Plenary session

The second day of the conference opens with a plenary titled "Liverpool and the Legacies of Hillsborough: Arts, Law, Communities and Accountability". This session is kindly sponsored by the Modern Law Review seminar series.

The SLSA Conference 2025 coincides with the 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster and the year in which a new Hillsborough Law is anticipated. This plenary session brings together some of the most significant figures in the Hillsborough Justice campaign to showcase and reflect on the complementary roles that community activism, research, the arts and the law have played in pursuing justice for the Hillsborough families.  

The Hillsborough stadium disaster took place at the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15th April 1989 and claimed the lives of ninety-seven men, women and children. Over subsequent decades the disaster has prompted a Home Office inquiry, a criminal investigation, compensation hearings which reached the House of Lords, the longest inquests in recent legal history, a judicial review, judicial scrutiny and private prosecutions. Hillsborough has sparked debate about truth, injustice, police corruption and state collusion. Crucially, the formal processes of accountability following the Hillsborough disaster were driven and shaped by extensive community campaigning challenging the state and the legal system’s inadequate response to the tragedy. The campaign by the Hillsborough families therefore provides perhaps the most significant example of the way in which accountability must be understood through a socio-legal lens and has inspired many other justice campaigns ever since.

The panel brings together pivotal figures from the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, including: leading members of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Margaret Aspinall and Sue Roberts; acclaimed Liverpool-based writer and producer, Jimmy McGovern; leading socio-legal scholar, Professor Phil Scraton; and Elkan Abrahamson, legal representative to many of the Hillsborough victims’ families. Together they will reflect on the collaborative roles of community activism, academic research, the arts, and legal advocacy in pursuing justice for the families affected. The plenary will be held in the Tung Auditorium of our landmark new Yoko Ono Lennon Centre at the University of Liverpool. It is fitting that this plenary should be hosted in this state-of-the-art music and cultural centre given the centrality of the arts and music to so many social justice campaigns.