NeverOffside
1st December 2006, 09:05 AM
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0500liverpoolfc/0100news/tm_headline=ex%2Dsun-editor%2D-i-was-right-on-hillsborough%26method=full%26objectid=18190786%26s iteid=50061-name_page.html
Ex-Sun editor: I was right on Hillsborough
Dec 1 2006
Exclusive By Sam Lister Daily Post Staff
FORMER Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie yesterday revealed "I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" for the paper's infamous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
Speaking at a business lunch, he told more than 100 guests he had only apologised to the people of Liverpool because the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch had ordered him to.
And he insisted the Sun had only been reporting "the truth" when it accused Liverpool fans caught in the terrace crush of urinating on the dead and stealing from bodies. Mr MacKenzie was guest speaker at the annual lunch of Newcastle law firm Mincoffs LLP.
A source told the Daily Post: "There was a question and answer session and someone asked him if he went to Liverpool much.
"He said: 'All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster.
'The only thing different we did was put it under the headline 'The Truth'.
'I went on the World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth.' "
The source added: "He then compared people in the city to animal rights protesters and told an anecdote about a time when he visited the city and got in a taxi.
"He said the driver was talking about The Sun and said if he ever had Kelvin McKenzie in his taxi he would kill him.
"Then he said if the things he had said today got out he was sure the whole thing would blow up again."
Last night, families of the 96 victims, Liverpool FC and politicians condemned Mr MacKenzie.
The head of the Hillsborough Family Support Group branded the comments callous and challenged him to repeat them to him face to face.
Phil Hammond, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 14-year-old son died in the tragedy, said: "This just shows what kind of man he is.
"It has been proven that the story was a pack of lies yet here is all these years later peddling his lies on the after-dinner speaking circuit.
"Why doesn't he come and tell the families this to their faces?
"If he really believed he was printing the truth and stood by what he said then why didn't he walk away when Rupert Murdoch supposedly made him make this apology?"
A spokesman for Liverpool FC said: "Any comment of that nature would be totally inappropriate and hugely disappointing." Liverpool FC were playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final at the South Yorkshire stadium in 1989.
Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry into the tragedy found the cause of the disaster was overcrowding and failures by the police.
The Sun apologised in July 2004 saying it was "truly sorry" and that its false allegations were "the most terrible mistake in its history."
But families of the victims refused to accept the apology, which was issued in the wake of the angry reaction on Merseyside caused by Everton and England soccer star Wayne Rooney's deal to tell his life story to the newspaper, for a reported £250,000.
He returned to The Sun to work as a columnist from May, 2006, and is also current boss of the Wireless Group.
Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle said: "His comments just reinforce the fact that he was an unfit person to run a national newspaper.
"Everybody knows he sanctioned that story and he will have to live with that."
Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "I think it is outrageous.
"It shows that when prejudice is deeply ingrained it is very difficult to remove.
"All the facts, including the official inquiry, are against him. It is disgraceful."
Ex-Sun editor: I was right on Hillsborough
Dec 1 2006
Exclusive By Sam Lister Daily Post Staff
FORMER Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie yesterday revealed "I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" for the paper's infamous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
Speaking at a business lunch, he told more than 100 guests he had only apologised to the people of Liverpool because the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch had ordered him to.
And he insisted the Sun had only been reporting "the truth" when it accused Liverpool fans caught in the terrace crush of urinating on the dead and stealing from bodies. Mr MacKenzie was guest speaker at the annual lunch of Newcastle law firm Mincoffs LLP.
A source told the Daily Post: "There was a question and answer session and someone asked him if he went to Liverpool much.
"He said: 'All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster.
'The only thing different we did was put it under the headline 'The Truth'.
'I went on the World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth.' "
The source added: "He then compared people in the city to animal rights protesters and told an anecdote about a time when he visited the city and got in a taxi.
"He said the driver was talking about The Sun and said if he ever had Kelvin McKenzie in his taxi he would kill him.
"Then he said if the things he had said today got out he was sure the whole thing would blow up again."
Last night, families of the 96 victims, Liverpool FC and politicians condemned Mr MacKenzie.
The head of the Hillsborough Family Support Group branded the comments callous and challenged him to repeat them to him face to face.
Phil Hammond, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 14-year-old son died in the tragedy, said: "This just shows what kind of man he is.
"It has been proven that the story was a pack of lies yet here is all these years later peddling his lies on the after-dinner speaking circuit.
"Why doesn't he come and tell the families this to their faces?
"If he really believed he was printing the truth and stood by what he said then why didn't he walk away when Rupert Murdoch supposedly made him make this apology?"
A spokesman for Liverpool FC said: "Any comment of that nature would be totally inappropriate and hugely disappointing." Liverpool FC were playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final at the South Yorkshire stadium in 1989.
Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry into the tragedy found the cause of the disaster was overcrowding and failures by the police.
The Sun apologised in July 2004 saying it was "truly sorry" and that its false allegations were "the most terrible mistake in its history."
But families of the victims refused to accept the apology, which was issued in the wake of the angry reaction on Merseyside caused by Everton and England soccer star Wayne Rooney's deal to tell his life story to the newspaper, for a reported £250,000.
He returned to The Sun to work as a columnist from May, 2006, and is also current boss of the Wireless Group.
Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle said: "His comments just reinforce the fact that he was an unfit person to run a national newspaper.
"Everybody knows he sanctioned that story and he will have to live with that."
Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "I think it is outrageous.
"It shows that when prejudice is deeply ingrained it is very difficult to remove.
"All the facts, including the official inquiry, are against him. It is disgraceful."