A FAMILY support group set up following the Hillsborough disaster has decided to disband, it has been announced.

Trevor Hicks, who lost his two teenage daughters Sarah and Vicki in the 1989 tragedy, confirmed the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) has disbanded.

A total of 96 fans died at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989.

Thirty-two years on, the families will mark the anniversary of the disaster privately due to restrictions of the pandemic.

Mr Hicks, a former Keighley businessman, served as the group’s chairman for its first 16 years and has been its president ever since.

The families continued to fight years after the disaster, including in April 2016 when the 96 Liverpool fans, including one from Keighley, who died in the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed, an inquests' jury concluded.

He said: “We are all getting old, I was just over 40 when then group started, I’m 74 now.

“We will deal with matters as they come up. We haven’t been able to meet in person for over a year due to the Covid restrictions. We can’t have a formal annual service. “The families are tired and we are definitely going to keep in touch.”

Mr Hicks added the group initially decided to disband last summer but the transitional period is now under way.

Speaking on Liverpool FC’s TV channel last week, the group’s ex-chair, Margaret Aspinall, said the group would be disbanding. Sarah Hicks, 19, and her 15-year-old sister had been standing in the central pens on the Leppings Lane terrace after being separated from their father.

The 96th victim to die was Tony Bland, from Keighley, who was 18 at the time of the disaster.

He was left in a persistent vegetative state and his life supporting treatment was removed at the age of 22 after a legal battle.