YOU will hear some of the most harrowing tales ever told in a British court.

That was the warning Richard Sturt gave to the jury of eight men and three women at the start of the inquest into the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.

And no one who sat through the five weeks of evidence could have failed to have been moved by stories which emerged.

At the beginning Mr Sturt told the jury that verdicts of unlawful killing were possible, but only if they felt an individual was responsible for one or more the deaths.

He reminded them that an inquest was a fact-finding, not a fault-finding, inquiry.

Mr Sturt said the disaster was "one of the most poignant and moving tragedies of modern times".

At the end, he said: "Your hearts must have been broken many times."