Hillsborough: The Treble Injustice

When the Hillsborough Independent Panel report came out the Prime Minister admitted the families had suffered 'a double injustice'; the disaster itself, and the smears and cover up from police.

Today in parliament Steve Rotheram MP says there was a triple injustice - families were also spied upon by undercover police. Families report phone taps and break-ins without robbery. He plainly asked the Home Secretary Theresa May to confirm the spying didn't happen. She dodged it.

Theresa May also said it was 'extremely unfortunate' that police forces didn't give all Hillsborough material to the Independent Panel as they had promised to do. The "Independent" Police Complaints Commission has already recovered 2,500 South Yorkshire police pocket notebooks not available to previous investigations. Thirteen officers have refused to be interviewed by the IPCC and two have not replied.

We know that the secret police sought to protect society from threats. They did not distinguish between a  threat to life and limb, a threat to public order, a threat to corporate profit or a threat police credibility. They put officers into numerous black justice campaigns to deny justice, not just that of Stephen Lawrence's family.

Those campaigns sought to do was expose the police for what they actually were; institutionally corrupt and concerned with protecting their reputation more than admitting wrongdoing, providing answers to those who deserved them and allowing justice. Spying on the Hillsborough families fits squarely into that remit. Today, nearly 25 years on, that injustice continues. 
 
This is yet another strand that need to be included in the one all-encompassing, trusted and truly independent inquiry into the undercover policing scandal.