Last Wednesday, the jury indicated to the court in Warrington that unanimous decisions had already been made on every question apart from question six, which asks: “Are you satisfied, so that you are sure, that those who died in the disaster were unlawfully killed?”
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The jury’s decisions on the fresh Hillsborough inquests (begun Match 31st, 2014) into the 96 deaths at the UK’s worst sporting disaster will be delivered Tuesday at 11 AM.
The conclusions will be formally returned tomorrow at 11am, but the forewoman said that at least seven of the nine jurors had reached agreement on the unlawful killing question in a 14-section questionnaire.
What should have been one of the great days in the English football calendar, an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground on April 15 1989, instead became its most infamous.
That in turn led to the establishment of fresh inquests at a purpose-built courtroom in Warrington, east of Liverpool.
Duckenfield gave the order allowing around 2,000 fans to flood into the already packed central pens behind the goal.
But the families of the victims never accepted this conclusion, forcing authorities to set up a new police probe in 2012, after a high court decision quashed accidental death verdicts from 23 years ago after an independent inquiry found new evidence and absolved the fans of any responsibility, according to Reuters.
These include questions about the police planning before the game, stadium safety, events on the day, the emergency services response and a question about whether the fans were unlawfully killed.
267 days of evidence making the longest inquest, and longest case heard by a jury, in British legal history.
Under English law, an inquest exists exclusively to determine how the deceased came by their death.
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The final victim was Tony Bland, also from Keighley.
