Despite being the country’s biggest sporting disaster, no one has ever taken responsibility. Woman investigates…
WORDS: MISHAAL KHAN. PHOTOS: GETTY, SHUTTERSTOCK
One sunny Saturday afternoon in April, 35 years ago, football supporters looked forward to a fun day out at the stadium in Sheffield. It was a big game – Liverpool v Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final – and fans were out in their droves. But it wasn’t the match score that made headlines that day, it was a fatal crowd crush which resulted in 97 Liverpool fans losing their lives. The youngest was just 10 years old, and the 97th victim, Andrew Devine, passed away in 2021, having suffered severe brain damage as a result of the accident.
A few days after the tragedy, the press and police pointed fingers at the fans, blaming them for the horrifying events of that day.
For more than three decades, the families of the victims have campaigned for justice, never giving up on the relentless court battles. An initial inquest in 1991 found a ruling of ‘accidental death’ and while a second inquest, 25 years later, found all of the victims had been unlawfully killed (in law, gross negligence manslaughter to a criminal standard) and exonerated all of the Liverpool fans of any blame, no individuals or organisations have ever had to face any consequences or accountability for the disaster.
Woman speaks to a mother who never gave up on fighting for justice for her daughters.
‘I JUST WANTED ANSWERS’ Jenni Hicks lives in Liverpool.
Losing a child is the worst imaginable thing a parent can ever go through, but it’s something that happened to me twice over, on the same day. On the morning of 15 April 1989, I woke up as a mother to two intelligent, thoughtful, funny and ambitious teenage girls, with a world full of prospects ahead of them, but by the end of the day I’d lost them both. Nothing could prepare me for the battle that would ensue and the decades-long struggle we would have to go through in the fight for justice.
It was a normal Saturday morning as my husband, Trevor, and our daughters, Sarah, 19, and Vicki, 15, and I piled into the car and made the journey to Sheffield, excited to watch our beloved Liverpool Football Club in the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest FC. I’d been a fan since I was a teenager and was thrilled when the girls had become faithful Reds too and our S
