FAMILIES of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster are closer to justice after the Attorney General paved the way for fresh inquests, campaigners have said.
Dominic Grieve, QC, said he was applying to quash the original accidental death verdicts in all 96 inquests before finishing his review of the evidence.
The move comes after a report into the disaster 23 years ago laid bare a cover-up which attempted to shift the blame for the tragedy on to its victims.
Ninety-six Liverpool supporters died in the crush at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium in 1989, where their team were to meet Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final.
Liverpool MP Steve Rotheram said the decision "marks one of the biggest steps forward in the fight for justice for the families in 23 years".
The move raises the possibility of different verdicts "which the families have always believed should have reflected the unlawful killing of their loved ones", he added.
Pat Joynes, whose son Nicholas Joynes, 27, died, said: "We want the accidental death verdicts quashed so we can get manslaughter verdicts."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article