Orgreave campaigners in "positive" meeting with Home Secretary

The delegation included miners arrested as events unfolded when pickets arrived at the Orgreave coking plant in the summer of 1984, resulting in carnage, which left many badly injured and others arrested.

Despite facing serious charges, none of those arrested were ever convicted, because the cases against them were dropped as the trial became a fiasco.

They used the meeting to express their view that an inquiry was needed urgently, with Labour promising some form action as a manifesto commitment.

Kevin Horne, a miner arrested on the day, said: “It is now over 40 years since striking miners, fighting to save our jobs and communities, were attacked and arrested by police for picketing Orgreave coking plant.

“As the years roll by and many miners have died, those of us left, and our families, need answers about what the Government planned and what the police did.”

Police arrested 95 picketing miners and were equipped with full riot gear, dogs and mounted officers.

Those arrested were charged with riot or unlawful assembly - very serious allegations which could have carried life prison terms.

Campaign group secretary Kate Flannery said: “Our latest OTJC report, submitted to the Home Secretary and all major political parities and MPs, describes the Conservative Government’s political interference and involvement in the 1984/5 miners’ strike and how they used the courts, violent policing and the media to give police the confidence to behave with impunity throughout the miners strike.

“The Orgreave trial was set up to be a ‘show trial’ but when the police’s violent behaviour and lies became obvious and the miners were acquitted, the miners never got their chance in court to say what really happened and no-one in the police or Government has ever been held to account.”

South Yorkshire’s previous Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings, spent years arranging for police archive material to be digitised, to ensure it would be readily accessible should an inquiry be announced by the Government.