Father recounts horror of disaster

The father of two sisters crushed to death at the Hillsborough disaster has given harrowing evidence to an inquest into the tragedy, telling how he battled to save them on the pitch.

Sarah Hicks, 19, and her younger sister Victoria, 15, had been standing in the central pens behind the goal on the Leppings Lane terrace on the FA Cup semi-final match day in Sheffield after being separated from their father, Trevor.

Wearing a red “96” commemorative badge adorned on his suit, Mr Hicks told the Hillsborough inquest sitting in Warrington that he called out their names as he gave them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions whilst laying side-by-side.

He spoke of the heartbreaking moment he had “no choice” but to leave his elder daughter on the pitch as he carried Vicki into an ambulance, saying that he felt “dreadful”.

Liverpool University student Sarah and her “football mad” sister Vicki had travelled to the ground on April 15 1989 with their parents Trevor and Jenni.

Today Trevor Hicks relived the moment he saw the “limp form” of his youngest daughter being passed over a fence onto the pitch after the surge.

As he made his way down from his position in the southwest terrace underneath the police box he found both of his daughters lying side-by-side.

He said: “I was going to do everything possible and everyone else seemed to be doing that. If they had a chance they were going to get it.”