The families who thought they had walked alone for 28 years

Over the past 28 years the bereaved of Hillsborough have marked each painful hurdle in the battle for justice with an outpouring of emotion.

The decision last year by an inquest jury that 96 Liverpool supporters crushed to death in the 1989 stadium disaster had been unlawfully killed was hailed with fluttering red scarves and families linking arms to sing the city’s famous anthem: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

But yesterday as they walked out from Warrington’s Parr Hall into the Cheshire drizzle after hearing the news that six people, including two senior officers, have been charged with criminal offences over the deaths and the alleged ensuing cover-up, the emotions they have worn so visibly over the years were kept tightly in check.

"28 years for justice," said Marcia Willis Stewart, the lead lawyer for 77 of the families at the inquests, to the amassed cameras outside. “Now is the time for accountability.

Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher, 18, was among the 96 killed in the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, simply pumped a tightly coiled fist as he emerged.

Mr Devonside admitted there were initial cheers among the families inside the building when the charges were read out.

Yet the desire not to prejudice forthcoming criminal proceedings they have fought most of their lives to bring before the courts remained at the forefront of all their minds. 

In a statement delivered outside the hall, Marcia Willis Stewart said accountability for the tragedy was "key" and "at the heart" of the long campaign.

She added: "the families are sensitive to the issue of fairness and due process and nobody wishes to jeopardise this."

She was flanked by relatives looking sternly ahead. Some embraced while still clutching coffee cups, or permitted themselves the faintest of smiles sheltering under umbrellas outside the red-brick building which is normally reserved for concerts rather than announcements from the Crown Prosecution Service. 

Margaret Aspinall, the chairwoman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group whose son James died in the disaster and was personally hailed for her work by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons yesterday, spoke for many of the families when she expressed the hope that finally some semblance of peace now lay ahead.

"I think everybody needs that,” she said. “I think we all need peace from Hillsborough but we can never have peace until we've got truth, justice, accountability.”

As ever with the Hillsborough families’ campaign, each step forward is a bitter victory – marked by the absence of those no longer here to see it.

Their fight has gone on for so long that it is not just anymore in the memory of the 96 who never came home, but more recently the relatives who have since passed away without knowing the outcome of their campaign.

Trevor Hicks, 71, whose teenage daughters Vicki and Sarah were killed in the stadium, told the Telegraph last night that he had been to a number of funerals recently of parents like him who lost children in the tragedy.

Only a few weeks ago he attended the funeral of Sydney Edwards, a founding member of the Hillsborough Family Support Group whose son Christopher was killed. 

The 80-year-old from Cheshire passed away last month following a short illness.

Yesterday, the families also discovered that there will be no manslaughter prosecution over the death of the 96th casualty, Anthony Bland, as he died almost four years later, and under the law in 1989 when the alleged offence was committed, his death is now "out of time" to be prosecuted.

“We think of them and we think of ourselves,” Hicks said. “There are no winners in this and it doesn’t bring anybody back from the disaster.”

Hicks also explained the subdued response yesterday by the fact that the families know through painful experience what lies ahead:  a long legal process which is likely to take yet more years to fully conclude.

Still, as ever they are motivated by a fierce sense of justice. And something else now: hope.

“We see this as a step forward and I feel now that my glass is two thirds full,” he said. “This is the real beginning of the end.”