Police were responsible for the deaths of 96 Liverpool FC soccer fans in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium crush, a jury concluded on Tuesday after two years of hearings into Britain's worst sporting disaster.

The inquest verdicts of "unlawful killing", which could pave the way for prosecutions, were greeted with a mix of cheers and tears by relatives of the victims, who sang the Liverpool fans' anthem "You'll never walk alone" outside the court in Warrington, northern England.

The families had campaigned for almost three decades to get "Justice for the 96", refusing to accept the deaths were accidental.

They said the police, who at first blamed the tragedy on the supporters themselves, had told lies and staged a cover-up of "industrial proportions" to hide their mistakes in managing the crowd surging into the stadium.