MacKenzie apologises for headline (From Thurrock Gazette)
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MacKenzie apologises for headline
6:36pm Wednesday 12th September 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun, has offered his 'profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool'
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie who wrote the headline The Truth has offered his "profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool for that headline".
The Sun's front-page four days after the tragedy included claims Liverpool fans had urinated on police officers resuscitating the dying and stolen from the dead and caused widespread revulsion in the city and led to an almost-total boycott of the paper on Merseyside that exists to this day.
But the apology was rejected by Trevor Hicks, of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, who said it was "too little, too late" and calling him "lowlife, clever lowlife, but lowlife".
Mr MacKenzie said: "Twenty-three years 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, 400,00 documents and a two-year inquiry to discover to my horror that it would have 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."
Later, the current editor of The Sun apologised for his newspaper's role in the Hillsborough tragedy cover-up.
Dominic Mohan said: "Twenty-three years ago The Sun newspaper made a terrible mistake. We published an inaccurate and offensive story about the events at Hillsborough. We said it was the truth - it wasn't.
"The Hillsborough Independent Panel has now established what really happened that day. It's an appalling story and at the heart of it are the police's attempts to smear Liverpool fans. It's a version of events that 23 years ago The Sun went along with and for that we're deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry."
