Orgreave Truth and Justice campaigners celebrate inquiry announcement after 40 year battle for truth
Striking miners who were arrested and beaten in the infamous Battle of Orgreave have celebrated as an inquiry into the events of that day is finally launched.
Known as the bloodiest episode of the 1984/5 miners’ strikes, the Battle of Orgreave saw strikers clash with police in chaotic scenes in Rotherham.
And despite the many injuries and 95 picketers who were arrested, official details of how the events unfolded and policing tactics of the time have been scarce.
Today (March 26), almost 42 years later, an official inquiry into the events has been launched - and campaigners who have spent decades battling for the truth have celebrated the announcement.
Chris Hockney, Chair of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign said: “It is important that due to the age and health of many miners we quickly secure a public acknowledgement of why and what the state did to the miners and our communities.
“We have to have hope that an inquiry of full disclosure should influence the future behaviour of the state and public officials and that the inquiry panel and resources committed to this inquiry will establish truth and justice.”
Campaigners have faced an uphill battle over the years, as records have been hidden while it has been reported that police forces have binned other relevant papers related to the strikes.
Information on how to take part in the inquiry can be found here.
Now, the campaign’s leaders have called for all details to be released to ensure that the miners still alive today get the answers they have spent so many years asking for.
Kate Flannery, Secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign said: “We need answers about the systemic violent and lying behaviour of the police. We need to know about plans of how police officers on the ground were briefed and how that briefing came about.
“We need government and police papers releasing that have been embargoed until 2066 and 2071. The police have recently still been destroying vital evidence needed for this inquiry.
“This is of great public interest and concern and is about a government who actively worked against its own population and handed the police paramilitary powers and destroyed an industry in the process.”
Miners from the time who were injured and arrested have been involved in the campaign over the years.
Kevin Horne, a striking miner arrested at Orgreave, said: “We know that the Tory Government of the 1980s was directly involved in the miners’ strike while professing ‘non-involvement’.
“The Tory Ridley plan of the 1970s exposes how far they were prepared to go and the 1980s Tory Government put vast amounts of public resources into the implementation of this plan. This was state sponsored organisation against the miners and our livelihoods. The Tory’s own archives confirm Parliament and the public were knowingly lied to but their involvement in the strike and the policing of it has never been publicly acknowledged.”