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*Click here for a timeline of Hillsborough and the long road to justice

IT WAS the day that changed everything – the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and a memorial service like no other. A record-breaking attendance of around 30,000, more than double the previous record of 14,000 for the 10th anniversary service, gathered at Anfield on a day marked out by its raw emotion, passion – and anger.

Many in the stadium had simply had enough of being fobbed off – and Andy Burnham, the then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, was about to feel the full force of their frustration.

He may be a Scouser and a football fan – on April 15, 1989, he was at Villa Park supporting Everton in that day’s other FA Cup semi-final – but on April 15, 2009, he was a member of a Labour government headed by a Prime Minister who had ruled out the possibility of a fresh inquiry into Hillsborough, just as the then-home secretary Jack Straw had done months after Labour swept into power.

Liverpool-born, Cheshire-raised Mr Burnham had been invited to speak by the then Lord Mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotheram, now Labour MP for Walton, and he provoked much applause – not least when praising those fans who helped the dying at Hillsborough and saluting Merseyside’s sense of community, spirit and solidarity.

But there was also booing, barracking and cries of “hypocrite” which, after the minister had sat down, prompted Hillsborough Family Support Group president Trevor Hicks to apologise.

Yet today many may say the ends justified the means, as the call for full disclosure of the unseen Hillsborough files gathered pace that day – Mr Burnham has stressed that he and Garston and Halewood MP Maria Eagle had already been working on this.

Today, recalling the 20th anniversary, Mr Burnham said: “I agonised about whether I should go. My main worry, and it seems strange saying this, was getting through my speech without crying.”

He added: “Steve Rotheram asked me to be there and I could never have lived with myself if I’d not been there. I’d been thinking in the run-up that, in some way, this could be fate – that I was being put there for that moment in time. I was thinking ‘Is there some way I can now open up Hillsborough again?’

“I felt more nervous than I had ever felt before in my life. But, knowing the city as I do, I thought I will take what comes – I’ll deal with it as best I can. I sensed ‘This has to happen – this feeling people have of a huge sense of injustice and a lack of a resolution has to have its voice’.”

GALLERY: How the ECHO reported the Hillsborough disaster in 1989

Recalling the speech, he said: “It got very difficult when I mentioned Gordon Brown. I was there as his minister in the same way the Bishop represents the Queen on days like that. But I’ve always said, if I wasn’t the minister, I’d have been one of those shouting at the minister.

“They were right. I don’t hold anything against anyone who shouted at me that day. Hillsborough was in the spotlight then and when was it ever going to be in the spotlight again?

“Potentially this was one of the last times the country was going to focus on Hillsborough and the issues around it. People react to emotional situations in different ways. I don’t think people had any need to apologise.”

He added: “What people don’t know is that literally minutes afterwards, I walked into the centenary stand and received a call from Gordon. He said ‘That’s a brilliant thing you’ve done. Thanks for doing it – you’ve done the right thing’.

“The next day, we had a Cabinet meeting and I said to Gordon ‘I’m going to raise Hillsborough’. It wasn’t on the agenda and it wasn’t on the Government’s radar, and I asked him if he minded. He said ‘No, I don’t’. I said ‘I’m not saying this just because I had a bad time yesterday’.

To his eternal credit, Gordon Brown immediately backed me up and from that meeting came all the developments regarding the Hillsborough Independent Panel.”

But, regarding the years of inaction, Mr Burnham said: “I understand and said it in the debate in the House of Commons – no political party can say they have done enough. Hopefully we are beginning to put that right.”

Looking to the future, he said: “I am absolutely confident we will now get the whole truth. I don’t know what’s in the panel’s report but I know how it has gone about its job and so I am confident we will have the whole truth. And, as Bishop James Jones says – ‘Truth has its own power’.

“The first thing is we need to hear the whole story and feel the impact of the whole story. People need to be allowed time to understand the enormity of it.

“I have called Hillsborough one of the greatest injustices of the 20th century. I can’t think of a parallel situation where a tragedy has occurred on this scale and immediate efforts were made to shift the blame onto those who died and their fellow supporters, causing more anguish to the families involved.”

He added: “Also, I don’t think it will be the end of the story. There will be things that come from it. What they are depends what’s in the panel’s report. I think we will get the truth. The question then is: ‘What is justice and how do we best get it?’ These are the things that will be asked on September 13, 14, 15. But it’s very important, on September 12, for the truth to be allowed to speak for itself and to be heard.

