Hillsborough parents’ ‘last battle for daughters’
8 hours agoJonny Humphries,North WestandJudith Moritz,Special correspondent
Handout“Every time I say, ‘That’s it – I’m done now’, I look at the photographs of my daughters and I think, ‘I can’t be done’.”
Those are the words of Jenni Hicks, whose teenage daughters Victoria and Sarah were among the 97 Liverpool fans killed in the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April 1989.
Jenni and her former husband, Trevor Hicks, are heading up a new campaign to correct official court records from the 1990s which wrongly state that their children were unconscious within seconds and died within minutes of the terrace crush.
Overwhelming evidence from subsequent investigations – including a second set of inquests in 2016 – found many victims were conscious at least half an hour later.
The record cannot be officially corrected without the consent of South Yorkshire Police, who Jenni and Trevor said had so far refused to agree to a fresh hearing in which an accurate statement could be read in open court.
When asked for her force’s position, Chief Constable Lauren Poultney told the BBC: “Under my leadership, South Yorkshire Police will take the steps available to us to support the families in achieving a sense of justice.”
On Monday, Jenni and Trevor will launch a fresh campaign to urge the justice system, courts and politicians to consider what mechanisms can be used to correct inaccurate court records.
Jenni told the BBC: “You’re trying to deal with the deaths of your children and you can’t get to the truth of it.
“Even now, 37 years down the line, South Yorkshire Police are still refusing to put the record straight.”
Trevor sees this as probably his “last battle” for the truth after nearly four decades of campaigning.
“I’ll be 80 soon, and I was [in my] early 40s when this started, so most of my adult life I’ve been taking this on,” he said.
“I think logically it would have been so much easier for South Yorkshire Police or their legal representatives to make a statement in open court.
“They’ve just decided not to and so we’re now faced with – obviously supported by various other politicians – to take a political route to sorting out what technically could have been easily fixed.”
The records in question arise from a civil case from the early 1990s, where the families of some of those killed in the disaster sued South Yorkshire Police over the pain and suffering their loved ones endured.
PA MediaVictoria, 15, and her sister Sarah, 19, became test cases.
Despite their parents appealing all the way to the House of Lords, the ruling went in favour of the police and the Hicks family were faced with significant legal costs.
Their case had been scuppered by the so-called “30 second rule”, a false conclusion adopted by the court presuming that every person who was killed in the disaster had been unconscious within 30 seconds.
The police lawyers also relied on claims that every victim had died before 15:15 GMT, which again was later proven to be categorically untrue.
Sarah and Victoria, the courts ruled, had experienced “swift and sudden [deaths] as shown by the medical evidence”.
However multiple witnesses reported that Victoria had been crying and in distress for some time.
Her older sister Sarah was also seen by witnesses who described her as intensely distressed and panicked about Victoria.
HandoutMedical evidence heard during the new inquests stated that the victims who died from asphyxia at Hillsborough were likely to have been subjected to pressure that waxed and waned.
That meant they were likely to have suffered physical injuries and fluctuating levels of consciousness over extended periods of time.
On Monday, Jenni and Trevor will address a parliamentary event in Westminster, hosted by Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, bringing together MPs, peers and legal experts to examine the issue.
Poultney had been invited to attend, but said she was unavailable and had offered to meet the Hicks family “in private at an appropriate time”.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, lead counsel for Jenni and Trevor Hicks, said the case raised issues that go far beyond Hillsborough.
“This is about whether the legal system has the courage and the mechanisms to correct itself when later evidence proves earlier assumptions to be false,” she said.
‘An agonising hour’
She said the findings of the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel and the fresh inquests were “unequivocal”.
“This was not a ‘swift and sudden death’ for Sarah and Victoria – far from it.
“For an agonising hour they suffered prolonged pain and suffering and yet the formal legal record remains unchanged.
“That cannot be right and we are determined to set the record straight.”
Jenni said that for herself and Trevor, this was the “last thing we can do in a legal court” for their children.
But she added: “This is not just about correcting it for our beautiful daughters, it’s for everyone who died that day, and for other families that find themselves facing similar injustices and incorrect legal records.”
Poultney said the “serious errors and mistakes” of her force had led to “lives being lost” and were a source of “tremendous regret”.
“I acknowledge the huge distress that must have been caused to Mr and Mrs Hicks and others by the court’s findings and further to that, I recognise that the lack of an available route to challenge findings has compounded distress.
“I wish Mr and Mrs Hicks the best for the parliamentary event.”
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