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Where were you on Wednesday September 12, 2012 – the day of truth? Wherever you were, you won’t have forgotten.

It had been such a long time coming – 23 years, four months and 28 days – but, at long, long last, this was it. This was the day the world would learn what we had known for all that time.

This was the biggest cover-up in British legal history – exposed.

And yet, as this most dramatic of days dawned, only the members of the Hillsborough Independent Panel knew how it was set to unfold.

Having been let down so many times, some families, survivors and campaigners refused to allow themselves the luxury of optimism.

* Bettison Hillsborough probe: phone records show calls/texts at time he told IPCC he had no signal

They probably recalled the depressing words of Prime Minister David Cameron, who, in October 2011, had added to the colossal ignorance on Hillsborough when he said, regarding the quest for answers: “It’s like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there.”

A few days before the report was published, I interviewed Phil Hammond, the former chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, and his wife, Hilda, at their home in Aigburth. Their 14-year-old son, Philip junior, died at Hillsborough, and Phil said: “All we have ever wanted is the truth. Justice is the truth – the whole story.”

Could it really be about to be told?

The first hints that yes, it could – and that it would be a more shocking story than many had thought possible – arrived as the world’s media waited outside Liverpool Cathedral.

Inside, the families and survivors were hearing from the panel – and we were hearing that police carried out criminal record checks on those victims with a non-zero alcohol level.

That couldn’t be right. Could it? To the police’s eternal shame, it could be and it was.

We later learned that three family members fainted as they were being given this and other information. Three? No one should have been surprised if it was 103. Among the shocks, there was confirmation and clarity regarding things which Merseysiders had long suspected but many outsiders had dismissed as fantasy.

But did we have a complete grasp of the truth? No – and it was even more brutal than many imagined.

Up to 41 lives could have been saved if the emergency response had been adequate (although, of course, we had always known that all 96 victims would have been able to return home that day if the police hadn’t lost control), while police altered 164 statements.

We also learned there had been modifications carried out at Hillsborough after crushing at the 1981 semi-final between Spurs and Wolves – “modifications” that increased the dangers in the Leppings Lane end.

There were so many disturbing facts and figures. As I reflected in the ECHO three days later, I’ll never forget hearing one of the 75 TV, radio and print media people present saying “Jesus!” – about every 20 seconds – as he read each appalling revelation.

It was all so clear and so damning that David Cameron made a full apology in the House of Commons. Suddenly, his previous, dismissive talk of “a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there” seemed even more crass and stupid.

We should remember that, while this was a day for the families and survivors, it was also a chance to inform and educate countless millions of people beyond Merseyside – including many MPs, who gasped in disbelief as the report’s main findings were revealed.

In the space of just a few minutes, the story of Hillsborough – as fed to the masses for more than 23 years – had been torn up and rewritten.

Everything had been turned on its head and, for the first time, campaigners could enjoy the feeling of being on the front foot. It was impossible to overstate the scale of the sea change.

Various members of the Establishment hadn’t previously just sidestepped the blame and avoided the consequences, they had put the fans and their families in the dock.

But, after years of dignified and determined campaigning, a vast dam built on despicable deceit had now burst – and the pitiful process of authority figures now trying to save their own sorry skins had well and truly begun.

This, of course, wasn’t the end. But it was the beginning of the end. In that afternoon’s special late edition of the ECHO, Sheila Coleman, of the Hillsborough Justice campaign, said: “We have got to the truth but where is the justice? That is what is crucial now.”

But there could be no justice without this day of days.

The anticipation and anxiety leading up to this point had been intense. There had to be a release – a mass release of many different emotions, with relief perhaps being one of the main ones. Relief that the panel, through its detailed and diligent work, had basically been able to tell the world, backed up by documents that didn’t lie: “You really should have listened to the families and survivors.”

Celebration might not have been the right word, but nobody could argue with vindication. There was also gratitude that the panel had been able to unearth and make clear so much – and a deep satisfaction that the truth was now out there.

Margaret Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, wore a huge smile that afternoon as she faced the Press in Liverpool Cathedral’s Lady Chapel.

“Wasn’t that brilliant?” she asked, as she hugged people on her way out.

Yes, it was, Margaret. It really was.

Vindication, then, but no Hillsborough victory. As Margaret stressed: “We are still, and always will be, the losers.”

All the families and survivors could do, in the names of those who needlessly died, was fight for the truth and demand accountability – and they have done this brilliantly.

While Liverpool Cathedral had been the landmark setting for much of the day, St George’s Plateau became the focus in the evening.

Professor Phil Scraton, panel member and primary author of its report, later told me he believed this was the moment things came together: “In the cathedral, it was the families and survivors. It was personal, with no media and no spotlight – then that opened up to everyone later in the day.”

It was a day made possible by many people and, in its next day’s full-page editorial, the ECHO said: “Today, through all the heartbreak and tears, the families, survivors and everyone who refused to let the forces of darkness win, should feel proud – they have done themselves, their city and, most importantly, the 96 men, women and children who should never have been allowed to die at Hillsborough, proud.

“At times, they have been castigated and mocked – by crass, unfeeling outsiders who had the gall to tell them to shut up, move on and accept what they had already been told.

“But they overcame every obstacle and faced down every slight and setback, fuelled by the power of love – love for lost family members and friends and love for what many people in high places apparently view as an old-fashioned concept: justice.”

For years, one of Margaret Aspinall’s predecessors, the inspirational Phil Hammond, had told me: “Something will turn up.”

It just had.

TOMORROW: The start of our exclusive, two-part joint interview with Margaret Aspinall and Andy Burnham – Margaret: “We were all absolutely terrified on the morning of September 12.”

View our Hillsborough archive here and explore our updated interactive timeline below