Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Anon (often attributed to Buddah)

THE truth about the Hillsborough disaster is no longer hidden.

And it is not ‘The Truth’ as displayed so disgustingly on the front page of The Sun in 1989.

It is the truth the families of 96 men, women and children who lost their lives at a football match have sought for 27 years.

Forget for a moment that the victims of Hillsborough were football fans.

Forget for a moment that they were Liverpool supporters.

Imagine they were your sons, daughters, brothers or sisters.

Imagine they went out for the day and never came back because someone else failed in their duty of care to them.

Imagine if they had the life crushed out of them because someone else didn’t do their job properly.

And then imagine that those who failed them in their time of need laid the blame at the feet of the dead.

What would you do?

I hope most of us would do what the Hillsborough families have done for almost three decades – fight, fight and fight again for justice for their loved ones.

Tuesday’s inquest verdicts would never have been delivered were it not for the tenacity, bravery and sheer bloody mindedness of Trevor Hicks, Margaret Aspinall, the late Anne Williams and their fellow campaigners.

They simply refused to give up.

When The Sun (which did not even have the decency to report the inquest verdicts on its front page yesterday) besmirched the names of the dead and other Liverpool supporters in the most awful way, the families fought back.

When former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s media henchman Bernard Ingham wrote to them to say blaming the police was ‘contemptible’ and the disaster was caused by ‘tanked-up yobs’, the families fought back.

When senior police officers lied and lied and lied again about what caused the fatal crush in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, the families fought back.

When the original inquests delivered an accidental deaths verdict along with the coroner’s ludicrous assertion that everyone who died at the stadium had done so by 3.15pm, the families fought back.

When a judicial review to quash the orginal inquest verdicts was thrown out in 1993, the families fought back.

When former Prime Minister Tony Blair scrawled ‘Why? What’s the point?’ in 1997 across a civil service note about the potential for a new inqury, the families fought back.

When private prosecutions against retired police chiefs David Duckenfield and Bernard Murray failed in 2000, the families fought back.

And then, in 2009, the tide turned.

At a memorial service to mark the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Labour minister Andy Burnham’s speech was drowned out by chants of ‘Justice for the 96’.

Clearly affected, Burnham ordered the publication of all documents relating to the disaster.

In 2012 the Hillsborough Independent Panel, set up to review the documents, delivered a report that laid bare the high-level cover-up that followed the disaster.

Criminal inquiries were ordered, the original inquest verdicts were quashed, and on Tuesday a jury that had heard evidence for more than two years delivered its verdict.

The 96 were unlawfully killed.

Actions of Liverpool supporters on the day played no part in the disaster.

The deaths of 96 innocent people happened because of the failings of the police, the ambulance service and the stadium operators.

Truth and justice have been won after many years and at some considerable cost, both personally and financially.

Prosecutions and accountability must now follow.

To the families of the dead, a salute from a fellow Liverpool fan. You did your loved ones proud.

You ensured that, in death, they never, ever walked alone.

At the end of the storm
There’s a golden sky

You’ll Never Walk Alone (Rodgers/Hammerstein)