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Kelvin Mackenzie apologises for The Sun's Hillsborough headline and admits 'The Truth' was lies

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

September 12, 2012 | 2 min read

Former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie has today apologised for writing 'The Truth' headline which wrongly blamed Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough tragedy.

Mackenzie's apology for The Sun's coverage came on the day that an independent panel published its findings that the main cause of the disaster was a "failure in police control".

Under the front page headline 'The Truth', The Sun published a series of unfounded allegations against Liverpool supporters which Mackenzie today admitted would have been more appropriate under the headline 'The Lies'. The tabloid's reputation in the city has never recovered.

In a statement, Mackenzie said: "Today I offer my profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool for that headline. I too was totally misled. Twenty three ago I was handed a piece of copy from a reputable news agency in Sheffield in which a senior police officer and a senior local MP were making serious allegations against fans in the stadium. I had absolutely no reason to believe that these authority figures would lie and deceive over such a disaster.

"As the Prime Minister has made clear these allegations were wholly untrue and were part of a concerted plot by police officers to discredit the supporters thereby shifting the blame for the tragedy from themselves.

"It has taken more than two decades, 400,000 documents and a two-year inquiry to discover to my horror that it would have been far more accurate had I written the headline The Lies rather than The Truth. I published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong."

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