Sun editor ‘a pariah’ over Hillsborough, says MPs

MEMBERS of Parliament rounded on former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie last night as they debated the release of documents about the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives during a crush at an FA Cup semi-final in 1989.
 
The parliamentary debate was the first to be prompted by the government's e-petitions website, where 140,000 signed a petition calling for the papers to be made public. Home Secretary Theresa May said she supported the release of the documents through an independent panel.
 
MP Steve Rotheram, whose constituency includes Liverpool's home ground, Anfield, read out the names of all 96 victims and said David Cameron should apologise to their families, just as he had to the victims of Bloody Sunday.
 
He said "smears" and an "establishment cover-up" had led to fans being blamed for the tragedy. He then launched a scathing attack on MacKenzie and the "malicious" reports about the tragedy carried at the time by the Sun.
 
The paper is still boycotted by many in Liverpool over its coverage. In the aftermath of the tragedy the paper claimed, in an article headlined 'The Truth', that drunken, ticketless fans had forced their way into the Leppings Lane end of the ground and caused the crush. It went on to say that Liverpool fans had stolen from the dead, attacked the emergency services and urinated on police.
 
Rotheram said of MacKenzie, who was the editor of the paper at the time: "It beggars belief that certain sections of the media still give air time to this most despicable of men to air his bile and mendacity."
 
He described MacKenzie as a "pariah", a suggestion that was backed up by David Watts, Labour MP for St Helens North, who urged media organisations not to hire the former Sun man until he had apologised for his role in the coverage.
 
Another Labour MP, Stephen Twigg, demanded that News International as well as MacKenzie should apologise.
 
Mackenzie became a trending topic on Twitter as fans following the debate also turned on him. Former deputy prime minister John Prescott demanded that the BBC "should now boycott using & paying Kelvin MacKenzie for any of its programmes".
 
Many well known Liverpudlians including footballers Michael Owen and Joey Barton tweeted their support of the debate and the decision to release the documents. ·