'You don't argue with an editor like Kelvin MacKenzie' says Sun journalist who wrote Hillsborough story

A Sun journalist who wrote a story alleging that drunk Liverpool fans abused victims and police during the Hillsborough disaster has said he was “aghast” when he saw the newspaper’s headline.

Harry Arnold said that he had written his story in a "fair and balanced way", making clear that the claims were “allegations”. But he was disturbed when the paper’s Editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, personally added the headline “The Truth”.

The April 1989 story, which appeared after 95 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at the Sheffield ground, prompted a long-standing boycott of the paper on Merseyside.

Arnold told a BBC documentary: “When I saw the headline 'The Truth' I was aghast, because that wasn’t what I'd written. I said to Kelvin MacKenzie, ‘You can't say that. And he said 'Why not?' and I said 'because we don't know that it's the truth. This is a version of 'the truth'.' You don't argue with an editor like Kelvin MacKenzie.”

Official government and police documents will be released on Wednesday in conjunction with a report from the Hillsborough Independent Panel.

The documentary, Hillsborough: Searching for the Truth, will be broadcast on BBC1 in Yorkshire and the North West on Sunday at 10.25pm