Hillsborough legal fees amount to more than £100 million
Families of the 96 victims that died in the Hillsborough disaster were paid a total of £63.5 million in legal costs, according to figures released by the Home Office.
Families of the 96 victims that died in the Hillsborough disaster were paid a total of £63.5 million in legal costs, according to figures released by the Home Office.
The total bill, released on Wednesday (November 2) amounts to £63,596,404.90 which includes payments to various legal firms including Broudie Jackson Carter, Harrison Bundey and Merill Corp.
These were paid by the Home Office, which also spent £25.1m on legal representation for the former chief constable of South Yorkshire Police and eight ex-officers.
A further £20 million was spent on running the inquests with an estimated £9 million spent on lawyers for the coroner John Goldring.
Legal fees for the longest running inquests in British history span from December 31, 2012 to June 30, 2016.
The inquests concluded in April this year that fans were unlawfully killed in the 1989.
However, following the publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report in 2012, where the truth was learned about what happened in Liverpools tie against Nottingham Forest, the then Home Secretary Theresa May ensured legal representation was given to the bereaved families.
Birnberg Peirce and Partners, a London-based law firm, was paid £34.2 million for representing 74 families. The payments included fees for Michael Mansfield, president of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.
Survivors of the crush were not given funds for legal representation at the inquests.
Two criminal investigations are currently being conducted into the disaster one into the fans deaths and another into police conduct afterwards.
The Home Office has said legal funding will continue for the victims families.
Liverpool Walton MP, Steve Steve Rotheram, said: “The public purse could have been spared this cost and the Hillsborough families the heartache of a two-and-a-half-decade delay in reaching the right verdict, if they had received sufficient legal funding for the first inquest in November 1990.
“If they could have afforded the best lawyers 26 years ago, the injustice wouldn`t have happened.
It shows yet again why, when bereaved families are up against public bodies at inquests, they need fair legal funding.”