Corporate or State Crime: The Hillborouh Disaster

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Corporate crime (state crimes) are invisible, they are either not persecuted or not seen as crime, this is because the state have the power to criminalize or decriminalize acts . The Hillsborough disaster is one of the most serious crimes in the UK which was not seen as a crime but rather labelled as an accidental death. This essay will present the facts and highlight the various legal issues with regards to the Hillsborough disaster that took place on 15 April 1989. It will first of all state the facts of the event, engaging the international human rights provision, domestic legislation and will further analyse the access to justice doctrine as regards to the Hillsborough case.

In April 1989, ninety-six persons including men, women and children died in a serious crush during an FA cup semi- final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest that was held in Hillsborough stadium, Sheffield. In the instantaneous aftermath there was a quick rush to inquire the circumstances and cause of the crush. Lord Justice Taylor was appointed by the government to carry out a judicial inquest. There were no criminal prosecutions that occurred, so the outcome of the inquest was concluded as an ‘accidental death’ . The authorities in charge immediately declared that the violent, and drunken fans had brought about the crush that occurred. The account by survivors disclosed a different story which blamed the dangerous state of the stadium, careless policing, inadequate protection, wrong process in the inquiry and investigation and the breakdown of the emergency feedback .The deceased families believed that the series of actions to achieve result that led to the law judgment was inadequate and gave decree to further investigation which was only achievab...

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... death (as in the case of Hillsborough).In addition to this, section 4 (2) of same act also state that the Senior Coroner is required as part of the investigation to hold an Inquest into the deaths of victims if the result of the death was unknown and unnatural.

Moving further, section 13(2) of Coroners Act 1988 gave a provision of quash of a verdict and according to the Hillsborough story the verdict of accidental death was quashed and this was only done in respect to this section if it was found out that there were inadequacy in taking all evidence into account. In same section, a fresh inquest is required if the previous inquest was based on investigation which is consider to have been led in light of Section 13 of the Coroners 1988 and it was thought to have discover that there was failure of all evidence in the investigation procedure.

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