Margaret Aspinall, whose son James died in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, described Nuttall’s admission as ‘appalling’ [Image: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images].

Bereaved families of Hillsborough victims have reacted with dismay after the Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, was forced to admit that claims on his website about losing close friends in the disaster were false.

Margaret Aspinall, the chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18-year-old son, James, died in the disaster, described the admission as “appalling”.

“There’s a lot of people who survived that day who did lose personal friends. It’s devastating for them because they’re still suffering and for the guy now to backtrack is appalling,” she said.

“I’m trying to be open minded about this and hoping that soon we will find out the facts about whether he was there or not.”

Charlotte Hennessy, who was six when her father, Jimmy, died in the tragedy, said Nuttall’s admission was an “insult”. “It doesn’t matter whether it was a close personal friend or not, he’s still using one of the 96 – that’s somebody’s loved one – for his own personal publicity,” she said.

“When he says things like this and he throws Hillsborough back out there, it’s us families who are disturbed from our daily lives trying to move on from Hillsborough and trying to deal with the verdicts. It’s us that has the backlash of all of his pathetic interviews and allegations.”

Source: Hillsborough families dismayed by Paul Nuttall’s ‘insulting’ admission | Politics | The Guardian

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