned they could get everyone inside the ground in time for the 3pm kick-off. In any case, as Superintendent Duckenfield reminded his officers, a delay could only be authorised in the event of fog on the Pennines or traffic jams on the motorway. It would not be countenanced, he said, just because fans were arriving late to the ground - even in large numbers.

In the next 35 minutes it all went horribly wrong. As is usual, most fans wanted to congregate in the central pens behind the goal. By 2.50pm these two were seriously overcrowded although the wing pens still had plenty of room. Meanwhile the crush outside the gates grew worse as more people arrived. The seven Leppings Lane terrace turnstiles could not process the numbers quickly enough as people outside fretted they would miss the kick-off. As the pressure grew, some women and children began to faint.

At 2.45pm police outside the ground called for reinforcements. Appeals to the crowd to stop pushing were ignored. There were now 5,000 people trapped in the phalanx in the narrow area outside the ground. A constable radioed his superiors asking for the game to be delayed. His request was turned down. Seriously worried that fatalities could occur, a superintendent outside the ground requested Duckenfield three times for the gates to be opened. At 2.52pm Duckenfield finally acceded to the request.

In the next five minutes 2,000 people stormed through the central gate and most them headed straight on to the central pens. It didn’t help there was a subtle downward gradient easing their passage in that direction. Fans spoke of being swept off their feet and could not resist the push towards the already overcrowded pens. At 2.54pm the two teams emerged onto the field creating a great surge of anticipation among the crowd. Most fans in the two central pens were uncomfortable and many were in distress. Some were already finding it difficult to breathe. Still the flow continued through the tunnels. Those at the very front were being crushed against the perimeter fencing and began asking for the gate to be opened onto the field. In the deafening noise, police patrolling the perimeter did not realise there was a problem and ignored their requests.

More gates were opened outside the ground under intense pressure of the people outside, some of whom did not have tickets. The game kicked off on schedule at 3pm. Fans crushed inside the central pens began climbing the fence to escape to the less crowded pens. Others attempted to climb onto the field but were pushed back by police fearing a pitch invasion. Near the front, those weakened to the point of collapse were now dying on their feet.

At 3.04pm Liverpool striker Peter Beardsley struck a shot against the crossbar at the other end of the ground. The Liverpool fans roared and began surging forward again. Normally after a surge, the fans retreat but this time there was nowhere to retreat to. The force of numbers smashed two crash barriers in one of the central pens and propelled many fans into the front fence. But police watching on video cameras assumed it was an attempted pitch invasion. So instead of summoning ambulances, they called for dog handlers.

Finally one senior policeman, Superintendent Roger Greenwood realised something was going horribly wrong. He tried in vain to ask those at the front to move back. When he saw that was impossible, he radioed his superiors for the game to be abandoned. The control tower did not receive the message and he signalled wildly with his hands. Finally without waiting for further orders, Greenwood ran on to the field and told the referee to stop the game.

Unbelievably the game was almost six minutes old before it was called off. The damage had already been done. The steps towards the central pens were congested with bodies alive and dead. Fans on the upper tier dragged up those they could. Police called in to preserve public order suddenly found a catastrophe on their hands. They were confronted with victims who were blue in the face and incontinent. Their mouths were open, eyes starting and vomiting. The dead and injured were laid out on the field. As the scale of the carnage unfolded, fans turned their hostility towards the police and began shouting abuse, spitting at them, and assaulting them. Press photographers who took photos of the dead were also a target.

Although St John’s Ambulance staff were on the scene, there was no public address call for doctors and nurses until 3.30pm. There were only six stretchers in the ground so fans improvised and tore down hoardings to take casualties off the scene. Throughout all of this Superintendent Duckenfield stayed in the control room, unaware of the scale of the disaster until he got the request for a fleet of ambulances. His boss Assistant Chief Constable Jackson was attending the game and went to the control room to ask Duckenfield what was happening. The Superintendent could not tell him. Jackson had to go down to ground level to find out for himself.

Duckenfield also deliberately withheld giving information out over the public address system for fear of everyone leaving together hampering rescue efforts. The problem was that the Forest fans assumed the problem was because Liverpool fans were causing trouble and began taunting them. This further infuriated Liverpool fans on the field who rushed towards the Forest end. Their path was blocked by a row of police officers who stood on the halfway line who otherwise did nothing. Those needing help regarded the actions of these passive policemen as further insensitivity.

