A summary of the Hillsborough findings
From the outset South Yorkshire Police (SYP) sought to deflect responsibility for the disaster on to Liverpool fans.
A major incident plan was not implemented and there were clear operational failures in response to the disaster.
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The then chief constable of South Yorkshire Peter Wright and his officers, with the help of local Tory MP Irvine Patnick, sought to cover up the failings, briefing media that drunken, ticketless fans and violence were to blame.
Officers claimed fans had planned to arrive late at the stadium, but the report said there was no evidence of this.
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There was also "no evidence that they stole from the dead and dying".
In contrast, "the vast majority of fans on the pitch assisted in rescuing and evaluating the injured and the dead," the panel said.
There was also no evidence to support the proposition that alcohol played any part in events.
The report found that 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter "unfavourable" comments about the policing of the match and the unfolding disaster and South Yorkshire Ambulance Service documents were also changed.
The report found an attempt was made to attack the reputations of those who died by carrying out Police National Computer checks on those who had been drinking.
Blood alcohol levels were tested in some survivors as well as in all those who died. In some there was "no apparent medical reason for the test" and no record was kept of the tests or their results in the medical notes of the survivors.
Documents also showed there was a delay by the emergency services when people were being crushed and killed.
Up to 41 of the fans who died "had potential to survive". The panel said there were 41 victims who were either alive after 3.15pm – the coroner's cut off time – or who suffered injuries that were inconsistent with the findings of the pathologists. The coroner ruled that by 3.15pm all the victims had received fatal injuries, which meant that the inquests did not examine the chaotic response after that time.
The original pathologists' evidence of a single, unvarying pattern of death was "unsustainable", the panel said.
The panel also found that access to Cabinet documents revealed that in an exchange about her Government welcoming the Taylor Report into the tragedy, then prime minister Margaret Thatcher expressed her concern that the "broad thrust" of the report constituted a "devastating criticism of the police".
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