The Hicks Amendment is an opportunity to build on Hillsborough Law
The Hillsborough disaster and subsequent cover–up that followed spoke volumes of the imbalance between ordinary people and the power structures in this country. Not only was there a lack of truth and accountability but when the truth did emerge there was a lack of correction of the public record.
One of the few undoubted successes of Sir Keir Starmer’s Government was the introduction of the Hillsborough Law. It introduces a statutory duty of candour for public authorities and officials.
However, the proposed Amendment 106 presents an invaluable opportunity to ensure that people who have been seriously misrepresented in court proceedings, as a result of a public authority's failure to act with candour, can apply to a court to correct the public record.
It has been dubbed the ‘Hicks Amendment’, inspired by the decades-long fight for justice by Jenni Hicks and Trevor Hicks, whose teenage daughters died in the 1989 disaster.
Their campaign to secure a Statement in Open Court followed the refusal of South Yorkshire Police to correct the legal record. It was not until earlier this year that the new Chief Constable Lauren Poultney confirmed that she had instructed the South Yorkshire Police’s legal team to proceed with a Statement in Open Court (SOAC) acknowledging that earlier court findings about the deaths of Jenni and Trevor Hicks’ daughters should be corrected.
No family should have to wait for 37 years for the legal record to be corrected. There can be nothing but praise for the Hicks family for fighting to spare other families from suffering the same injustice that they’ve had to endure.