BRIAN READEL 'I saw the horror at Hillsborough 36 years ago – Starmer move is an insult'

IT’S that time of year when I get a dull pain in the heart as my mind drifts back to a dark place. On Tuesday, it will be 36 years since I walked through the opened Leppings Lane gate at and into Britain’s worst ever sporting disaster.

Unlike 97 fellow football fans, I survived, and, being a journalist, was able to write, that night, a cathartic article unleashing my torment and anger.

And even though it was only hours after I’d left the death scene, the main target of my rage was the contempt towards fans shown by authorities, later proven to be the root cause of the disaster, and the police cover-up which had already begun. That 31-year-old me never envisaged that in my mid-60s I’d still be writing about that dark day.

The pain should have receded by now, especially after an inquest found that every fan was unlawfully killed due to gross ­negligence by police who later lied and doctored evidence, and, in 2012, PM told the Commons he was “profoundly sorry that this double injustice has been left uncorrected for so long”.

But the pain hasn’t receded because with no individual held legally responsible for the deaths, the British state has refused to assuage it. Choosing instead to cover its own backside.

Take the latest fudging over ­introducing a Hillsborough Law, which, it is hoped, would guard against future cover-ups by imposing a legal “duty of candour” on public authorities and giving bereaved families equality of funding.

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vowed to introduce the law in Labour’s general election manifesto and last year pledged to bring it to parliament before Tuesday’s Hillsborough anniversary. Not just as a testament to the 97 but the victims of other perceived injustices such as , the and nuclear testing.

Yet, thanks to the government attempting to water down key sections of the law, which families cannot accept, that promise has been broken. And Starmer has not met with them to explain why. As it stands, the law would merely ask public authorities to sign up to a charter without any legal enforcement and there would be no provision of equal funding. It means police officers who lied in 1989, could do so again, and still get away with it.

The government denies jettisoning the Hillsborough Law, asking for more time to get the legislation right. They really have to. Not just because we need a ­mechanism for the powerless to gain justice but as a last chance to honour the memory of 97 souls who for decades were dishonoured by an Establishment that repeatedly kicked the bereaved families in the teeth.

Through relentless campaigning those families have shone a light on the inner workings of the British state and exposed corruption at its core. That in itself has earned them the right to see a much-needed levelling-up of justice in memory of their loved ones.

To not introduce a Hillsborough Law in full, after pledging to do so, would be to accept the narrative that those without a voice will never be heard in Britain because those at the top will not allow it.

For a Labour government, led by a former head of public prosecutions, to accept such a scenario, would be unforgivable. Because giving a voice to the voiceless is the very thing the party was set up for.

Please, don’t let them down.

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