Liverpool FC Forum

by **mottman** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 12:33 am

What happened next?

Sarah Sims
Sunday November 23, 2003
The Observer

Name: Peter Carney
Date: 15 April 1989
Place: Hillsborough, Sheffield

Facts: Peter Carney narrowly avoided being crushed to death during the Hillsborough disaster, when 96 Liverpool fans were killed at the start of their FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. He now runs a campaign to bring justice for the survivors and the bereaved.
All my life I've been an avid Liverpool fan. My wife, Tina, had discovered she was pregnant about 10 days before the Hillsborough disaster and I was about to turn 30. On the day of the match it was beautifully bright and sunny and the stadium was a full house - around 40,000 fans. Our group of five split up, so just two of us headed for pen three, on the Leppings Lane end.

As we shuffled into the pitch-black, 8ft-wide tunnel there was a huge surge, and where the ground suddenly gave way to a steep slope everyone fell forward. The force was so great I entered the stadium with my back facing it. The pen was jam-packed with people. As I turned round to find my feet, there was another huge surge, and another, then everyone around me fell to the ground and people started screaming.

The game had just started, but a dangerous situation was developing. I could feel myself being crushed as the crowds grew more dense. I couldn't raise my arms and my feet could barely touch the floor; then my chest felt very tight, as I found it hard to breathe. The people at the front were screaming at the police to let them out and I joined in, yelling at the top of my voice, but they ignored us. I saw one man trying to climb over the fence, only to be pushed back by the police.

I felt terrified. I gave up screaming for help, trying to conserve what air I had left in my lungs. Then I lost the blood supply to my legs, which went numb: I couldn't feel anything waist downwards. All the pressure was on my chest. I tilted my head back and up to find air and saw the man beside me dying, his face changing colour. As I struggled to breathe, I thought I was about to die. I remember looking higher and higher up, towards the sky and the clouds. I had an out-of-body experience on a cloud, watching myself being crushed. Then everything went black.

I think I was passed back face down over the top of the crowd. I have a sensation of my chest being thumped by hands. I came round at the back of the stadium by the turnstiles, next to a dead man with his jacket draped over his head. When I was told that 93 had died I felt totally dumbstruck. The final death toll was 96.

The near-death experience at Hillsborough became a pivotal part of my life and nothing felt normal any more. I went back to the stadium five times to pay tribute to the dead, acutely aware of surviving an almighty threat to my existence. I convinced myself it was Tina having my baby that had kept me alive. It took me months to sleep properly at night and I was on sick leave for six months from my job as a children's supervisor. Sometimes I would lose my temper for no reason, or cry incessantly.

I started attending a survivor's group each week. When my son Thomas was born, he was such a good focus; I felt I could work again. In the months following the disaster it became clear that the police planning of the match was a total cockup. The club had no safety certificate either, and the engineers had miscalculated the amount of people able to stand safely in the pens - so over 10,000 fans were herded into just two pens, instead of four. There were two inquests, the second of which was the longest ever recorded in British judicial history. Sandwiched in between was the Taylor inquiry. When the Taylor report came out, there was an outcry about a sentence which talked about a 'failure of control' by senior police officers, but no prosecutions were called for at the time.

When Labour came to power they instituted a scrutiny of all the evidence from previous inquiries, along with any new evidence. But when the presiding judge, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, arrived in Liverpool and said, 'I hope the families don't turn up late like the fans did,' our confidence plummeted. Everyone hoped for justice. But we didn't get it. Even the private prosecution instigated by the bereaved families against two senior policemen for unlawful killing and wilful neglect was a farce.

The evidence given by Dr Ed Walker at the Stuart-Smith inquiry was enormously helpful to me, because he described exactly what it had felt like, and people could now understand what I'd been through. It also proved the inquiry's decision that all of the victims were braindead by 3.15pm - which had cleared the authorities at the stadium of any failure of duty - was incorrect. But Stuart-Smith ignored it.

I've never been back to the stadium to watch a match. A few years ago I helped form the Hillsborough Justice Campaign with other survivors and bereaved families. We hold weekly meetings, discussing new developments that could challenge the inquiry verdicts. Survivors are still coming forward with new evidence; some, however, have committed suicide.

I've spent years trying to piece together how I survived Hillsborough. It always shocks me how on earth I got out, and the experience of it is still with me every day. Hillsborough turned my world inside out, upside down and back to front. Whenever I walk into a room, I have the exit already marked out.

http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/home.shtm

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