The 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster was marked in Liverpool today.
Thousands stopped in Liverpool city centre at 3.06pm to pay their respects by observing two minutes silence.
In the city’s main streets and shopping thoroughfares public transport stopped and motorists pulled over to take part in the impeccably-kept silence exactly 20 years since the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was abandoned.
The bells of the city's two cathedrals and its civic buildings rang out in memory of the 96 football fans who died at Sheffield Wednesday's stadium two decades ago.
At a memorial service at Anfield's Kop, 96 candles were lit and a representative of each family was awarded the Freedom of Liverpool.
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham was repeatedly booed and jeered when he addressed the crowd in a “last minute” addition to the order of service. Mr Burnham said he brought a message from Prime Minister Gordon Brown that the victims of the Hillsborough disaster would never be forgotten.
But the crowd interjected, chanting “Justice for the 96”.
Mr Burnham went on to pay tribute to the families and those involved in Liverpool Football Club who have kept the victims' memories alive.
He urged the police and ambulance services, as well as the local council, to publish all material relating to the disaster to help families discover what happened to their loved ones.
The disaster and subsequent inquiry led to the removal of fencing at the front of stands and all-seater stadiums, changing the culture of grounds and creating a safer if less boisterous atmosphere at matches.
The families are angry nobody has been successfully prosecuted despite an official report in 1989 criticising police for their failure to control the situation.
"The Hillsborough families have suffered the immediate pain of the tragedy and the anguish afterwards of 20 years without a sense of proper resolution or closure," Mr Burnham said in a statement.
Trevor Hicks, a former chairman of the Families Group, said: “If ever the Government needed proof of our determination to get justice for the 96, they just have to look around this stadium today.
“We are all here today to remember the 96 men, women and children who did not come home from a game of football on a beautiful, sunny day in Sheffield.
Sheffield marked the anniversary of Britain's worst sporting disaster quietly. After consultation with the Liverpool families' organisations, there was no formal ceremony at Wednesday's ground.
The Leppings Lane end - where the disaster happened - was opened, though, and there are three different memorials within a few hundred yards of the ground to provide a local focus.
Agencies