In a few weeks’ time, a couple I have been friends with for the best part of 20 years will be holding a bat mitzvah for their daughter. Anyone who knows even a little about Judaism will know the importance of the event: a celebration for a girl reaching 12, and a great excuse for a great party for friends and families. I would love to have gone but I won’t be there. You see: it’s in Liverpool. And I knew from the emails over the past 23 years and from the anonymous keyboard warriors of Twitter that were I to be seen in the city I would literally be in mortal danger. I am not exaggerating.
So how did I end up being such a hate figure for a city and a club that I (and the paper I edited) had nothing but warm thoughts about prior to that ghastly day at Hillsborough in April 1989? The trap was sprung on me when I was handed copy from a reputable news agency, Whites of Sheffield. Its story made astonishing allegations claiming Liverpool fans had pickpocketed the dead and urinated on the police as the appalling tragedy on the terraces unfolded.
Was it credible? The news agency made clear that the story was sourced from not one but four senior officers from South Yorkshire Police, and corroborated by a South Yorkshire chief ambulance officer. The final proof that the story was copper-bottomed was that Irvine Patnick, a prominent and respectable local Conservative MP, supported the police’s version of events — even revealing that he had visited officers after the deaths of the 96 fans and one had approached asking whether he wanted to know ‘the truth’.
I believed it, and not out of naivety. At the age of 43, I was already an experienced journalist.
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