Move to quash Hillsborough inquest verdicts brings relief after 23 years

Through 23 dark, terrible years when nobody in authority would listen to their complaints of grievous injustice, the families of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough fought for a day like this, while barely believing it would ever come. The attorney general, Dominic Grieve, will apply to the high court to have the inquest into the disaster quashed, following the Hillsborough Independent Panel's revelations of how deeply, fundamentally flawed it was.

Families who had lost loved ones suffered trauma and indignity at the inquest as South Yorkshire police gave evidence that the disaster was not their fault but supporters'. The families felt patronised by the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, and his West Midlands police assistants.

Lord Justice Taylor, in his official report just four months after the 15 April 1989 disaster, blamed safety failures by Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield city council, and mismanagement by South Yorkshire police, and criticised South Yorkshire police's aggressive efforts to blame the supporters themselves. The families expected the inquest, then, to establish how each victim died, and hold to account those responsible. In the event, it did neither.

It was delayed because the director of public prosecutions (DPP) was considering whether criminal charges should be brought, so Popper decided to split the inquest. He brought forward "mini-inquests" for each victim, to be followed by a full inquest when the DPP had concluded.

At the mini-inquests, the families were permitted to ask very restricted questions and not cross-examine witnesses, because of the potential criminal charges. They were, in effect, given a presentation, prepared by West Midlands police, which went unchallenged. Last week, so many years later, the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced that as part of its vast investigation into possible police misconduct over Hillsborough it will examine the West Midlands police for the "accuracy and portrayal of evidence at the mini-inquests".

The full inquest commenced in November 1990, the DPP having declined prosecutions. Popper made his now notorious ruling, limiting evidence to 3.15pm on the day of the disaster. Popper's reasoning was that all the victims died from the same cause, traumatic asphyxia, irreversible within seconds of them being trapped in the crush on Hillsborough's Leppings Lane end.

The panel re-examined the evidence Popper had, and found that "cut-off" to be wholly unsustainable. In fact, 41 victims did not suffer irreversible asphyxia and might have been saved. And Popper's 3.15pm cut-off kept from scrutiny the police and ambulance service's emergency response which, the panel found, was chaotic.

South Yorkshire police, rather than heed Taylor's criticism, returned to the main inquest telling renewed tales that the fans were to blame. The bereaved families travelled from Liverpool to Sheffield for 93 dreadful days, to listen to that.

Following Popper's directions – to which the families also fiercely objected – on 28 March 1991, the jury returned its verdict of accidental death. Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son, James, died, bitterly recalls Popper telling the families that for £3 they could pick up the death certificate. Aspinall never did, and vowed she never would, until that verdict is quashed.

Now, 21 years later, an attorney general has taken her a great step closer. As with the whole Hillsborough story, there are two shocking injustices. First, that all of this happened. Second, that it took so long for the families' cries to be heard.