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27th Apr 2016

Fans are furious over ‘The Sun’ and ‘The Times’ front pages after the Hillsborough verdict

They've branded it 'disgraceful'...

Ben Kenyon

It has taken 27 years for justice to be done.

The families of the 96 Liverpool fans killed at Hillsborough on that dark day in April 1989 have fought relentlessly for the truth.

They always knew what really happened that day.  But the darkest of conspiracies – cooked up by police and the elements in the media to smear and blacken the name of fans killed and injured in the pens of the Leppings Lane End – clouded the facts.

Yesterday, finally, a verdict of unlawful killing was returned at the Hillsborough inquest after two years of evidence: the police were at fault and fan behaviour did not contribute to the disaster.

This landmark verdict and what it means for families, fans and the whole British establishment is huge news.

It was splashed across every newspaper front page in the land from the Liverpool Echo to the Daily Mirror.

But there were two glaring exceptions that did not have this most historic judicial decisions on the front cover of their publications.

‘The Sun’ and ‘The Times’. There’s not even a mention of Hillsborough on either.

It’s significant because the Rupert Murdoch-owned ‘Sun; newspaper is infamous on Merseyside for running another front page about Hillsborough 27 years ago.

Editor at the time Kelvin MacKenzie ran with the headline ‘The Truth’ underscored with baseless allegations that fans urinated on police, pick-pocketed dead victims and prevented police giving the kiss of life to some of the victims at Hillsborough.

The tabloid has since apologised, with a front page in 2012 entitled ‘The Real Truth’, but Merseyside will never forgive ‘The Sun’ for smearing dead and injured Liverpool fans.

But with the Hillsborough verdict vindicating fans after all these year, you’d imagine it might be apt for the NewsUK title to finally give the families of the dead some justice.

Yet instead of giving the story a front page billing, there’s just a small editorial piece tucked away on page 10:

https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/725211525057798144

This is how it was justified on television…

‘Metro’ newspaper referenced the ‘Sun’s’ notorious front page with its splash this morning:

Long-time Merseyside football writer at ‘The Times’, Tony Barrett, appeared stunned at the editorial decision of the Murdoch papers to largely ignore the story:

But if Barrett reacted with shock, fans on Twitter reacted with fury…

https://twitter.com/richinnorthants/status/725099711116500992

https://twitter.com/_lfcjoel/status/725077759765155840

https://twitter.com/ianprior/status/724926616837742599

https://twitter.com/Sonjamclaughlan/status/725081380498104320