Elkan Abrahamson’s work in fighting for justice is best described by a testimony on his Jackson Canter biography: “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can never repay the kindness, support and encouragement you have shown every one of us.”
Liverpool-born Abrahamson worked with 20 families of Hillsborough victims during their fight for justice and was no stranger to injustice after fighting the corner of many of those wrongly arrested during the Toxteth riots.
However, it is the work with those 20 families that the city is arguably most grateful for, and after working for around 20 years with one particular family, Abrahamson can now feel light at the end of the tunnel after endless legal disputes.
Speaking about his reactions immediately after the inquest verdict, the lawyer stated: “It was just relief, because there was still so much fear that something could go wrong, and the unlawful killing verdict was only just achieved, everyone talks about it as if it was set in stone and unchallengeable which in a sense it is because it was decided by a jury, but we have to remember it was by a bare majority, if one other person decided the other way we wouldn’t have got that verdict, and the decision that the fans were not to blame was really important.”
The scale of what had happened though only sunk in the following day when attending the St.George’s Hall vidual: “When you saw how many people were affected by it, the implication that it wasn’t just the families or even the survivors; it was almost like you absolved the whole city of blame.”
Despite the verdict though, Abrahamson still believes that the fight isn’t over for many families, and the implications of the inquest on wider society are still to be felt: “The biggest thing for us now is that we are trying to get a duty of candour put in place to require public bodies to tell the truth, who’d have thought you needed a law to say that, but apparently you do, but that could have very serious implications for many people such as the press.”
The Lawyer is also concerned that whilst justice has been done for the families of victims and the city itself, it will take a while for that to spread across the country: “ I’d be surprised if you found an average person in a pub who was a football fan and in their fifties say ‘you know what I’ve completely changed my mind’ I just don’t know how many people outside Liverpool would have really changed their minds. ”
It’s an idea all too familiar when considering the recent actions of a minority of Manchester United fans during the two most recent Europa League clash against Liverpool; most shocking of which was a banner with the word ‘murderers’ painted on for all to see as they travelled down the M602.
It was only at the most recent inquest however, that his job became more complicated, as he stated: “Once the last inquest was quashed and the procedure for the new inquest had started; various families approached various people for help and by the end of that process I was advocating for 20 families.”
That advocacy involved managing the cases of three legal firms, born out the idea of efficiency as well as solidarity for the victims’ families, after al,l it’s much easier to argue a case for justice when you all agree on what you mean by justice.
It wasn’t without disagreement though, as Elkhan said: “The first test of that was very early on about whether the inquest should be held in London or ‘the North’, and the Family Support Group, who were the biggest group with 77 families were arguing for the inquest to be in London; I’m still not sure why, because it would have been a real travesty if it was held in London.”
The lawyer went on to argue that the idea behind holding it in London was from his standpoint practically based. A large proportion of legal firms were based in London, and there was a general consensus from the firms that if it wasn’t in London it wouldn’t be covered in the same detail; something Elkhan believed could have ‘fed through into the families’.
It was an inquest that, despite fears regarding its location, was still widely reported internationally, and one not without its twists and turns.
One of the biggest, and perhaps most curious was the admission by David Duckenfield that his actions caused the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans: “One argument is that it was a pre-conceived tactic, that he felt he had to make certain admissions because he couldn’t get away with not making them. But if that’s right, it didn’t work, and he went too far because he got an unlawful killing verdict against him. The other possibility is that he got into the witness box and for whatever internal reason felt compelled to give away more of the truth than before. That’s a psychological reaction to giving evidence that is always unpredictable, and whilst interesting, I still don’t think he told the full story; when you start making admissions against your own interests, it’s an incremental process, and I think he went so many stages down the path, but that is between him and his conscious now.”
With the inquest now behind him, the decorated lawyer now has his sights partially on pastures new working around business ethics. It’s an issue that not only impassions him, but he also thinks the political and accountability fallout from the tragedy can be a lesson learned by all parts of society: “This growing impatience on government level of the concept of ethics. I’m beginning to think that business ethics is going to be privatized in a sense that the government is going to say ‘it’s not our problem anymore’.“.
