Families: We proved it for victims
We've proved the truth for the victims – that was the message from the Hillsborough families after the original inquest verdicts were resoundingly quashed at the High Court in London today.
More than two decades of campaigning for the truth came to fruition this morning when the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, dismissed the initial inquest results and paved the way for new investigations.
"Something has been achieved today that has not been achieved before. It has taken us 23 years to get this achievement," said Margaret Aspinall of the Hillsborough Family Support Group.
"We've won nothing yet, we've still got a way to go and hopefully we'll get there - but we didn't achieve it alone. We did it with all of the support that we had behind us over these past 23 years.
"Without all of that support, we wouldn't be standing here today. I'd like to thank on behalf of the 96 all of those people for supporting us, trusting us, knowing that we were telling the truth all along.
"We proved it on September 12 for the fans, we proved it today for the victims - they are the most important people that matter now."
The focus will now turn to fresh inquests into the tragedy, which took the lives of 96 supporters in 1989, and Trevor Hicks echoed the calls for conclusions of unlawful killing to be found this time around.
He said: "We hope it's as quick as possible. As we said with the panel - you take as long as it needs and do a proper job.
"Do it once and hopefully get it put behind us, and then we can all get back to our lives, including society at large. We were all young people when this started, and we are all hoping to be here long enough to see it through.
"One of the things that's increased our feelings that way [a ruling of unlawful killing] is the depth of information of the panel. They knew that the ground was unsafe and it should never have been staged."