'It's important to tell mum's story'

Anne's son, Kevin, was one of 96 Liverpool supporters who lost their lives at the stadium tragedy on April 15, 1989, which prompted a still ongoing fight for truth and justice.

After 24 years of battling the authorities in her crusade to uncover what happened on that day, and secure a fresh inquest on behalf of her son, Anne sadly passed away in April of this year.

Now Sara Williams has joined with Liverpool Echo journalist Dan Kay to document Anne's tireless work in a new book, which includes much of the campaigner's own writing on the subject.

Read on for Sara's explanation of why this publication was both necessary and important, including a heartbreaking extract from Anne herself. Click here to order a copy of 'With Hope in Her Heart'.

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Mum always felt that telling the truth about Hillsborough was a form of justice in itself. For many years, that was as close as she was allowed to get.

She was convinced, most of the time anyway, that one day everything would come out, but often said no-one would believe what she'd been through if she didn't write it down.

So she did. I wouldn't call it a diary or a journal, as such, because there was no great order to it. It was more a case of her recording notes and thoughts on an irregular basis.

She'd go months or even years without doing anything and then, all of a sudden, would get right back into again. I would see her sitting there at the kitchen table with her old typewriter, or in later years her laptop, and ask her what she was writing. She would just say: "Oh, you know, this and that."

She'd let me take a look at it sometimes and it would be about all kinds: things from the past; things that had just happened; things that might happen; poems, sometimes.

It was almost like a form of therapy for her, I think. To get things down in black and white helped stop them rattling around her head all the time, allowed her to switch off from Hillsborough and the fight for justice a little.

I didn't realise how much she'd done until we were clearing out her flat. Getting her first book published meant a lot to her and she said in the last few years how she would like to do another one if she got the chance.

That's why, as a family, we feel it is so important to tell her story now. She was always very keen to take any opportunity she could find to have her say and get her message across. Even in her last few weeks she was still writing things down and talking to her friends in the media. She wanted as many people as possible to know about the fight for justice and I have no doubt that had she lived a bit longer, she would have tried to get another book out - this book.

She kept all her Hillsborough documents and papers organised together so it wasn't difficult for us to find the stuff she had been writing.

Some of her notes go way back. One of the first passages we found was about South Yorkshire Police. They were three words that, over the years, became like a red rag to a bull for mum.

She ended up on what felt at times like a one-woman crusade to tell the world what they had done to Kev. And it all began when, just for once, they let honesty get the better of them.

Reading Mum's words back, I can imagine the anger and pain she felt while typing them out and how it spurred her on to fight for justice for Kevin, no matter what obstacles were placed in her path.

Mum's words...

It was at Kevin's mini-inquest, just a couple of weeks after the first anniversary, that they let the cat out of the bag.

My solicitor at the time, Mr Farley, had told us we didn't need to go to Sheffield as there would be nothing said that I didn't already know about Kevin's death. These hearings were being held for each of the 96 victims to determine the facts before the main inquest itself, which was due to begin the following year.

But, even though I was dreading it, there was no way I wasn't going to go. So a year and 17 days after our last trip there, off we went to Sheffield again, on Wednesday, May 2, 1990.

Steve and I were driven there by Bob Jones, a social worker who had been assigned to us and had proved to be very helpful, for me anyway, by just letting me talk about Kevin and how I was feeling.

Just before we were due to go into the courtroom, Detective Sergeant John Killoch approached us. He was an investigating officer from West Midlands Police, the force which had been instructed to investigate South Yorkshire's role in the disaster. He had been assigned to Kevin's case and I'd spoken to him on the phone a couple of times.

He took us into a side room and said that he didn't want to cause us any further distress but there was something he felt we should know.

He sat us down and showed us a photograph of Kevin being resuscitated on the pitch by a man in a grey sweatshirt.

I started to cry.

I wasn't prepared for this. They asked me if it was Kevin and I answered yes.

Then somebody who was sat at the end of the desk, I don't know who, took hold of my hand and said that they had something to tell me which would upset me.

They told me that Kevin had been taken into the gym at Hillsborough by a Special WPC, Debra Martin, who said in her statement that just before he had died in her arms at 4pm he had opened his eyes and murmured a word.

I knew straight away what it was.

'Mum'.

I was screaming: "Where is she?" I was told that she would not be there to give evidence but that when we got into the court the pathologists would explain Kevin's injuries to us and we would realise then that it was probably just body wind she had heard.

They added that they were not going to tell me about this but 'thought they better had'.

I couldn't believe they had chosen this moment to tell me something so significant. I was just about to hear about the last minutes of my son's life and they dropped this bombshell on me. I was given no time whatsoever to take it in.

My mind went straight back to the day it happened. I had had this overwhelming feeling, a mother's instinct, in the British Legion right around the time they were now saying he had called for me, that he wasn't going to come home.

I had told my friend Pat who was there and she had tried to reassure me, but I just knew it in my gut. I remember thinking: "You died then, Kevin. I felt you die."