Lucky escape: Liverpool fans are pulled to safety on to the upper tier from the crush below

The FA Cup semi-final on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was a sold-out, all-ticket affair. Arriving in Sheffield in chartered coaches, special trains or private cars, fans were 'corralled', to use the technical description, and escorted to the ground by the South Yorkshire police. Most arrived in the hour before kick-off.


A notorious bottleneck fed over 24,000 Liverpool fans through 23 malfunctioning turnstiles. Lack of stewarding and no filtering contributed to an inevitable, mounting crush in a confined space. The police, some on horseback, were overwhelmed. In the police control box inside the stadium, the match commander, Chief Superintendent Duckenfield, witnessed the crisis on CCTV monitors.


He also had a close-up view of the Leppings Lane terrace. Already the central pens behind the goal were packed, the side pens half empty. Answering increasingly desperate pleas from officers outside, Duckenfield instructed the opening of exit gates, bypassing the turnstiles and relieving the congestion.


Not realising their fate, fans entered and walked unstewarded and without police direction, down a one in six gradient tunnel into the back of the central pens. Pens like cattle pens – high fences to the side and front and no way back. Compression was like a vice.


Faces were jammed against the perimeter fence, people went down underfoot and then, low to the front, a barrier collapsed resulting in a tangled mass of bodies.


Police officers on the perimeter track failed to respond, pushing back fans climbing the fences. As the match kicked off the screams of the dying were lost in the roar of the crowd.


Despite a clear view of the unfolding tragedy Duckenfield's mind-set was pitch invasion. He called for reinforcements including dogs. Six minutes into the game it was abandoned. Bodies were dragged through two narrow perimeter fence gates and laid on the pitch. Fans ripped down advertising hoardings as makeshift stretchers, ferrying the dead and dying the length of the pitch.


Duckenfield told FA Chief Executive, Graham Kelly, fans had forced entry and rushed the stadium. Within minutes this version of events was broadcast world-wide and the lens of hooliganism was firmly in place. Uefa President Jacques Georges condemned the "frenzy of the fans... beasts waiting to charge into the arena". Yet it was Duckenfield's decision to open the gates and his negligence in not closing the tunnel and redirecting fans to the side pens.


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The dead were laid out in body bags on the stadium's gymnasium floor – each numbered and allocated a police officer. Barely distinguishable Polaroid photographs were posted in the foyer. Throughout the night relatives and friends, some survivors themselves, were bussed to Hillsborough from a damp, cold disused boys' club opened by the police as a 'holding centre'.


Blankets around shoulders, they queued to view to the photographs. On recognition the number was called, the corresponding body bag was wheeled on a trolley to the gymnasium door and unzipped. Police officers physically prevented touching, caressing or kissing. Bodies were now the property of the coroner.


Grieving relatives were led to tables to be interrogated about the drinking habits, criminal convictions or anti-social behaviour of loved ones. When Teri Sefton commented that her son, Andrew, did not drink or smoke an officer turned to his colleague – "She'll be telling us he's a bloody virgin next".


Interviewed about the appropriateness of using a gymnasium as a 'temporary mortuary' in a city with a highly-advanced medical-legal centre, the senior investigating officer commented he "wanted to keep all the eggs in one basket". The chief ambulance officer disagreed – "no dignity' had been shown to the deceased.


As the sheer scale of the disaster dawned, the coroner ordered the recording of blood alcohol levels of all who died, including children. This unprecedented decision in the wake of Duckenfield's deceit and the hostile questioning of the bereaved were early indications of a consolidating official line: the disaster had been caused by violent, drunken fans.


In Sheffield the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, accompanied by Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, was briefed by the South Yorkshire Chief Constable. Her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, subsequently disclosed, what he "learned on the spot" – "There would have been no Hillsborough if a mob, who were clearly tanked up, had not tried to force their way into the ground".


Within months Lord Justice Taylor, who lead an official inquiry, published his findings. The "main cause" of the disaster was "overcrowding" and the "main reason" was a "failure of police control".


While directing his most damning criticisms towards the police, he also apportioned responsibility to Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, their safety engineers and the local authority who had failed to issue a valid safety licence.


Senior police had been "defensive" and "evasive" in giving evidence, failing to demonstrate "qualities of leadership to be expected of their rank". It was "a matter of regret that the South Yorkshire Police were not prepared to concede that they were in any way at fault for what had occurred".


Duckenfield had not anticipated the consequences of opening the exit gates, losing control of the situation. His "lack of candour" had "set off a widely reported allegation". Taken aback by Taylor's findings, the Chief Constable warned a different picture would emerge at the inquests.


Soon after the Director of Public Prosecutions concluded there was "insufficient evidence to justify proceedings against any officer of the South Yorkshire Police or any other person for any offence". The coroner resumed the inquests in generic form. They ran for five months.


Despite calling hundreds of witnesses, disclosure of evidence was limited. Police witnesses reiterated allegations discounted by Taylor: fans' drunkenness, hooliganism, violence and conspiracy to enter the ground without tickets.


In summing-up, the coroner instructed the jury that an accidental death verdict could "straddle the whole spectrum of events" including "a situation where you are … satisfied there has been carelessness, negligence". There might have been "very serious errors", but being "incompetent is not the same as saying that a person is being reckless". After two days of deliberation the jury returned a majority verdict of accidental death.


Duckenfield pre-empted the Police Complaints Authority's determination to bring disciplinary proceedings against the match commander for "neglect of duty", retiring on ill-health grounds. In 2000 he and his assistant faced a private prosecution, brought by families, for manslaughter. His assistant was acquitted – the jury could not reach a verdict on Duckenfield.


Despite making a significant contribution to stadium safety and crowd management the Taylor Inquiry was limited. There was no acknowledgement that the police and their solicitors used privileged access to the investigations and inquiries to reconstitute and register 'facts' to their best advantage.


The coroner's refusal to hear evidence beyond 3.15pm on the day rejected the possibility that medical intervention, administered quickly and effectively, might have saved lives. It also seriously limited inquiry into the circumstances experienced by those who died after that time.


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Twenty years on many bereaved families and survivors, their friends and relations, collectively demonstrate remarkable resilience and resistance. Yet, beneath the surface of strength in adversity lies a complex mix of loss, guilt and an overwhelming sense of injustice. This invokes anger towards those responsible for the disaster, those who made deceitful allegations and those who perpetuate the myth of hooliganism. It is a rational response.


Against considerable odds including authorities' privileged access to formal procedures, their lack of accountability and their continued unwillingness to acknowledge responsibility, the bereaved and survivors have maintained a dignified opposition while enduring physical and mental ill-health and, in some cases, premature death. These are long-term consequences of the disaster and the injustices that followed.


Dr Phil Scraton is Professor of Criminology in the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast. The new edition of 'Hillsborough: The Truth' is published by Mainstream