UK court rules 96 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed

World Today

After nearly three decades of legal wrangling, a court has ruled that 96 football fans were unlawfully killed during the worst sporting disaster in U.K. history.

CCTV’S Olly Barratt reports from London.

The fans died during the Hillsborough stadium crush in 1989 at a football match in Sheffield. Ninety-six Liverpool fans when the crowd surged through open gates of the stadium. A jury blamed the police, the stadium’s design and ambulance services.

“I want to make it absolutely clear, that we unequivocally accept the verdict of unlawful killing and the wider findings reached by the jury in the Hillsborough inquests,” Chief Constable of South Yorkshire police David Crompton said. “On the 15th of April 1989, South Yorkshire police got the policing at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough catastrophically wrong.”

In the intervening years, Hillsborough has had a huge impact on sport in Britain.

All top-level football games in England are now played at all-seater stadiums and the terraces are long gone as a direct result of what happened in 1989.