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A RETIRED police officers’ group has sparked fury after it claimed that members of the South Yorkshire force “did a good job” in the 1980s — just days after a damning verdict was handed down over its handling of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
Inquests into the tragedy which concluded this week found that errors by South Yorkshire police contributed to the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans at a Liverpool v Nottingham Forest FA Cup semi-final — and they then tried to cover up those mistakes and smear the victims instead.
But in a message, apparently accidentally posted on the organisation’s website, National Association of Retired Police Officers (Narpo) South Yorkshire branch secretary said ex-officers acted with “dignity” despite “bile and hatred.”
In a message entitled “It was a bad day” Mr Naylor, who was one of the officers policing at Hillsborough that day, wrote: “After all that transpired yesterday it has not shaken my belief — I worked in a great police force with fantastic people who did extraordinary things.”
“Mistakes were made,” he said, “but beyond these headlines the communities of South Yorkshire were served by dedicated police officers, full of good humour, courage, and selflessness — and that was you.
“You will be feeling sore, angry and disheartened and that is understandable but you did a good job — we all did!”
Labour MP for Liverpool Walton Steve Rotheram slammed the comments, saying: “It’s totally insensitive. For families — for them at long last to have some faith in the British judicial system and that the police had changed and that things were different — it feeds that ‘us versus them’ and we thought we’d put a line under that.
“I don’t think there was bile and hatred towards police officers, I think the bile and hatred was one way and that was towards Liverpool fans and some of that was a direct consequence of the police being part of an orchestrated cover-up.”
Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher died in the tragedy, told the BBC: “They didn’t do a good job. Yes, I saw police officers endeavouring to give mouth-to-mouth or CPR and those people were excellent.
“But the sad thing is they were only a few, maybe on two hands you could count them.”
