Real Truth Legacy Project: Assembly on Hillsborough at local school
Video by Tom Dunn, North West Senior Reporter at LBC
Today I was incredibly proud to join staff and Year 6 pupils at St Teresa of Lisieux Catholic Primary School here in West Derby for an assembly to remember the Hillsborough disaster, as part of the rollout of our Real Truth Legacy Project.
Also in attendance were Chair of The Football Association and FIFA Vice-President, Debbie Hewitt MBE, Director of Communications at Liverpool FC, Susan Black, Hillsborough campaigners Jenni Hicks, Debbie Matthews and Deanna Matthews, the Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson and the LFC Academy education team, all of whom are backing our campaign to educate school children in Liverpool and around the UK about Hillsborough.
L-R: Director of Communications at Liverpool FC, Susan Black, Chair of The Football Association and FIFA Vice-President, Debbie Hewitt MBE joined me at today’s Real Truth Legacy Project school assembly at St Teresa’s.
The assembly was delivered as part of our Real Truth Legacy Project, which I am leading on in Parliament, in addition to the Hillsborough Law Now Campaign. I am also Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Public Accountability.
In an age-appropriate 30-minute assembly, Year 6 students were told about the disaster and the decades-long battle in pursuit of the truth by the families of Hillsborough victims and survivors, until an inquest in 2016 finally ruled that Liverpool fans had been ‘unlawfully killed’ as a result of failures by those in charge of their safety, particularly South Yorkshire police.
The children also learned how this inquest completely exonerated fans, and why this was so important given that, in the wake of the tragedy, an orchestrated cover-up attempted to blame Liverpool fans for the loss of life.
Maureen Ungi, Assistant Head at St Teresa’s, delivered the assembly to Year 6 pupils. Afterwards she said: “It is vitally important that the injustices of Hillsborough are never repeated for future generations. No-one should ever again experience the cover-ups, lies and smears that the Hillsborough families did. Educating our young people is the best way of ensuring this never happens again.”
“If Hillsborough is part of the National Curriculum it would make it less likely for the establishment’s cover up and lies to be repeated. History often repeats itself but hopefully The Real Truth Legacy Project will prevent this, or something similar, from ever happening again.”
“I launched the Real Truth Legacy Project in 2021 to educate school-aged children and older generations about what really happened at Hillsborough, as well as the cover-up and long fight for justice that followed. “
- Ian Byrne MP
Addressing the Year 6 students at St Teresa’s, I told the pupils that what is being fought for now is a legacy and that I am leading on two key campaigns in Parliament concerned with a Hillsborough legacy: one is The Real Truth Legacy Project and the other is the Hillsborough Law Now campaign.
The Real Truth Legacy Project is focused on education whilst the Hillsborough Law Now campaign aims to ensure, through legislation, better protection for bereaved families after disasters, providing them with expert legal advice, financial assistance for legal cases and putting in place a ‘duty of candour’ for police officers and responsible officials to tell the truth, in an attempt to prevent future cover-ups.
I thanked the Hillsborough families, survivors and campaigners who have worked hard to get the education project to this point, and thanked Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson and her team for their ongoing support of the Real Truth Legacy project.
Speaking after the assembly I said: “The Real Truth Legacy project educates people on what actually happened at Hillsborough and afterwards, showing the extent the state went to in order to cover-up their own failings and highlights what it took to finally reach the truth.
“The campaign for a Hillsborough Law, meanwhile, fights for a duty of candour, an even legal playing field and resources for those seeking justice against the state. So while one campaign is to educate people, the other is to legally enforce as much fairness as possible for people in the event that they themselves ever come up against the state and to ensure that in future, survivors of disasters and victims’ families never again have to face the state with a blindfold on and their hands tied behind their back.”
Hillsborough families and survivors recently marked the 34th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, which resulted in the greatest loss of life at a sporting event in British history. The death of Andrew Devine in 2021 means that 97 people have officially died as a result of the events of April 15th 1989, with a further 766 injured. Tragically though, more lives have been lost to suicide in the years since Hillsborough, due to the trauma suffered at or in relation to that day and its aftermath.
A Hillsborough Law would have massive implications for bereaved families and survivors seeking justice on many campaigns including Grenfell, Contaminated Blood, the Manchester Arena Bombing, Nuclear Test Veterans, the Covid-19 Inquiry and more.
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