Thursday, July 12, 2012

Murdoch's Contemptible "Offer" Revealed


The lid that Leveson has lifted on the press, & particularly the venal practices at News International, has been both illuminating & sickening for many observers. Long-held suspicions about the subterranean depths to which Murdoch's lackeys would stoop have been confirmed; celebrities & "civilians" have related their stories about press intrusion & a pattern has been possible to discern: of all the media groups, Murdoch's has been the by far the most brazen, Janus-faced & sociopathic.
However, it wasn't until today that the Leveson Inquiry turned its attention to an event which can be seen as a relatively early example of collusion between the police & Murdoch's rags, Hillsborough.
Margaret Aspinall, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, has submitted written evidence to the inquiry about the Sun's despicable "offer" to the group (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/12/1 ):
" 'The offer that was put to us...came with conditions: if we allowed the Sun to publish that we, the Hillsborough Family Support Group, accepted the Sun's apology then they, in return, would help us in any way they could get to the truth about Hillsborough, wrote Aspinall.' 
" 'They also said they would help us to perhaps build a sports centre for children in Liverpool, or anything else we might need,' she added."
This shamelessly offensive "offer" may well have been the bastard brainchild of disgraced & discredited Murdoch lieutenant Rebekah Brooks. As for their offer to "get to the truth about Hillsborough", we already know enough about what happened & the aftermath, in which that rag, as the Guardian article reports, claimed "that Liverpool fans had contributed to the deaths, urinated on the dead, pick-pocketed bodies and prevented police officers from giving the kiss of life to fans caught in the crush."
Leveson's remit wasn't intended to consider the Sun's lies about Hillsborough so Margaret Aspinall's written evidence is a welcome reminder of how a despicable rag conspired with South Yorkshire Police to cover up the force's failings, as identified in the Taylor Report, & libel the fans.  

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