* Ninety-six Liverpool fans died in stadium crush
* PM calls it UK's worst peacetime 20th century disaster
* Report says police tried to blame fans for crush
LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David
Cameron said on Wednesday he was "profoundly sorry" for failures
and cover-ups in the wake of the 1989 Hillsborough soccer
disaster in which 96 spectators died after a crowd crush in the
stadium.
He was speaking as an independent report found that police
at the time had scrambled to deflect the blame for Britain's
worst sporting disaster onto Liverpool soccer fans to cover up
their own flawed response.
The victims died in an overcrowded fenced-in enclosure at
the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, northern England, a
tragedy that changed the face of English soccer and ushered in a
new era of modern, all-seated stadiums.
Britain was shocked by harrowing images of young fans
crushed against metal fences, bodies lying on the pitch and
spectators using wooden advertising hoardings as makeshift
stretchers on a warm Spring afternoon.
The report, issued after a two-year investigation into the
deaths, said police had sought to blame the Liverpool fans,
portraying them as aggressive, drunk and ticketless and bent on
packing into the already crowded stadium.
"The tragedy should never have happened," the report's
authors said in a statement. "There were clear operational
failures in response to the disaster and in its aftermath there
were strenuous attempts to deflect the blame onto the fans."
Senior police edited their officers' witness statements from
the day to paint them in a less damaging light, the report said.
Their emergency response was flawed and badly organised.
REAL DANGER
While inquiries found hooliganism played no part in the
disaster, the police crowd management plan was preoccupied with
preventing disorder, the report said.
Liverpool fans had been tainted by the Heysel stadium
disaster in Belgium in 1985. Fighting inside that stadium led to
Juventus fans being crushed against a wall that collapsed. Six
Liverpool fans and 33 supporters of the Italian team died.
The real danger at Hillsborough lay in the emergency
services' poor planning and a stadium that failed to meet
minimum safety standards, the report said.
Its capacity was overstated and previous crushes at
Hillsborough had been ignored.
Speaking in parliament, Cameron called the disaster "one of
the greatest peacetime tragedies of the last century" and
acknowledged that the report would be harrowing for relatives of
the deceased.
"It was wrong that the families have had to wait for so long
- and fight so hard - just to get to the truth," he said. "And
it was wrong that the police changed the records of what
happened and tried to blame the fans."
"On behalf of the government, and indeed our country, I am
profoundly sorry for this double injustice that has been left
uncorrected for so long."
The disaster is still an open wound in Liverpool, the port
city of nearly half a million people that is passionate about
soccer and has fielded players like Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish
and Steven Gerrard.
FAMILIES INCENSED
All the victims during the FA Cup semi-final between
Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, held at the neutral ground of
Sheffield Wednesday, were Liverpool supporters.
The press secretary of then Conservative prime minister
Margaret Thatcher incensed families by blaming the disaster on a
"tanked-up mob".
The report found no reason for the coroner's decision to
take blood alcohol samples from all of the victims, including
children.
"The pattern of alcohol consumption among those who died was
unremarkable," the report said. "The weight placed on alcohol
levels was... inappropriate and misleading."
The disaster was also one of the low points for Rupert
Murdoch's British newspaper group, currently reeling from a
phone hacking scandal that has led to criminal charges against
former senior executives and reporters.
Many in Liverpool still boycott Murdoch's newspapers after
the top-selling Sun accused their fans of stealing from the
dying, urinating on policemen and beating up an officer giving
the kiss of life. The newspaper's executives have since
apologised for the story.
The youngest victim, 10-year-old Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the
cousin of the current England and Liverpool captain Gerrard.
The Hillsborough Independent Panel, headed by the Bishop of
Liverpool the Right Reverend James Jones, was set up by the last
government in 2010 to oversee the release of thousands of
previously unseen documents related to the incident.