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Police officers of Hillsborough disaster have received 30 times more compensation than the families of victims (17 September 2012)

Date: 17/09/2012
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Police officers of Hillsborough disaster have received 30 times more compensation than the families of victims

A damning report revealed a cover up in the Hillsborough disaster having taken place where the police shifted the blamed on to the victims and that half of the victims who lost their lives could have been saved.
The panel found 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter 'unfavourable' comments about the policing of the match and the unfolding disaster.
It was a shocking revelation to the families of the victims who have always believed and insisted that it was the omissions and commissions of that authority that caused the deaths at the Hillsborough in April 15, 1989.
But there was more heartburn awaiting the families of the victims who had to endure shocking news that the police officers had received more than £90,000 in compensation on average, while families of children killed in the tragedy had received on an average only £3,500.
The average payout for officers was £93,000, 30 times the statutory level of compensation received by parents whose children were among the 96 Liverpool supporters crushed to death at the football stadium in Sheffield in 1989.
The shocking imbalance - revealed in papers published this week by the Hillsborough Independent Panel - has caused more upset to families who waited 23 years for justice after details of the disaster were covered up by police.
Families of the victims vented their as it emerged that 16 officers received payments totalling £1.5million in the aftermath of the event.
Mr Hicks, president of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), told the People that many who lost their family members had received nothing. Yet large amounts were awarded to people who perhaps shouldn't have taken jobs in the first place.
It was not fair and equitable but double standards he said. Some of the bereaved claim they received as little as £1,000.
The panel's report stated, in cases where children were victims their parents received no more than the statutory bereavement allowance of £3,500 and funeral expenses. Cases that concerned the death of adults survived by dependants resulted in higher payments.
Reviews have been ordered by police authorities in West Yorkshire, into the actions of Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison, who was a senior South Yorkshire officer at the time, and West Midlands, which conducted an investigation into the disaster. South Yorkshire Police said the force would refer itself to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The HFSG which met for the first time since the report's publication would decide discuss the next step in its campaign for justice for the victims.
High-profile lawyers for the campaign were due to appear at the meeting at Liverpool's Anfield stadium via an internet video link. Mrs Margaret Aspinall, who chairs the group, said the group was going to take legal advice to find out the next course of action.
The HFSG was now looking at three particular avenues to follow up by urging the attorney general to apply for new inquests, demanding full and immediate investigations into criminal prosecutions and, where appropriate, applying for civil proceedings to be reopened.

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