‘We’re getting there’

Campaigners are “quietly confident” that the Home Secretary will announce a public inquiry in October into police brutality and misconduct against striking miners at the Orgreave coking plant in June 1984, after meeting with her yesterday (September 13).

Amber Rudd told a delegation from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), that she will announce her decision by the end of October, said Unite Organiser and OTJC chairperson, Joe Rollin.

Speaking after the meeting in Parliament, Rollin said, “We’re quietly confident that there will be an inquiry.

“Unite has consistently called for the truth about South Yorkshire Police’s actions at Orgreave to be uncovered and has been part of the campaign to make sure that happens.

“For far too long the events of June 1984 have not been properly acknowledged or investigated. The impression I got from Amber Rudd is that she believes it’s time for that to change.”

Around 6,000 officers were brought in to police the picket lines around the Orgreave coking plant, between Sheffield and Rotherham, on June 18 during the 1984 national miners strike.

Dubbed the “Battle of Orgreave”, the day is remembered as the most violent of the year long strike, with the police accused of using excessive force against the pickets. Ninety-five miners were arrested on the day, but the case against them collapsed because police evidence against them was deemed “unreliable”.

One former policeman, drafted in from Manchester, told Channel 4 News that South Yorkshire Police informed him that their own officers would write prisoner arrest statements, even if they had not made the arrest themselves – an action which breaks a hard and fast rule of policing.

“I knew in my own mind that was wrong,” he said.

Andy Burnham was one of a number of Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, who stood with the OTJC during a demonstration before their meeting with Rudd.

He said the similarities between South Yorkshire Police’s actions at Orgreave and at the Hillsborough Disaster fives year later, can no longer be ignored.

Burnham said, “(At Hillsborough) the police tried to blame the Liverpool supporters, but in a similar way five years earlier there was an effort to portray the miners as the aggressors and deflect attention away from the actions of South Yorkshire Police.

“We cannot be selective about which things we look at in the past and which we ignore. After Hillsborough the evidence trail led very clearly towards Orgreave and that’s why we say that people have waited long enough. They now deserve the truth.”

Former miner Kevin Horne, who was present at Orgreave, said he was feeling positive that the meeting with Rudd would lead to an inquiry.

He said, “I think we’ve reached another milestone. There’s still a way to go, but we’re getting there.”