The heroes that died during the 27-year fight for Hillsborough justice deserve to be honoured

Honour the dead. The memory of the 96 people who died in the Hillsborough disaster has driven their relatives to fight for justice for 27 years.

Those whose lives were ended on the Leppings Lane are only part of the tragedy, though. The grim logistics of what occurred on that sunny day in April 1989 do not tell the full story.

Andrew Devine was on the terraces that day. He was a carefree 22-year-old. The crush was so severe that oxygen was squeezed from his lungs and deprived from his brain. He has never spoken since, is confined to a wheelchair and can only eat pureed food.

Scores of people suffered life-changing injuries in Sheffield that day. The focus of the fight for justice had to be on the 96 people who died but the ramifications of that day in Sheffield stretch much farther.

The families have always recognized this. Their bravery cannot be overestimated.

They also understood that their loved ones were not the only victims of that dreadful day.

Anne Williams lost her 15-year-old son Kevin at Hillsborough. Lying in the gymnasium that became the makeshift morgue at the ground, the teenager asked for his mum long after the original inquest ruled that he was dead – the cutoff time was 3.15pm. That knowledge haunted Anne.

Yet this bereaved mother saw a wider picture. The first time I spoke to her, she said: “You’re a survivor.” It was a word I was uncomfortable with. I was there but not in the two pens where people died. I explained that. Nothing happened to me that day.

Anne disagreed. She told me that she had lost her son and that was dreadful but she was glad she had not seen what I had that day. It was, she said, a most horrible experience. She felt for me.

It summed up the fortitude of the families. They had suffered the most appalling loss and were derided, laughed at and abused for fighting for justice but they understood that others had suffered. Their strength over the past 27 years has stretched the boundaries of belief. As someone who had walked away from Hillsborough physically unscathed, Anne Williams recognized the mental impact on all those who were there. There was no self-pity: she acted like a counsellor to not only me but many others who struggled to come to terms with the events of April 15, 1989.

Many people needed – and still require – help to come to terms with that dreadful day. There have been too many suicides, too many breakdowns. In an environment where survivors and witnesses were demonised and their experiences dismissed as fantasy, many felt hopeless and helpless.

Not Anne Williams. She died three years ago. More than a third of her life was spent fighting to uncover the truth about what happened to her son. There was never a moment when her sense of purpose faltered.

The same is true of the other families. Margaret Aspinall has been one of the flagbearers for the cause. Her son, James, was 18 when he died. The police would not let Margaret hug her child and, callously, told her the corpse was the property of the coroner. It was one the first slights the grieving relatives experienced. There were many to come. Consecutive governments dismissed their complaints as conspiracy theories and delusion.

Margaret has been vindicated. Too many of the loved ones of the Hillsborough dead never lived to see justice done. John Glover suffered a double tragedy. Ian, his 20-year-old, died on the Leppings Lane. A decade later, Joe, Ian’s brother, was crushed to death in a works accident.

Even when John Glover was fighting cancer, he dragged himself from his bed to meetings with the Hillsborough Independent Panel. Like many of the relatives, his drive seemed death-defying at times. The legacy of this fierce quest for the truth was played out at the inquests in Warrington.

The list of heroic relatives who refused to be cowed by the distain of the authorities and the disinterest of the press is long. Those who fought for two decades and did not live to see the resolution of their cause deserve special honour. The death toll from Hillsborough never stopped at 96. Their names may not be on the memorials but those who died during the battle for justice deserve monuments of their own.