Hillsborough disaster exonerating the Liverpool fans, MacKenzie issued the following statement: In response, Trevor Hicks, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, rejected MacKenzie's apology as "too little, too late", calling him "lowlife, clever lowlife, but lowlife". A press conference held by families of the victims also banned all "Sun" reporters from entering, with a sign on the door reading "NO ENTRY TO SUN JOURNALISTS". Sales of "The Sun" remain poor in Merseyside and a boycott is still practised. In 2004, its average circulation in Liverpool was 12,000 copies a day. Following the April 2016 verdict of unlawful killing, "The Sun" and
Hillsborough disaster players brought flowers onto the pitch and presented them to the Liverpool fans around the stadium before the game commenced. During a 2011 debate in the House of Commons, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, Steve Rotheram, read out a list of the victims and, as a result, the names were entered into "Hansard". Initial media coverage – spurred by what Phil Scraton calls in "Hillsborough: The Truth" "the Heysel factor" and "hooligan hysteria" – began to shift the blame onto the behaviour of the Liverpool fans at the stadium, making it a public order issue. As well as "The