FAMILIES in Ellesmere Port who lost loved ones in the Hillsborough disaster will today see the disclosure of documents relating to the disaster.
A vigil will take place on Liverpool’s St George’s plateau between 5pm and 7pm to coincide with the release of the files by the Hillsborough Independent Panel to families ahead of a public disclosure.
Three men from Ellesmere Port lost their lives in Sheffield Wednesday’s ground at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989.
James Delaney, 19, a machinist at Vauxhall and a former Ellesmere Port Catholic High School pupil, never returned home.
James Hennessy, a married self-employed 29-year-old, of Northern Rise, was also among the dead. He had a seven-year-old daughter and was a friend of James Delaney, travelling on the same coach to the game.
Christopher Edwards, 29, from Great Sutton, was also killed in the disaster.
The panel will make an announcement in The Lady Chapel inside Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral.
Made up of nine members, including the Rt Rev James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool and former newsreader Peter Sissons, it will also publish a comprehensive report detailing how the disclosed information adds to the public’s understanding of the disaster and its aftermath.
It will also make recommendations for a permanent archive of an event in which 96 Reds supporters lost their lives.
Lord Justice Taylor’s official report into the disaster, in 1990, said the ‘great majority [of supporters] were not drunk or even the worse for drink’, and ‘some officers, seeking to rationalise their loss of control, overestimated the drunkenness in the crowd’.
