Liverpool City Council awards Freedom of the City posthumously to the 96 killed at Hillsborough
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Above is video of the special meeting of Liverpool City Council held on the 25th May 2016 where Freedom of the City was awarded posthumously to the 96 people who died as a result of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. The reason for awarding them Freedom of the City was described as, “To recognise the place of the 96 Hillsborough victims in the history of the City of Liverpool, who went to a football match, but never returned.”
Liverpool City Council also awarded Freedom of the City to four others involved with the campaigning to see justice and/or support to the families of the 96 unlawfully killed. These people were Kenny Dalglish MBE, Marina Dalglish MBE, The Right Reverend Bishop James Jones and Professor Phil Scraton.
Each of the names of the ninety-six who died were read out individually at the meeting and politicians also gave speeches about the issue of Hillsborough and the reason behind the awards.
The BBC were also present at the meeting and the award of Freedom of the City to these people was mentioned in the evening regional TV news bulletin North West tonight.
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Does anyone know why it took the institutions and the officials involved 27 years to bestow this freedom?
The short answer is because councillors decide on it and in the last 27 years Liverpool City Council hadn’t decided to do it.
However I suspect that the recent unlawful killing verdict at the inquest and large numbers of the public at St Georges Hall about the issue led to calls for some kind of response by Liverpool City Council. That’s just an educated guess though.
Basket case institutions need to be bounced into such things, with PR considerations and their own reputation sweeping all before them.
You’ve no idea the hastle we had just even getting into the meeting room before the meeting started.
First we were told we could film from our usual location.
Then we were told we weren’t.
We were told we’d be “lucky” if we got chairs.
We were refused filming from our usual spot (two pieces of paper with reserved on but nobody sitting on it had to be there for two whole public meetings). Apparently the “Lord Mayor’s family” had to sit there (but must’ve been invisible or sitting elsewhere!). We were ushered to an area as far away as possible from what we were filming (just as well I have a zoom) and then part way the meeting they opened a nearby window to reduce sound quality.
However the BBC (also filming the meeting) weren’t subject to such restrictions.
They got access to the meeting room before us (as did the Liverpool Echo) and got to film from where they wanted.