Bereaved Hillsborough families discuss next steps

The damning Hillsborough Independent Panel report, published last week, revealed that police attempted to shift the blame onto the victims and that 41 of the 96 victims could have been saved.

The panel found that 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter "unfavourable" comments about the policing operation.

The Hillsborough Families Support Group (HFSG) held a meeting today at Anfield to discuss the next step in its campaign for justice for the 96 victims of the 1989 disaster.

The campaign's legal representatives, Michael Mansfield QC and Lord Falconer, appeared at the meeting via videolink.

HFSG chairwoman Margaret Aspinall said before entering the meeting: "We are going to be taking legal advice to find out what we do next.

"We have got to make sure we are all singing from the same hymn sheet."

One of the key aims of the campaign is to quash the original inquests, which the panel's report found were wholly inadequate.

The group's president Trevor Hicks said: "We will be looking at all the options and seeing where we go from here. I think it's almost certain now that there will be fresh inquests."

Meanwhile a complaint against the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police has been referred to the police watchdog.

West Yorkshire Police Authority's special committee agreed to record a complaint against Sir Norman Bettison and referred it to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for investigation.

Mr Bettison was with South Yorkshire Police at the time of the tragedy and has been accused of helping to orchestrate a "black propaganda" campaign against the dead, a charge he strenuously denies.

paddym@peoples-press.com