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Two of the leading lights in the Hillsborough campaign have been recognised in the New Year Honours for their tireless work on behalf of the victims and bereaved families.

Margaret Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), and Trevor Hicks, president of the group, both receive CBEs for services to the families of the 96 Liverpool fans who died in Britain’s worst sporting disaster.

The support group which they head was the driving force in the 25-year campaign for justice for the victims and the bereaved, which culminated in the quashing of earlier inquest verdicts and the holding of the new inquests now ongoing.

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Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, 18, was killed in the tragedy, said she faced a dilemma over whether to accept the award when she was first notified – but the advice of a survivor made her mind up.

Mrs Aspinall, from Huyton, said: “I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing – we have been fighting the establishment all these years and have gone through so much.

“I had to break confidentiality by making a couple of phone calls so I could test peoples’ feelings and views, but the most important advice I received was from a survivor who was thrilled over it, so I accepted.

“It’s not about me or Trevor Hicks, it’s a recognition for our city and what we’ve achieved together.”

Mrs Aspinall likened her CBE award to Prime Minister David Cameron’s apology in the House of Commons in September 2012, in which he spoke of the “double injustice” of both the “failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth”.

Mrs Aspinall added: “To me it was a turning point for everybody, it is another turning point this award.”

Trevor Hicks, current president of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), whose two daughters, Sarah, 19, and Victoria, 15, were both killed, said the award showed how attitudes had changed to the disaster.

Mr Hicks said: “A very pleasant surprise – totally unexpected as we spent 20 plus years taking on ‘arms of the state’ and governments of all political persuasions.

“Awarding the honour of a CBE shows how much tide of opinion has changed and is further acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past and the 25 years’ hard work we have all had putting things right.

“I hope that people will understand that I have mixed feelings.

“Extremely proud both on a personal level and for the HFSG, its former and present officers and all the families.

“Yet a degree of humility as I was ‘only doing what anyone would do’ in the circumstances that I found myself thrust in to.

“It is with understandable regret that Sarah, Victoria and the rest of the 96 paid the ultimate price and clearly I wish none of this had ever happened.”

The CBEs were welcomed by Merseyside MPs Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram.

Mr Burnham said: “These awards will be seen as a gesture of apology and reconciliation from a British Establishment which failed these families, and an entire city, so badly. But their long struggle goes on and securing full justice for the 96 will in the end be the only award that truly matters.”

Mr Rotheram, who is also a Hillsborough survivor, said: “Both Margaret Aspinall and Trevor Hicks have shown remarkable resolve and leadership over many years and it is fitting that the very establishment that conspired to deny natural justice has been forced by the sheer weight of public opinion to recognise the outstanding work of campaigners.”

Britain’s worst sporting disaster unfolded at the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool on April 15, 1989, when an exit gate was opened allowing hundreds of fans in to already-packed central pens on the Leppings Lane terraces of Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium.

A jury is currently hearing the new inquests in Warrington before coroner Lord Justice Goldring.

The inquests, which started in Birchwood Park, Warrington, on March 31, adjourned on December 19 for a two-week break.

In the week before they finished, the coroner told the jury there was a “real risk” that the hearings would not conclude until 2016.