Senior officers said police failures were the main cause of the Hillsborough tragedy and apologised for "profoundly failing" the families in the decades since.
Leaders from the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs' Council have apologised to the Hillsborough families as part of a national police response to a 2017 report into the stadium disaster. Ninety-seven Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed as a result of a crush on the terraces at the Hillsborough Stadium at the Sheffield Wednesday ground in April 1989.
The Right Reverend Bishop James Jones, who wrote the Hillsborough Families Report more than five years ago, called for action to support those hit by the tragedy including the establishment of a "duty of candour" for police officers. Rt Revd Jones called for the "duty of candour" for police officers to tackle the "unacceptable behaviour" of serving or retired officers who fail to cooperate fully with probes into misconduct. The former Bishop of Liverpool also called for public bodies to commit to acting transparently and in the public interest to ensure similar failures wouldn't be made again.
