Former Prime Minister Theresa May confessed she initially believed lies spread about the victims of the Hillsborough disaster before she later helped to launch the investigation that would confirm the truth about what happened.
Ms May was praised by many families of the 97 Liverpool fans who died in the 1989 disaster for helping to reopen inquiries when she was Home Secretary, leading to new inquests and the verdict that the supporters who died were unlawfully killed.
She also commissioned a 2017 report by Bishop James Jones that sought to ensure that other families of victims of major disasters would not face the same long and painful battles for truth and justice as the Hillsborough families did - and has strongly backed calls for a new Hillsborough Law to help with this.
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In an interview with Andrew Marr on LBC, to be aired in full at 6pm today (Wednesday), Ms May spoke candidly about how she initially believed the lies and smears that were peddled about Liverpool fans by South Yorkshire Police and others in the aftermath of the disaster.
She said: "I ought to confess that at the time, in 1989, I believed the stories that were put out by the police and the authorities. There was at that time this atmosphere of violence on football grounds, hooliganism. That was expected of football fans."
Responding, Mr Marr pointed out that members of her own Conservative Party were among those who went along with the cover-up at the time, to which she responded: "Yes everybody did go along with it. And it was, you're absolutely right, the police altered witness statements, most of them in favour of South Yorkshire Police or not to be negative about South Yorkshire Police.
"There were questions that should have been asked on the day about the decisions that were taken about the way the ambulance service reacted. And there were other injustices."
The former Prime Minister spoke about the fact that the coroner at the first inquests, Dr Stefan Popper, did not accept evidence about events on the day after 3.15pm, suggesting that no one could have been saved after that.
Ms May added: "In fact people now know that some of the fans were alive and had they been treated differently, could have lived. And that decision was a very poor one."
Dr Popper saw his accidental death findings quashed in 2012, paving the way for the fresh inquests in Warrington, which produced a verdict of unlawful killing for those who died as a result of the disaster.
Describing Hillsborough as an example of the "burning injustices" she referenced when she began her time as Prime Minister, Ms May said: "If you look at the story of Hillsborough, it is that sense of people in positions of power, very often in positions of power where they're there in order to protect and serve the public, but they're not using their power in that way. They're using that power to protect themselves and the institutions they're members of."
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