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In 1989, 96 Liverpool football supporters died at the FA Cup semi final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest held at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. Before mobile phones the news emerged slowly and from police briefings with stories of Liverpool fans rioting. In fact a succession of policing mistakes had led to fans being crushed. The pattern of the subsequent cover up is rather more familiar now than it was then. The Sun had “drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims” and “police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon”, all from a briefing by the police officer in charge and a Tory MP to the Sun editor, and all completely untrue.

It is impossible to separate Jimmy McGovern’s drama documentary from the real events. We follow three families through the day and through their subsequent attempts to find out what happened.

Brilliantly acted, ruthlessly edited, the most heartrending performance is from Christopher Eccleston as Trevor Hicks whose two teenage daughters were both killed.