Still the confusion continued. When fire officers arrived at the ground, no one knew why they were called. One Police Inspector told them “I don’t really think we need you”. And by the time they arrived on the field with resuscitation cylinders and cutting equipment, it was too late. At 3.56pm Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish spoke to the restive crowd and called for calm. After another fifteen minutes the game was officially abandoned and the entire stadium emptied in an orderly fashion. By 4.30pm ambulances had taken 172 people to two nearby hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Sheffield Wednesday gymnasium was transformed into a makeshift morgue and casualty clearing area. As more bodies were piled in, the atmosphere became gradually more chaotic and harrowing. Recriminations and scuffles broke out as people looked for missing relatives and friends. There was an atmosphere of utter shock. 95 people died on the day and one died four days later. All were Liverpool fans. Another 765 people were injured. Of those dead, blood samples showed that only six had more than 120 milligrams percent of alcohol.

Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar was the closest person on the field to the tragedy as the game kicked off. From behind his goal, anguished fans shouted at him for help while he prepared to take a goal kick. He could hear them say: "They're killing us, Bruce, they're killing us.” As Grobbelaar took the kick he wondered who was killing them. He looked around and saw the frightened faces through the fence and asked a policeman: 'Is there any chance that you can open the gate here?” But Grobbelaar had to concentrate on the game as Forest shot went towards the corner flag. Grobbelaar takes up the story:

“I went to retrieve it, and I said to the policewoman - I thought it was a policeman - 'Get the effing gate open. Can't you see that they need it'? And there were screams coming at the time. I kicked the ball upfield, and I went back and said, 'Get the fucking gate open'. I turned back and the ball went out of play on the left, and that's when I shouted to the referee. The policeman came on to the field, and the game stopped."

The Hillsborough disaster would ultimately revolutionise the game in England. Barely two days later, the Thatcher government set up an inquiry under Lord Justice Taylor with a remit to “"to inquire into the events at [Hillsborough] and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events". Taylor heard evidence from families of the bereaved, supporters, the football association, Sheffield council, Sheffield Wednesday staff and their insurers, police, fire and ambulance authorities, and a consultant engineer.

After 31 days, the Taylor Report recommended all top division stadiums in England and Scotland phase out their perimeter fencing and concrete terraces, and become all-seater. By the 1996 European Championships in England, the game and its grounds had changed utterly. 96 people had paid the ultimate price to make the game safer for all of Britain’s millions of football fans. Their sacrifice, while preventable, was not in vain.

British police abuse Section 27 powers to target football fans

Police in Manchester have been forced to issue an apology to 80 football fans after wrongfully preventing them from attending a football match. The 80 were all fans of Stoke City and were in a Manchester pub prior to a game against Manchester United on 15 November last year when they were all bundled into buses and made to return to Stoke. Despite the fact there was no evidence of any disturbance, Police issued a Section 27 notification in accordance with the Violent Crime Reduction Act which enabled them to take the extraordinary action of making them leave town. The fans received no apology for missing a match against the English champions and no refund for their expensive tickets.

According to Greater Manchester Police (GMP), they had received intelligence that around 80 fans were intent on causing trouble. They claimed it was their “duty to keep public order” that drove their action to detain the fans for four hours and send them back to Stoke. The GMP admitted it was now reviewing its use of the act to ensure it was only used when necessary. However they also said that only “a small proportion” of the 80 were not trouble makers, with a clear implication that the majority were. The GMP offered no rationale for their belief that peaceful fans were troublemakers nor have they revealed the "intelligence" that caused them to invoke Section 27 in the first place.

On the day of the incident, the Stoke fans had met at the Railway Inn in Irlam near Manchester for a few pre-match beers. The pub was a natural stop-off point to the stadium for those arriving via the M6 motorway or the local railway station. The atmosphere was quiet in the pub and the landlord made no complaint to the police. According to one fan at the pub, “there were no football chants being sung at the Railway Inn and no evidence of disorder whatsoever. If there had of been we would have left the pub and made our way elsewhere.” Nevertheless the premises were surrounded by police and the 80 supporters were all required to sign Section 27 forms or else face arrest. Police refused requests from some fans to state on the form that they were not intoxicated.

Section 27 (pdf) of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 introduced a little known new police power to give directions to leave to individuals to leave a locality. The section can be invoked when an individual’s presence is deemed likely to cause or contribute to an “alcohol-related crime or disorder in a locality”. The Home Office circular related to the new powers directs chief police officers to use them “proportionately, reasonably and with discretion in circumstances where it is considered necessary to prevent the likelihood of alcohol-related crime or disorder.” Not only did the GMP fail to apply this test of the law, they were also guilty of a severe lack of proportionality.

According to Henry Portman in The Guardian, the police behaviour was both “oppressive and arbitrary”. Portman linked to a press release issued by the civil liberties and human rights group Liberty which gave further details of the inhumane way they treated the fans. Liberty said the 80 on the coach were deprived of toilet facilities and instructed to urinate into cups, which spilled over the floor of the bus. They had to sit with urine sloshing around their feet for the 65km journey back to Stoke.

