Liverpool will fall silent at 3.06pm on Monday to mark 30 years since the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough was stopped because of the crush that killed 96 men, women and children.

The anniversary comes 12 days after a jury at Preston crown court failed to reach a verdict on the prosecution of the match commander, Ch Supt David Duckenfield, who was accused of gross negligence manslaughter.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said it will seek a retrial, which Duckenfield is expected to oppose, at a hearing scheduled for 24 June.

The jury reached a majority verdict to convict Graham Mackrell, Sheffield Wednesday’s then secretary and safety officer, of failing to take reasonable care of Liverpool supporters’ safety, by allocating only seven turnstiles for 10,100 people with tickets to stand on the Leppings Lane terrace at Hillsborough.

The offence, under the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, is punishable by a fine. Mackrell, who sought in his defence to blame Liverpool supporters for the dangerous congestion that developed at the turnstiles, will be sentenced on 13 May.



Due to the ongoing proceedings relating to Duckenfield, and a forthcoming trial of two former South Yorkshire police officers and the force’s then solicitor on charges of perverting the course of justice, the 30-year memorial ceremonies will be muted.

Liverpool city council cancelled a planned outdoor commemoration event and announced that 96 lanterns would be laid on the steps of St George’s Hall. A public service will be held at the city’s Anglican cathedral, and bereaved families will have a private service at Liverpool’s home stadium, Anfield. A minute’s silence will be observed at 3.06pm, traffic will stop in the Mersey tunnels, ferries will sound their horns and the town hall bells will toll 96 times.

At the new inquests into the disaster, held from 2014-16, family members opened the hearings by making personal statements – a loving remembrance of the victims which has since become a central feature of inquests, and of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.

Irene McGlone remembered that before her husband, Alan, left for Hillsborough with three friends – one of whom, Joseph Clark, also died – their infant daughters Amy and Claire excitedly asked him to wake them up when he came home. Irene wrote: “I am still waiting to wake my girls up out of this nightmare and send their daddy in to them.”

The youngest person killed in the crush was 10-year-old Jon-Paul Gilhooley, whose mother Jackie described him at the inquests as “very loving and affectionate”. His first cousin Steven Gerrard grew up to become Liverpool’s and England’s captain.

The oldest victim, Gerard Baron, 67, an RAF veteran who worked for the Royal Mail and had seven children, was described as a “Christian, sportsman, serviceman, family man and worthy citizen” by his son Gerard Jr, who went with him to the match. “Never in this world did we envisage anything would happen to us, as you expect to be safe attending high-profile sporting occasions,” Gerard Jr said. “Neither of us envisaged witnessing hell, nor did we expect to be fighting so desperately for our lives, as were so many others.”

Of the 96 people who died, 37 were teenagers, most still at school, many attending their first ever away football match supporting Liverpool. Seven of the dead were girls and women, including one mother, Inger Shah, whose children Becky and Daniel were teenagers at the time. Twenty-five were fathers; altogether, 58 people lost a parent in the disaster.

Margaret Aspinall, the chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose son James, 18, was one of the 96 people killed, said the 30th anniversary would be overshadowed by the ongoing legal proceedings. She said: “We lost our loved ones at a football match, then for 30 years we’ve lived in the past. It has taken a huge toll on all the families. There are children born since, even grandchildren, and all they have ever known is Hillsborough.”