Hillsborough...

So i heard on the radio this morning, someone saying that despite the acquittal of the police officer ultimately responsible for public safety on the occasion of the Hillsborough disaster - "lessons needed to be learned"...

sorry, what?!

Hillsborough, Grenfell, the Titanic, the Victoria Hall Disaster... how many other avoidable mass casualty incidents?

Situations like these are well past the time for 'lessons learned'; why are we not applying 'strict liability' in such cases? This shouldn't be a matter of trial, inquest, or enquiry - named individuals should have a defined duty of care and should be held criminally responsible when serious harm or death occurs, without exception and in a timely manner.

What example are we giving to business operators and persons in positions of public reposibility - that they can get away with something as near as, if not in name, murder?
As much as some quarters may like to criticise certain states' governments, i'm fairly sure i know how China or North Korea would dispose of such 'traitors' as David Duckenfield et al.

The owners of Hillsborough (and Grenfell, and the Titanic...), the police, and the FA, were in charge of ensuring public safety at an event they held, advertised, promoted, regulated, and inspected - - - people died as a result of their actions and inactions... in the absence of justifiable excuse they should of all have been sentenced to life imprisonment (if not death) within weeks of the event.

It’s a complicated topic, and I think hinges on the concepts of hindsight being 20/20 and that humans aren’t infallible. Car accidents still happen, toddlers drown in toilets, etc... We haven’t managed to eliminate risk from existence, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

As for culpability, I really think you have to look for whether or not malicious intent or gross/intentional negligence was present. Did the captain of the Titanic intend to hit the iceberg? Did the designers of the ship intend for a certain portion of passengers to drown given the number of lifeboats?

Looking at the issue of lifeboats on the Titanic, for example, seems perfectly reasonable without the benefit of hindsight. The number of them was to shuttle passengers to a rescue craft, not to carry the entire manifest at once.

Too often the mob clamors for someone’s head.

Problem is that in the cases mentioned numerous significant omissions in duty of care and oversight led to otherwise avoidable harm - inevitably, in such cases, heads really must roll.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dneal

It’s a complicated topic, and I think hinges on the concepts of hindsight being 20/20 and that humans aren’t infallible.

---

Yes, but what you think doesn't matter. What does are the facts. In the case of Grenfell, the evidence seems to be that the supplier knowingly provided unsafe materials. This has nothing to do with "hindsight." By definition. (If you don't understand why, consult a dictionary...) As for Hillsborough, the case was based on the officer in charge ignoring evidence in front of his eyes - again, nothing to with hindsight or "infallibility".

You seem to have a bizarre habit of mistaking cliche and strawmen for genius. No one needs telling that human beings aren't infallible and that hindsight reveals sometimes reveals things that couldn't have been expected! That doesn't mean that these are relevant factors to these cases because eg

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51279906

In an internal email sent in March 2015, Daniel Anketell-Jones, a technical manager at the cladding design company Harley, said the aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding "will be gone rather quickly in a fire!"

In another email, Terry Ashton, from the fire consultants Exova, accepted the zinc cladding being considered at the time would fail if there were external flames.

In response, Neil Crawford, from the architect firm Studio E said that "metal cladding always burns and falls off".

To dumb this down all the way, if know something is likely to kill people in advance and then it kills people, you can't then use "But we only know this with hindsight!" as an excuse...

I am ashamed to be from the same country as this man, really ashamed.

I’ve finally got a creepy internet stalker. Woot!