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 in the largest English football grounds, notably the elimination of fenced standing terraces in favour of all-seater stadiums in the top two tiers of English football. The first coroner's inquests into the Hillsborough disaster, completed in 1991, ruled all deaths that occurred that day to be accidental. Families strongly rejected the original coroner's findings, and their fight to have the matter re-opened persisted, despite Lord Justice Stuart-Smith concluding in 1997 there was no justification for a new inquiry. Private prosecutions brought by the Hillsborough Families Support Group against Duckenfield and his deputy Bernard Murray failed in 2000. In 2009, a