“I am very conscious the families may react in very different ways. Let’s first of all focus on September 12, which I think will be a momentous day for the city.

“People always say ‘Why are they still going on about that?’

“I think, slowly, what’s going to come from here is that the rest of the country will say ‘We finally understand why the city of Liverpool has been unable to let this go’.

“It won’t be a victory but a quiet vindication. That’s my hope for the day.”

See next page for Andy Burnham on the Hillsborough 'cover-up' and more >>>

Andy Burnham: Stuart-Smith’s Hillsborough inquiry had feel of Establishment cover-up

IN JUNE, 1997, a month after Labour came to power, new home secretary Jack Straw appointed Lord Justice Stuart-Smith to take a fresh look at the tragedy to see if there should be a new inquiry.

But there was immediate controversy as, when he met representatives of the families in Liverpool, the judge asked them: “Have you got a few of your people or are they like the Liverpool fans – turn up at the last minute?”

The following February, Mr Straw announced the review had found nothing to challenge the Taylor findings or the inquest verdicts and there would be no new public inquiry. This prompted families to decide to take their own action.

Andy Burnham said: “I was very proud that Labour fulfilled the manifesto commitment [to take a fresh look at the tragedy]. But looking back there might have been a factor of a new government not being used to holding civil servants to account properly.

“I don’t know the man [Stuart- Smith]. I never met him. I never heard from him his reasoning. It had all the feeling to me of an Establishment cover-up.

“I don’t know how anyone could look again at it and think a 3.15pm cut-off was anything other than morally indefensible. I have a feeling that’s what the panel will reveal. A fixed deadline couldn’t possibly be brought down on it.”

At the inquests, coroner Dr Stefan Popper had refused to hear details of anything which happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, on the grounds that those killed had already received their fatal injuries by then.

This was despite assertions by grieving families that some victims lived long after that time.

The cut-off point denied them the opportunity to submit evidence that South Yorkshire police failed to act quickly enough once the disaster was under way.

Mr Burnham added: “I wasn’t an MP or minister at the time. I’m definitely not saying that Labour was part of a cover-up. What I am saying is that the full picture wasn’t brought out at the time and it should have been.

“We were still in the pre-Freedom of Information age, but we’re in a different era now when it comes to public information.

“Whether it was Stuart-Smith not wheedling out all the information or whether people didn’t co- operate with him, I don’t know. It felt to me that the Establishment closed ranks to frustrate Stuart-

Smith, or he didn’t want to fully expose things.”

Andy Burnham: I felt uneasy watching Everton at Hillsborough

ON APRIL 15, 1989, when early reports of the Hillsborough disaster began filtering through to Villa Park, where Everton played Norwich City in that day’s other FA Cup semi-final, the thoughts of many fans – including a then 19-year-old Andy Burnham – turned to previous matches at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground.

During the 1981 FA Cup semi-final between Spurs and Wolves, 38 Spurs fans were injured following crushing in the Leppings Lane end while, over the years, fans of other clubs – including Liverpool’s after the 1988 semi-final – had voiced concerns about that part of the ground.

Mr Burnham said: “The thing I’d like to get over because I think it’s so relevant to what is about to come out is my experience at Hillsborough for Everton’s FA Cup third round tie against Sheffield Wednesday [on January 9, 1988].”

Everton salvaged a 1-1 draw thanks to a late Peter Reid equaliser, though that isn’t the shadow health secretary’s main memory of the day.

Mr Burnham explained: “I didn’t watch anything on the pitch in the second half because I was deeply uncomfortable. I was just 18 then and I thought ‘If I feel like this what are my brother, then 14, and my dad feeling?’

“I spent the whole of the second half watching them and as we sat in our car on the M6 after the FA Cup semi- final the following year, we all immediately started talking about that game.

“Instantly we knew what had caused the tragedy. All the stuff about hooliganism was coming out, but we immediately knew that ground was fundamentally unsafe. This wasn’t something new. I’m not saying it was inevitable that something was going to happen, but there had been many near misses at the ground down the years.

“I think it’s so relevant. I remember coming out of that game [at Hillsborough] feeling physically ill. I was relieved when that game was over.”

*Click here to look back at our archive coverage of the Hillsborough disaster