Parents tell Hillsborough inquest of devastation at deaths of both daughters
|
Version 0 of 1. Parents Trevor and Jenni Hicks have told the new inquest into the deaths of 96 people at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough football ground in 1989 of their heartbreak and devastation at the deaths of both their teenage daughters, Sarah and Victoria, in the disaster. Sarah Hicks, who was 19 when she died, was born on 10 April 1970, so Trevor Hicks told the jury of seven women and four men that the day he was making his statement about Sarah's death would have been her 44th birthday. "The loss of a child is one of the worst things that can happen to a loving parent. The loss of all our children is devastating," Trevor Hicks said. "It is not that it is twice as bad, it is that you lose everything: the present, the future and any purpose." Sarah had turned down a place at Oxford University and a scholarship at Imperial College, London, instead studying chemistry at Liverpool University, partly because she grew to love the city when supporting Liverpool Football Club as a family, her parents said. Victoria, 15, had just taken mock O-levels at Haberdashers' Aske's school in Elstree, but died before she could take her exams proper, in what the coroner, Lord Justice Goldring, has described as "the terrible crush" at Hillsborough. Describing her daughters as "bright, beautiful, innocent young women," Jenni Hicks said: "I left you as you went into a football ground, and a few hours later, you were dead." Both Trevor and Jenni Hicks, who divorced two years after their daughters died – "as a result of Hillsborough", Trevor Hicks said – paid tribute to the sisters' closeness, including when they died together in the "pens" of the Leppings Lane terrace of Hillsborough, at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. "I remember the way you looked after Vicky," Jenni Hicks said. "You always, always, looked after your little sister, even at the very end." The Hickses were giving their evidence on the fifth day of the inquest devoted to statements by bereaved family members about their loved ones who died. Other families listened silently in the large, converted courtroom in Warrington, some weeping, as relatives remembered five more teenagers who died: Lee Nicol, 14, Colin Ashcroft, 19, Simon Bell, 17, Graham Wright, 17, and John McBrien, 18. Derrick Godwin, 24, was also remembered, and a second family tribute was made to Gerard Baron, who at 67 was the oldest of the 96 people who died. Peter Thompson was 30, an engineer, who had recently married and whose wife, Linda, was expecting their baby, when he went to the semi-final and was killed in the crush. Linda had their daughter, Nikki, in August 1989, four months after the disaster. Peter Thompson's younger brother, Denis, struggled with his grief as he told the jury: "Peter would, I am sure, have been a wonderful father to Nikki. He was deeply loved by his family and friends, and we cherish his memory still." Colin Ashcroft had epilepsy and other learning difficulties, his mother, Janet Russell, said, and had worked hard to lead an independent life, including going on his own to watch Liverpool play football. She said she had carefully researched transport arrangements to ensure Colin would be safe, including for the semi-final at Hillsborough. "When his ticket came, he studied the diagram of the layout of the ground on the back of it, and decided he needed to go through the tunnel, as he wanted to be behind the goal," she said. The coroner, Lord Justice Goldring, told the jury in his opening speech that the Hillsborough tunnel led to the central "pens" 3 and 4, where the lethal crush took place. Margaret Godwin, the mother of Derrick Godwin, a keen sportsman who worked for Allied Dunbar insurance in Swindon and travelled long distances to watch Liverpool, recalled their concern for his safety at football matches. "His dad used to say to him: 'Always stand in front of the crush barrier [on terraces],' which we are sure that he did." Remembering his younger brother, Graham Wright, Stephen Wright said they were close, "one pair," and remembered a happy, bright boy who loved school, worked hard and was close to achieving his black belt in karate, which was awarded posthumously. Stephen was an altar boy at St Aidan's catholic church in Liverpool, alongside his friend James Aspinall, who was also killed at Hillsborough. The son of Gerard Baron, Gordon Baron recalled childhood wonders with a father of "integrity," who served in Burma and India with the RAF during the second world war then worked as a postal inspector for the Royal Mail for 33 years. Gordon Baron struggled to compose himself as he told of meeting a man in Preston, last year, who had known his father. "When I left, he said to me: 'Your dad was a damn good bloke.' We think that sums up our dad: a damn good bloke." Of her son John McBrien, Joan Hope said he was "handsome, kind, generous, charismatic and a remarkably mature young man" who was in his final year at school and had an unconditional offer to study at Liverpool University in the autumn of 1989. "John's death wrecked all our lives," she said. "We struggled to come to terms with what had happened. John was so very special to all of us. His death was completely devastating to our family." Lee Nicol, 14, a schoolboy who loved sport and cooking and took a paper and milk round so he could contribute to buying his Liverpool season ticket, was another of the teenage Hillsborough victims attending his first ever away match, his mother, Patricia Donnelly, said. Lee, who had many friends, was on a life support machine for three days after Hillsborough before he died. "Lee's friends came to stay with him in the funeral parlour," his mother said. In a statement by Christopher Bell about his son Simon, read by Simon's sister Fiona Lyons, the teenager was remembered as a happy young man passionately keen on cricket, which he had played for Lancashire schoolboys. "We sometimes think maybe something told him to make the best of his life," his father's statement said. "He packed a lot into his 17 years. "On 15 April 1989 he said he might be late back because he was going to the cricket club after the match. His mother, Joan, said to make sure he came back home before going anywhere else. That was the last time she saw him." The new inquest, which was ordered after the original 1990-91 inquest was quashed in the high court in December 2012, following a long campaign against it by families, will resume on 22 April. |