- PM David Cameron says he is "profoundly sorry" for injustice suffered by victims and families
- A panel finds that South Yorkshire Police sought to deflect blame to the fans
- 96 people died and hundreds were injured in the crush at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989
- The tragedy, which shocked the nation, has cast a lingering shadow over Liverpool
Liverpool (CNN) -- UK police and emergency services were heavily criticized Wednesday for their handling of a tragedy at a soccer ground in 1989 in which 96 people died, after an independent panel for the first time reviewed thousands of documents previously kept out of public sight.
The crush at Sheffield's Hillsborough Stadium on April 15, 1989, is the deadliest peacetime incident in British history and has cast a lasting shadow over Liverpool and the surrounding Merseyside area.
The families of those killed and injured have for two decades battled to get to the truth about what happened on that awful day -- and to overturn what the independent panel found were "strenuous" efforts by police to deflect responsibility for the disaster to Liverpool fans by falsely claiming they were drunk and violent.
Prime Minister David Cameron said that he was "profoundly sorry" to all those affected by the Hillsborough tragedy and that the report showed the fans "were not the cause of the disaster."
The fans suffered a "double injustice," he said: first, in the way they were failed by police and emergency services, and second, in their treatment over the past 23 years, when they endured the "indignity" of suggestions that they were somehow to blame for their own deaths.
Cameron's apology on behalf of the government was the first such offered to those whose lives were devastated by the Hillsborough disaster.
The families were the first to see the independent panel's report Wednesday morning.
In its study of about 450,000 pages of evidence, the panel found evidence that South Yorkshire Police sought to deflect responsibility for the disaster to Liverpool fans, presenting a case that emphasized exceptional levels of drunkenness and aggression among them.
There is no evidence to support this view, the report said.
The panel's analysis clearly shows that substantive amendments were made by South Yorkshire Police to remove and alter comments unfavorable to their organization.
Cameron said the panel had found that 164 police statements were "significantly amended" and that 116 had been doctored to remove negative comments about the force's response and leadership.
The insult was compounded by a story in The Sun newspaper, headlined "The Truth," in which it was falsely reported that Liverpool fans had been drunk, violent and had stolen from the dead.
Those false claims have for the first time been traced back to a South Yorkshire Police source, Cameron said.
The report also shows for the first time that South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service documents were subject to the same kind of alterations as those of police, and that the ambulance service failed to implement its major incident plan properly.
Relatives have long believed that some of those caught up in the crush could have lived if they had received timely medical treatment.
An investigation by safety officers found that the grounds were structurally unsafe and that the stadium should not have been used for the match, in which Liverpool played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semifinal.
Severely restricted turnstiles, poor conditions on the terrace and inadequate safety barriers with virtually no means of escape all contributed to the deadly crush, the panel found.
The panel's report also raised profound concerns about the conduct of the original inquest into the deaths, held in 1991, which operated on the assumption that all the deaths occurred within 15 minutes of the crush.
Cameron said the attorney general could, after studying the evidence, choose to request a new inquest.
He said that while the panel found the language used in government papers at the time was "insensitive," it found no evidence that the government tried to conceal the truth of what had happened.
A government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was then in power.
Cameron said the report would make "harrowing" and uncomfortable reading for many people, but it was right that the truth had finally been revealed.
The Right Reverend James Jones, the bishop of Liverpool, who chaired the panel, said it had produced the report "in the profound hope that greater transparency will bring to the families and the wider public a greater understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath.
"For it is only with this transparency that the families and survivors who have behaved with such dignity, can with some sense of truth and justice cherish the memory of their 96 loved ones."
A two-minute silence will be held in Liverpool on Wednesday afternoon in memory of those killed.
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