Hillsborough: Liverpool anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ poised to top charts

THE Liverpool anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone was on the verge of topping the iTunes singles chart last night following a campaign by supporters in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disclosures.

The damning Hillsborough Independent Panel report, which was released last week, said a cover-up took place to shift the blame from bungling police and emergency services on to the 96 innocent victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

The report also said that 41 of the 96 lives lost at Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium on 15 April, 1989, could have been saved.

Now Liverpool fans are trying to get their football club’s anthem to number one in the charts to “send a message” to the nation. The campaign was sparked on Twitter by Liverpool Walton MP Steve Rotheram.

He tweeted on Friday: “People have asked what they can do now. If you download You’ll Never Walk Alone, it will send a message to the rest of the Country!”

The Hillsborough panel found 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter “unfavourable” comments about the policing of the match and the disaster.

South Yorkshire Police, which still employs 195 officers on duty at the ground on the day of the tragedy, said the force would refer itself to police watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Chief Constable David Crompton said South Yorkshire Police would consider asking the IPCC whether those officers involved in the Hillsborough tragedy should face manslaughter investigations.

West Yorkshire Police Authority’s special committee has also referred a complaint against their chief constable, Sir Norman Bettison, to the IPCC.

Sir Norman – who was an off-duty South Yorkshire Police inspector when he attended the game and was involved in an internal inquiry after the match – was forced to apologise on Friday for any upset caused by his statement that Liverpool fans’ behaviour made policing at the Hillsborough tragedy “harder than it needed to be”.