On April 15 1989, 96 Liverpool fans werekilled at theHillsborough Stadium in Sheffieldin theworst stadium-related disaster in English sports history.
For years, police blamedfansfor causing the crush as theFA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest got underway.
Howeverlast year,an inquest jury ruled that the victims had been unlawfully killedfollowing failures by police and ambulance services.
28 years on, match commander David Duckenfield, former chief constable Sir Norman Bettison and four other people have been charged with offences relating to the tragedy.
How did the Hillsborough disaster unfold?
It was a bright spring day and the sun was shining as two of the country’s top teams faced each other in a FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium.
But in the space of a few short minutes what should have been a great day of football had turned to carnage.
April 15, 1989, ended with 96 Liverpool fans crushed to death and hundreds of others left injured and traumatised, after a series of fatal errors by those in charge of ensuring the safety of those attending the match.
The disaster began with as hundreds of Liverpool fans began streaming towards towards the stadium and the Leppings Lane stand allocated to them.
It became clear that not everyone would reach the stands in time and a watching police constable radioed the control room to request that the game be delayed to ensure the safe passage of supporters into the ground, as it had been two years before. The request was declined.
With more fans arriving than could be safely filtered through the turnstiles a bottleneck developed and moments before the 3pm kick-off Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, the police commander in charge of the match, ordered exit gate C to be opened.
That decision forced even more fans into the already overcrowded central pens. As more people entered the pens they were forced up against those in front, who in turn were pushed up against the perimeter fencing, designed to prevent pitch invasions, by the weight of the crowd behind them.
Mr Duckenfield would later claim that fans had forced open the exit gate to enter the ground, a lie he told the 2015 inquest into the deaths that he would regret "to his dying day".
By 2.59pm supporters, desperate to escape the growing crush, had begun to climb out of the pens behind the goal onto the track surrounding the pitch.
Photographs taken minutes later showed fans, including a number of those who died, being crushed at the front of pen 3.
The situation worsened when at 3.04pm Liverpool's’ Peter Beardsley struck the crossbar of the Forest goal. As the crowd surged one of the metal crush barriers in pen 3 gave way, sending tumbling over one another and into the pen’s front fences.
Realising that something was going very wrong South Yorkshire Police Superintendent Greenwood, the ground commander, ran onto the field to gain referee Ray Lewis's attention and get him to stop the match.
It was 3:05:30 when Mr Lewis blew the whistle and desperate fans were climbing the fence in an effort to escape the crush. Some managed to escape the horrendous mass of bodies by forcing open a small gate, while others struggled for air above them
Other fans were pulled to safety by those in the West Stand above the Leppings Lane terrace. The intensity of the crush broke more crush barriers on the terraces and amid desperate scenes holes were made in the perimeter fencing by fans trying to rescue others.
At 3.10pm the police control room radioed the South Yorkshire police garage requesting bolt cutters, but none were available.
The inquest later heard that those still trapped in the pens were packed so tightly that many died of compressive asphyxia while standing.
By now the scene on the pitch, where moments earlier football was being played, now resembled that of a chaotic first aid post during battle.
Police officers, stewards and members of the St John Ambulance service appeared overwhelmed by the situation and many uninjured fans took it upon themselves to assisted the injured, with several attempting CPR on the dying, while others tore down advertising hoardings with their bare hands to use as stretchers for the injured.
Some fans trying to ferry the injured to waiting ambulances were prevented from doing so by the police cordon which had been placed across the pitch and while total of 44 ambulances arrived at the ground officers prevented all but one from entering the stadium.
In the end only 14 of the 96 who were fatally injured arrived at hospital.
South Yorkshire police officers would later accuse Liverpool fans of having caused the deaths themselves, claiming they were drunk, late, violent and uncooperative.
The 2016 inquest jury rejected the accusations and exonerated the fans, finding that there was no behaviour on their part which caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
The events were relayed live to thousands of viewers by BBC’s Grandstand while on BBC radio Peter Jones described the horror in front of him, his words capturing with heartbreaking poignancy the aftermath of a disaster which would come to haunt English football for decades to come.
"The gymnasium here, at Hillsborough, is being used as a mortuary for the dead, and at this moment stewards have got little paper bags, and they're gathering up the personal belongings of the spectators,” he said. “And there are red and white scarves of Liverpool, and red and white bobble hats of Liverpool, and red and white rosettes of Liverpool, and nothing else. And the sun shines now."
Who were the victims?
What happened at the 2016 inquest?
In April last year, an inquest jury ruled the victims had been unlawfully killed in the tragedy.
The deaths were ruled accidental at the end of the original 1991 inquest.But those verdicts were quashed following the 2012HillsboroughIndependent Panel report, which concluded that a major cover-up had taken place in an effort by police and others to avoid the blame for what happened.
Thenew jury concluded that blunders by the police and ambulance service on the day had "caused or contributed" to the disaster and that the victims had been unlawfully killed.
After the verdict, South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable David Cromptonsaid his force "unequivocally" accepted the verdict of unlawful killing and the wider findings reached by the jury.
What did the jury find?
The jurors were told they could only reach the unlawful killing determination if they were sure of four "essential" matters concerning the deaths at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final.
They had to be convinced match commander chief superintendent David Duckenfield owed a duty of care to those who died, and that he was in breach of that duty of care.
Thirdly, they would need to be satisfied that his breach of duty caused the deaths and, fourthly, that it amounted to "gross negligence".
They concluded it was unlawful killing by a 7-2 majority.The jury also ruled that fan behaviour did not cause or contribute to the tragedy.
The jury found that:
- Both the police and the ambulance service caused or contributed to the loss of lives in the disaster by an error or omission after the terrace crush had begun to develop;
- Policing of the match caused or contributed to a dangerous situation developing at the Leppings Lane turnstiles;
- Commanding officers caused or contributed to the crush on the terrace, as did those senior officers in the police control box when the order was given to open the exit gates at Leppings Lane;
- Features of the design, construction and layout of the stadium considered to be dangerous or defective caused or contributed to the disaster;
- Sheffield Wednesday's then consultant engineers, Eastwood & Partners, should have done more to detect and advise on any unsafe or unsatisfactory features of the stadium.
On the question of the role of South Yorkshire Police in the emergency response, the jury said: "The police delayed calling a major incident so the appropriate emergency response was delayed.
"There was a lack of co-ordination, command and control which delayed or prevented appropriate responses."
On the role of former South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service (Symas), the jury said: "Symas officers at the scene failed to ascertain the nature of the problem at Leppings Lane.
"The failure to recognise and call a major incident led to delays in the responses to the emergency."
Role of police chief David Duckenfield
As chief superintendent of South Yorkshire police, Mr Duckenfield had overall responsibility for the match, but he was newly-promoted and inexperienced at overseeing events onthis scale.
On the day, Mr Duckenfield, who now lives in Dorset, gave the order to open an exit gateallowing hundreds of fans to flood on to the terraces contributing tothe deadly crush. However, at the time he told the Football Association that fans had forced the gates open themselves.
It wasn't until the new inquests in March 2015 that headmittedtelling a “terrible lie” over the tragedy as he apologised “unreservedly” to the families of those who died.
After decades of denial he told jurorshe hadbeen on a personal journey through bouts of depression, whiskey drinking and doctors -his own "Road to Damascus" to face up to the truth.
