The Hillsborough disaster: Telling Anne Williams’s story

‘Anne’ is part of a long and honourable history in British TV drama of exposing and sometimes even overturning heinous miscarriages of justice, writes James Rampton

Maxine Peake stars in the ITV drama as Anne (ITV)

For a long time, Sara Williams’s maxim had always been: just say no. Over the years, many TV producers had approached her, asking for permission to tell the story of her mother, Anne, but Williams had always turned them down flat.

Anne had lost her 15-year-old son Kevin at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and had then spent years campaigning for justice for the victims. She was relentless in her desire to uncover what really happened at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989. The tragic events of that day claimed a total of 97 lives.

She was driven by the discovery that Kevin could still have been here today. He was one of 41 victims who might have survived with basic first aid on the day.