At the end of the decade, The Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, in which 97 people died as a result of their injuries, proved to be, as the paper later admitted, the "most terrible" blunder in its history. Three days after the accident, editor Kelvin MacKenzie published an editorial which accused people of "scapegoating" the police, saying that the disaster occurred "because thousands of fans, many without tickets tried to get into the ground just before kick-off – either by forcing their way in or by blackmailing the police into opening the gates". The next day, under a front-page headline "The Truth", the paper falsely accused Liverpool fans of theft and of urinating on and attacking police officers and emergency services. Conservative Member of Parliament Irvine Patnick was quoted as claiming that a group of Liverpool supporters told a police officer that they would have sex with a dead female victim Widespread boycotts of the newspaper throughout Merseyside followed immediately and continue to this day. Boycotts include both customers refusing to purchase it, and retailers refusing to stock it. The Financial Times reported in 2019 that Merseyside sales were estimated to drop from 55, 000 per day to 12, 000 per day, an 80% decrease. Chris Horrie estimated in 2014 that the tabloid's owners had lost £15 million per month since the disaster, in 1989 prices. Sales also declined to a lesser degree in neighbouring parts of Cheshire and Lancashire. It was revealed in a documentary called Alexei Sayle's Liverpool, aired in September 2008, that many Liverpudlians will not even take the newspaper for free, and those who do may simply burn or tear it up. Local people often refer to the newspaper as "The Scum", with campaigners believing it limited their fight for justice
