Independent Public Advocate backs Hicks family’s campaign to correct the legal record
Cindy Butts has expressed her support for Jenni and Trevor Hicks as they seek to correct the official legal record about how their daughters died in the Hillsborough disaster - and for their call to create a clearer route for other families to correct similar injustices.
Background to the Hicks family’s campaign
For more than 30 years, the formal legal record has stated that Sarah (19) and Victoria (15) Hicks were unconscious within 30 seconds during the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April 1989 and died within five minutes.
Subsequent inquiries have shown this to be fundamentally incorrect. Medical and expert evidence demonstrated that many victims of asphyxia at Hillsborough remained conscious for significantly longer, experiencing prolonged distress. Witness accounts indicate that both Sarah and Victoria remained alive and responsive well beyond the timeline recorded in the early 1990s legal rulings.
Despite these findings, the original court decisions have never been formally corrected.
The case for a ‘Hicks’ Rule’
Jenni and Trevor Hicks, are calling for a ‘Hicks’ Rule’ – a clear, accessible legal mechanism to correct official records where later evidence has overturned the assumptions on which earlier decisions were based.
Cindy Butts attended the launch event for the Hicks’ Rule campaign in Parliament on Monday 9th February.
Speaking after the event, Cindy said:
Jenni and Trevor’s campaign for a Hicks’ Rule speaks to something profoundly simple and deeply important: the truth matters. No family should have to fight for decades to correct an official record that has been proven wrong.
When inaccurate records are allowed to stand, they don’t just distort history – they prolong trauma, shape how loss is understood, and leave families facing a second injustice.
A Hicks’ Rule would provide a clear, independent and compassionate way to correct the record. Accuracy, dignity and fairness should never depend on institutional consent, and I fully support this vital call for change.
Why this matters for victims and families
For many bereaved families and survivors, the persistence of an inaccurate public record is not a technical issue. Inaccuracies can:
- shape how a person’s final moments are understood
- influence public narratives and social attitudes
- compound trauma through repeated exposure to claims known to be untrue
- undermine families’ sense of dignity, recognition and justice
The Hicks family’s campaign raises wider questions about how the legal system can correct records when new evidence emerges many years later – and how families can access a process that is fair, independent and trauma‑informed.