Malcolm Clarke, the head of the Football Supporters' Federation (FSF), has taken up the cause of the wronged fans. He has appealed on the Stoke City fansite The Oatcake for anyone served with a Section 27 order to lodge a formal complaint. Clarke told Woolly Days that while Manchester Police have apologised to a subset of the 80 fans, they have not admitted illegality or agreed to pay damages. Clarke also noted there have been examples of other fans served with Section 27 orders. In December, South Yorkshire police prevented several Plymouth Argyle fans from attending a game at Doncaster Rovers and escorted them back to the south coast.

Clarke believes the hardline anti-fan attitude of individual police authorities is undermining the good work of the UK Football Policing Unit established in 2005. Football-related arrests have been dropping in recent years despite the highest league attendances in 35 years. “The Football Policing Unit has a very sensible strategy,” said Clarke. “But we don't have a national police force in the UK and they have no direct control over individual police forces.” The FSF will need to remain vigilant to ensure other police forces are not tempted to invoke the easy collective punishment aspect of Section 27.

WA police raid on Sunday Times leaves politicians ducking for cover

In a move that defies credibility, Western Australian Treasurer Eric Ripper denied government involvement in the police raid on a Perth newspaper last week. Yesterday Ripper said he told WA parliament he made one phone call to report a concern that Cabinet confidentiality may have been breached. He then claimed he had no further involvement until told the raid had taken place. Ripper was at the centre of an article in the Sunday Times which suggested he was using taxpayer funds for party advertising.

Ripper’s claim does not explain why a massive force of sixteen police officers raided the newsroom of the Murdoch-owned weekly Wednesday. Major Fraud Squad (MFS) officers were there on behalf of the fraud squad which was trying to find who leaked information about a government decision to spend $16 million. Police say that five officers initially went to the Sunday Times but more were sent when the paper’s management initially refused to co-operate.

Police removed documents, blocked exits at the newspaper's building and searched staff. The search lasted four hours and the paper’s editor Sam Weir was interviewed for over an hour. Story writer Paul Lampathakis was not in the Sunday Times building at the time of the police raid but police removed several items and notes from his desk. Detective Senior Sergeant Dom Blackshaw said documents had been seized during the search as part of an investigation into "potential breaches of the secrecy provisions of the criminal code".

In February the Sunday Times published an article by Lampathakis which said WA’s Treasurer, Eric Ripper in his role as head of the cabinet communication sub-committee, "urgently" asked the expenditure review committee for $5.25 million for the first half of the year and a further $10.75 million to July next year. Lampathakis’s story quoted “government sources” who said the money was to be spent on a strategic advertising campaign to help Labour's bid for re-election later this year.

The government was more offended by the unauthorised disclosure than the misuse of public funds and immediately launched a witch-hunt to identify the culprit. They referred the matter to the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC). The government dusted down Section 28 of the 2003 CCC Act which read that "certain officers" are obliged to report misconduct. The CCC claims it did not act on the referral because it already has more complaints than it can handle. They in turn referred the matter to the police where it ended up in the hands of the Major Fraud Squad.

While it is possible that the MFS conducted the raid without informing the government, it seems unlikely police senior management would have approved so public a move without some political consultation. Ripper’s claim of non-involvement in Wednesday’s events also flies in the face of a statement released by his boss. The day after the raid, the office of the Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter (himself a former journalist) admitted it had made the complaint that led to the raid. A department spokesman said they referred allegations of the unauthorised disclosure of a confidential document to the WA police and the CCC.

The Sunday Times editor, Sam Weir was outraged by the raid on his newspaper. He said it was the second time in a month the paper had been raided by police over a Lampathakis story. The earlier Lampathakis story concerned the dumping of computers from Royal Perth Hospital that still contained private medical details of patients. Journalist union MEAA local secretary Michael Sinclair-Jones said the latest search was outrageous. "It's an attack on free speech," he said, "an outrageous attempt to stifle free speech and impede the press.”

Media coalition Australia's Right to Know chief and News Ltd CEO John Hartigan said the raid was a farcical and transparent attempt to punish journalists and whistleblowers. Cowan University journalism lecturer Kayt Davies told Crikey the police have learned an embarrassing lesson from the raid. He said he hopes the MFS now knows “that the media yowls like a pack of angry watchdogs if you squeeze it and so it’s best to use whatever discretion you have up your sleeve and to leave it alone.”

The raid was captured by the Sunday Times website Perth Now's own cameras and posted on Youtube. There is an excellent spot of editing in the piece when a scene showing a policeman claiming the search will not be “intrusive” is immediately followed by a shot of another putting on what looks like surgical gloves!