The government has announced the formal start of the promised official inquiry into the violent policing at the Orgreave coking plant during the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the discredited prosecutions of 95 men that followed.
- +Orgreave inquiry formally under way into policing during miners’ strike
Yvette Cooper, who was then the home secretary, announced the inquiry in July with Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield, as the chair.
Yvette Cooper, who was then the home secretary, announced the inquiry in July with Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield, as the chair. The government has since worked on appointing an expert panel to consider the evidence.
The terms of reference, similar to those of the landmark Hillsborough independent panel, are to seek the fullest disclosure of information and to produce a report by spring 2028 that will “aid public understanding”.
At Orgreave on 18 June 1984, three months into the strike by the National Union of Mineworkers against planned pit closures, about 8,000 miners assembled for a mass picket and were met by 6,000 police officers from forces nationwide, led by South Yorkshire police.
The ensuing violence has become notorious, with police charging miners on horseback and hitting men over the head with truncheons.
Prosecutions were brought against 95 miners but the charges were dropped during the trial in June 1985 after police officers’ evidence was discredited in court. Michael Mansfield, who represented several defendants, described the prosecutions as “the biggest frame-up ever”.
The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, which has sought a statutory inquiry since forming in 2012, welcomed the announcement, although it said it was disappointed at the time taken to reach this formal start.
The campaign said its members, who include former striking miners, had needed “determination and tenacity”, supported by the wider labour and trade union movement. It said: “We have … tried our best to influence the process to ensure this does not become a police-led inquiry but one shaped by the miners and their experiences.”
Sarah Jones, the policing minister, said the panel’s purpose was to get to the truth about the Orgreave events. She said: “I’ve had the privilege of meeting the campaigners, and I think the overriding sense of injustice is obviously palpable, but also the sense that people just haven’t been believed or listened to for a very long time.
“What is important to me is that people have the confidence to come forward, with whatever information we’re going to need, and to be able to tell their story of what happened in a way where they know that they will be listened to and believed. And that we will do what needs to be done.”
South Yorkshire police said they were “fully committed to supporting the Orgreave inquiry”.
The four panel members are Wendy Williams, a former chief prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service and inspector in the police and fire service inspectorate; Mary Bousted, a former joint general secretary of the National Education Union; Joanna Gilmore, a senior lecturer in law at the University of York who specialises in public order, human rights and policing policy; and Angela Sutton-Vane, a historian with expertise in archiving and preserving police records.
Wilcox said: “I wish to help resolve a trauma that persists to this day – for the miners who were injured at Orgreave, who were arrested at Orgreave, who feel their story has not yet been fully told. For their families and communities, and for the relationship between police and the mining community.
“I will follow the evidence without prejudice, wherever it may lead, wholly independent of government, law enforcement or any other public body.”
