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Thursday 12 September 2013

News Media Watch from Liverpool FC: Mirror: Hillsborough report: 1 year on

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Mirror: Hillsborough report: 1 year on
Sep 12th 2013, 11:08

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.

One year ago today, the Hillsborough Independent Panel published their findings into the disaster, unearthing a shocking police cover-up. Here, Jenni Hicks, who lost her two daughters in the tragedy, reveals the impact of the report.

I lost my two daughters Sarah and Vicki at the Hillsborough football disaster in 1989.

What emerged on September 12 last year, after more than two decades, backed up what I and all the other families knew for 23 years.

But there was even more evidence than I could have imagined.

I remember sitting in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral on that morning and the feelings of relief which swept over me.

This was proof that everything we had known was the truth. The real truth.

I look at Hillsborough as three separate disasters.

The people who were killed, the cover-up that followed and how the families and survivors were made to fight for the truth to come out.

The biggest victory for me over the past year was when we travelled down to the High Court in London last December to see the original inquest verdicts of accidental death quashed.

I remember hearing the Lord Chief Justice say those words and tears streamed down my face. I was engulfed by emotion.

That incorrect verdict was erased from the record books.

It had stood for 23 long years and it was so symbolic that it was now gone.

Now, we have a chance to put a huge wrong, right.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel did a brilliant job of finding and wading through all that evidence.

My biggest disappointment is that I naively thought, after that day last autumn, somebody would have stood up by now and been counted.

I am frustrated nobody has come forward to admit they were wrong.

Now we have to wait until next March when the inquests take place, which could last up to nine months.

So, it won't be before 2015 when we get a potential new verdict. That will be 26 years since our loved ones died. We could never have known it would have taken so long to arrive at the truth.

Families have endured a quarter of a century of grief and been put through so much after their good names were smeared.

After the inquest - if the evidence is there - we would hope for criminal charges.

I believe the evidence is there, so if there is a clear cover-up and corruption, there must be accountability.

To keep me going I have a photo of Sarah and Vicki which I look at every day. I'm emotionally exhausted by it all, but I'm doing this, and continuing to fight in their name.

My daughters had only gone to see their team hopefully win a semi final football match. No more.

They were just 15 and 19 years old. They had the rest of their lives ahead of them. When I look at their photographs it fills me once more with strength.

I'll never give up, no matter how tired I get. I do it for them. It's not for me.

There have been times when I've thought our fight is dead in the water, but the panel's report one year ago produced more than we could have hoped for.

It's only within the past 12 months I've thought the tide could be turning for us. Now the world knows the truth.

People have tended to dismiss us as conspiracy theorists in the past and told us to get on with our lives.

But the panel's report shocked not just Liverpool, not just the UK, but the world.

I talk to my daughters all the time. Sarah and Vicki are not here physically but they remain part of me, and always will be.

My love has grown for them even though they are gone, and I get that love back from them in so many different ways.

At the same time, when i hear of the latest scandals surrounding Hillsborough I am sickened and it makes me feel sad.

I was always brought up to respect the police force and knew that rules were made for a reason.

But when you find out the establishment is dishonest, it's quite a shock.

I've come to realise those who are supposedly trustworthy are the opposite.

And that's a shame.

Everything I've done over the last 24 years has been done not with any thought of any vengeance, just unconditional love for my children.

Source: Daily Mirror

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.

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