UK Report: Still Nothing Found In Ongoing Masonic Witch Hunt, But Will Continue

The never-ending British pearl-clutching over Masonic membership among English police officers continues unabated. No matter how many times this topic has been raised, and no matter how many government investigations, time and time again, have uncovered absolutely no evidence of presumably "dodgy" Masonic cops and judges engaging in untoward behavior of any kind, the accusation and distrust persists.

Case in point: A coroner's inquest case in England was decided back in April by a jury, some 27 years after 96  football fans were crushed to death during the FA Cup semi-final match at Sheffield Wednesday stadium in Hillsborough on April 15th, 1989. 

The inquest is believed to have been the longest in that country's history, lasting more than 300 days, and held in a specially built courtroom. The terrible tragedy has been investigated several times over the years, and the verdict finally and officially put the blame for the disaster largely on the local police and ambulance services.

But as a result of the continued, unfounded insistence of the family members of the victims, since 2013 an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been investigating whether the purported Masonic membership of police officers involved at the time - almost 30 years ago - had anything to do with a supposed coverup of internal activities in the local police department associated with the Hillsborough events. 

From the Guardian on Thursday:

Hillsborough disaster: IPCC investigates potential Freemason link

Police watchdog is investigating whether Freemason membership influenced decision-making over 1989 disaster

The police watchdog is pursuing a “further line of inquiry” over whether Freemason membership influenced decision-making over the Hillsborough disaster.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), as part of its overall investigation into alleged criminality and misconduct, has been examining concerns from the families of the 96 victims over Freemason membership.

The United Grand Lodge of England has already provided information including historical attendance records of meetings.

In her latest update on its criminal investigation, the IPCC deputy chair, Rachel Cerfontyne, said: “We are pursuing a further line of inquiry on Freemasons. We are currently liaising with the United Grand Lodge of England, and they are assisting us by checking whether certain individuals involved in Hillsborough were Freemason members.”

The overall match commander, Ch Supt David Duckenfield, told the fresh inquests into the 96 deaths that he had been a Freemason since 1975 and became a worshipful master – head of his local lodge – the year after the 1989 disaster.

He said he did not know if his promotion within South Yorkshire police in the weeks before the tragedy was influenced by his membership of the “secret society” but added: “I would hope not.”

His predecessor, Brian Mole, now dead, had also been a member of the same lodge, jurors were told.

The hearings in Warrington also heard evidence from a police constable who said he heard “a substantial meeting” of senior officers took place in the days after the disaster and it was rumoured most of those attending were Masons.

The coroner, Sir John Goldring, later warned the jury there was “not a shred of evidence” that such a meeting ever took place or that all of those named were Freemasons, and advised them to treat it as “gossip”.

In April, the inquest’s jury concluded the 96 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed and that blunders by South Yorkshire police “caused or contributed to” the disaster at Sheffield Wednesday FC’s stadium.

The IPCC is looking at whether offences such as conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice were committed in the aftermath of the disaster.

How many times must this idiotic issue be trotted out and paraded around the public square to the amusement of the children and alarm of the elderly? Of course, there has never been any evidence of any kind that the membership of Freemasons on the force had anything whatsoever to do with departmental decisions, before, during or after the Hillsborough tragedy. The Commission might just as well be attempting to investigate whether they all smoked Dunhills, collected tea cozies, or were all members of a philatelist club. 

Between 1997 and 2009, then Home Secretary Jack Straw and his commission in the Home Office enacted a law forcing cops and members of the judiciary to declare their membership in no other group besides the Freemasons, and wasted a fat wad of the taxpayer's cash and twelve years to come to the same conclusion across the whole country - there was no there there. He was only stopped after the European Union ruled against a similar Italian law in the Court of Human Rights. 

Many years ago, an English Brother said this in the wake of a truly pathetic exposé of a London lodge in the Telegraph:

In the UK, August in the national press is referred to as the "silly season" as normally there is little or no news generated, as all the news generators are off on holiday. Stories such as this come out of the woodwork in August through the need to fill space.