Luke Traynor on the ongoing battle for answers by the Hillsborough families

IN THE later months of 1989, as 96 families contemplated lives without their loved ones, thoughts turned to justice.

The Taylor Report unequivocally reproached South Yorkshire Police for a “failure of control” which caused the Hillsborough tragedy.

Armed with that verdict, the question of accountability gathered pace and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) announced a much-welcomed criminal investigation into the disaster.

Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, in charge of policing that day, was immediately suspended from duty.

Ann Addlington was working as a solicitor at Liverpool Council when she was seconded to represent the newly-formed Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG).

She said: “In the immediate aftermath, families did not want answers. It was only later, when the grief started to lift, they started to ask questions.

“The main stumbling block was how information was being withheld from the families, like witness statements pertinent to their own families.”

Between April and May, 1990, the first “mini” inquests were heard, which included controversial assertions from pathologists that death on the Leppings Lane End was sudden and pain-free.

Early hope quickly turned to despair as, in August, the DPP confirmed there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against any individual.

Two months later, the Hillsborough inquests began in Sheffield, lasting nearly five months and hearing from 230 witnesses – the longest in British legal history.

The balance of power was immediately apparent, with 43 of the families contributing £3,500 to pay for one legal representative.

In contrast, South Yorkshire Police Authority and the senior officers involved were all separately represented.

Sheila Coleman, a leading figure from the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, said: I know it was tortuous for me and I was only there to do research.

“I can only imagine what it was like for the bereaved families. It was day in, day out for them a soul-destroying routine.

“Every day, the hope justice may come out was diminished by the process and lack of evidence.”

At the start of a packed inquest, coroner Dr Stefan Popper made the controversial ruling on the 3.15pm “cut-off” time.

He declared deaths were immediate and fatal injuries were received by this time.

There would be no analysis of the emergency response, he said, nor questions asked about the line of up to 44 ambulances queued up outside the stadium, agonisingly unable to get into Hillsborough due to police orders.

Families travelled every day from Merseyside to Sheffield, many attending more than 100 separate days.

They listened to every painful scrap of evidence, desperately hoping for a verdict of unlawful death.

In court, allegations of drunken behaviour, previously disproved by Lord Taylor, were cruelly aired again by the police in a questionable bid to wrestle public perception of the tragedy back to their side.

PETER JOYNES, who lost his son, Nicholas, 27, said: “I sometimes stayed with my mother, who lived in Sheffield, instead of coming back to Merseyside.

“Right from day one, the police went on about how many people were drinking. That went on for days.

“Every policeman had his own solicitor. We had one.

“When the verdict came through, it was devastating.”

On March 28, 1991, the jury returned with a 9-2 verdict of accidental death.

Families screamed as the verdict was read out in court and tears flowed from wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and children.

Ms Coleman said: “I will never forget the noise in court as the horrible reality hit home. It was hearing that word ‘accident’.

“It was horrible, driving every day along the Snake Pass in horrible weather, the families taking transcripts home to read – it was all-consuming.”

Amid that heightened grief, Dr Popper called for a “healing in the hearts and minds of everyone” at the end of the 90-day inquest.

Meanwhile, HFSG chairman Trevor Hicks, who lost his two teenage daughters, described the verdict as “lawful but immoral”.

In May, 1992, shattered but undeterred, six bereaved families applied for a judicial review to try and overturn the inquest verdict.

Eighteen months later, it was refused at the High Court, the judgment wrongly referring to the biggest sporting disaster in history as occurring “at a semi-final between Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday”, instead of Nottingham Forest.

But the families were still determined to find answers, to find the truth and get answers for their lost loved ones.

Anne Williams has won admiration for her dogged persistence to learn of her 15-year-old son Kevin’s final moments.

The 68-year-old is challenging the official ruling that those who died were dead or brain-dead by 3.15pm after suffering “traumatic asphyxia”.

Mrs Williams claims her son was still alive at 4pm, based on testimony from those who saw the Formby teenager apparently breathing, his ribs moving and still with a pulse at 3.37pm.

A woman police officer who cradled Kevin even stated the boy cried out for his mother after 3.15pm.

Her case was recently rejected by the European Court of Human Rights, but Mrs Williams, of Chester, has already vowed to bring the matter again before the Attorney General, calling for a fresh inquest into her son’s death.

She said: “Kevin died at 3.55pm that day, not 3.15pm. People saw signs of life in him and certain vital witnesses were not called in his case.

“Several people touched him and said he had a pulse and was not discoloured like a lot of people in the ground.

“I have been knocked back so many times. It is too big for the British courts. They will not deal with it.”

In March, 1993, Tony Bland, 22, died, becoming the 96th and final victim of the Hillsborough crushes.

ALTHOUGH he technically survived the terraces, he suffered severe brain damage, leaving him in a post-vegetative state.

His parents, Allan and Barbara, won a landmark High Court ruling allowing his feeding tubes to be disconnected.

Three years were to pass, with little hope for the campaigning families, but in 1996 they were given a huge boost.

Liverpool-born scriptwriter Jimmy McGovern broadcast his hard-hitting Hillsborough documentary, which won huge public acclaim.