Hillsborough inquest: coroner begins summing up

How each of the 96 Liverpool fans died at the 1989 Hillsborough disaster was the "most important, difficult and controversial" question to answer, an inquest jury has been told.

The coroner presiding over the fresh hearings into the deaths at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final gave legal directions to the jury of seven women and three men ahead of summing up the evidence in the case.

Sir John Goldring said there was "no dispute" that each of the 96 Liverpool fans suffered fatal injuries from a crush in the West Stand of HillsboroughStadium but jurors would have to consider the surrounding circumstances which may have contributed to deaths.

He told them their final determinations on the balance of probabilities could not decide any question of criminal liability or civil liability on the part of a named person.

The coroner said: "While you can make important, robust and judgmental findings about how a person died, you cannot find any person guilty of a criminal offence. Neither can you find that person was, for example, negligent."

He said he required them to perform three tasks - fill in an individual questionnaire for each of those who died, fill in a general questionnaire and complete a record of inquest containing personal information about those who died.

The general questionnaire, split into 14 sections, asks about the underlying factors "which may have played a part in the disaster".

The coroner explained: "Whether, for example, opportunities were lost which might have prevented it or have saved lives."

Individual questionnaires would focus on the medical cause of death and time of death.

The former Court of Appeal judge, acting as Assistant Coroner for South Yorkshire (East) and West Yorkshire (West), is expected to take up to three weeks to sum up the evidence.

The inquests will then adjourn for the half-term break in mid-February and are due to reconvene on February 22 when the jury is expected to be sent out to reach its determinations.

The tragedy unfolded on April 15 1989 during Liverpool's FA Cup tie againstNottingham Forest as thousands of fans were crushed on Sheffield Wednesday's Leppings Lane terrace.

The 1991 verdicts from the original inquests were quashed following the damning 2012 report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which concluded there was a cover-up that attempted to shift the blame for the tragedy on to its victims.