About
The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) includes ex-miners, Trades Unionists, activists and others who are determined to get justice for striking miners picketing the Orgreave coking plant who were subject to police violence, lies and coverups on 18 June 1984 during the miners’ strike.
The campaign is strictly non-party political and welcomes support from anyone who has genuine concerns about the pattern of deception and cover up that characterised police behaviour not only at Orgreave but throughout the coalfields during the strike.
Whilst we welcome discussion in our social media comments sections the OTJC does not want scabs or fascists on our pages trying to undermine the strike and diverting attention away from the purpose of our campaign. We will not tolerate any form of racist, sexist, disablist, homophobic, transphobic or personal attacks.
The Background
The Orgreave Coking Plant, now demolished, stood on the outskirts of Sheffield, approximately 8 miles from the Hillsborough Stadium, scene of the Hillsborough disaster on 15th April 1989, in which 97 Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed. The plant supplied coke to the power station at Scunthorpe some 20 miles away.
In March 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) launched a national strike in response to the plans of the National Coal Board (NCB) to close a number of pits. The NCB claimed that it only wanted to close 20, but the NUM maintained – and subsequent events proved them right – that more than 70 pits were on the NCB’s hit list. In the decade after 1984 the coal mining industry was effectively destroyed, with devastating consequences for the miners, their families and their communities.
The NUM called for a mass picket outside the Orgreave coking plant on 18th June 1984, aimed at disrupting the supply of coke from Orgreave to Scunthorpe. It followed a series of smaller demonstrations at the plant in May and early June. Whereas in the first three months of the strike police forces around the country had done their utmost to prevent pickets from reaching the colliery where they planned to demonstrate, on this occasion, 18th June, the police fell over themselves to be “helpful”, guiding and ushering miners to the site, in particular to the “topside”, the field to the south of the Plant. Many of the pickets were surprised by this unusual display of police courtesy, and some were – rightly, as it turned out – suspicious. The “topside” was a field bounded at its bottom by a cordon of police officers six and more deep, blocking access to the plant; the two sides were patrolled by dog handlers with their charges; and a steep railway embankment and railway lines marked the back of the field. The only real escape route was over a narrow railway bridge at the top corner of the field, and this led into Orgreave village, with domestic housing on the right and a small industrial estate to the left.
“The Battle of Orgreave”
What happened on 18th June 1984 was not a battle but a rout. In the lull that followed a number of what were by then ritual but ineffectual pushes against the police lines, the officer in charge of the police operation, Assistant Chief Constable Clement, ordered the police lines to open. Dozens of mounted officers , armed with long truncheons, charged up the field, followed by snatch squad officers in riot gear, with short shields and truncheons. The miners fled up the hill towards the embankment and the railway bridge. Many of those who couldn’t or wouldn’t run were assaulted with batons, causing several serious injuries, and dragged back through the police lines to the temporary detention centre opposite the plant.
Several similar charges followed, forcing the miners up into the village, where they tried to find refuge in gardens and in the yards of the industrial units opposite. The police ran amok, clubbing and arresting miners indiscriminately. In one piece of TV footage a senior officer can be heard shouting “bodies, not heads”, but the number of head injuries sustained by the miners meant he was largely ignored.
It was a miracle no-one was killed. One officer was seen on television straddling a defenceless miner on the ground and battering him repeatedly about the head with his truncheon. Because the incident was witnessed by millions on TV, South Yorkshire Police interviewed the officer, PC Martin from the Northumbria force , two days later. PC Martin said: “It’s not a case of me going off half cock. The Senior Officers, Supers and Chief Supers were there and getting stuck in too – they were encouraging the lads and I think their attitude to the situation affected what we all did.” The papers were referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who advised that PC Martin should not be prosecuted. There is no record of PC Martin being disciplined, either.
Altogether 55 miners were arrested at the topside, and all of them were charged with “riot”, an offence which at that time carried a potential life sentence. A further 40 men were arrested at the “bottom” (Catcliffe) side . They were charged with the marginally less serious offence of “unlawful assembly”.
The trial, May – July 1985
It was not until May 1985, almost a year later, that the case came to court. 15 miners, all charged with riot, appeared at Sheffield Crown Court in what was intended by the Prosecution to be the first of a series of trials. The trial collapsed after 48 days of hearings, when the Prosecution abandoned the case. It became clear as the police witnesses trooped in and out of the court that many officers had had large parts of their statements dictated to them, and that many of them had lied in their accounts, claiming to have seen things they could not have seen, or that they had arrested someone they had not. One statement with a signature forged by a police officer simply disappeared from court over lunch-time, never to re-appear.
It also emerged in the course of the trial that new and unlawful public order policing tactics set out in a secret police manual had been used for the first time at Orgreave. At times the trial descended into farce, and the Prosecution, cutting its losses, dropped the cases of the remaining 80 miners.
There was never any investigation into the conduct of the police for assaulting, wrongfully arresting and falsely prosecuting so many miners, nor for lying in evidence. Not a single officer faced disciplinary or criminal proceedings. Five years later, however, and a year after the Hillsborough disaster, South Yorkshire Police agreed to pay a total of nearly £500,000 to 39 of the miners, without admitting that they had done anything wrong.
Orgreave and Hillsborough
Orgreave and Hillsborough are part of the same story, both cases have at their heart South Yorkshire Police. Orgreave also involved officers from many other forces as well. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) is pressing for a full and independent inquiry into what happened at Orgreave just as the Hillsborough campaigners demanded an impartial investigation into the causes of the Hillsborough disaster.
The Independent Police Commission (IPCC) decided in June 2015 that, partly because of its limited terms of reference, it would not carry out a full investigation into Orgreave, although its report contained some serious criticisms of the actions and attitudes of South Yorkshire Police, implicitly suggesting that a wider inquiry was called for.
Both cases, Orgreave and Hillsborough, involved serious wrongdoing by South Yorkshire Police:
At Orgreave this involved the assaults, wrongful arrests and false prosecutions of the miners and perjury in court;
At Hillsborough 97 fans died as a result of criminally serious gross negligence by the police, and the police told widespread lies to try and unfairly blame the fans.
Both cases involved similar attempts by the police to manipulate the evidence:
After Orgreave, some junior officers came forward and said that parts of their statements, supposedly their own personal recollection of events, were dictated to them by senior officers. Analysis of their statements shows that many do indeed contain lengthy identical passages – which cannot be a coincidence;
In the Hillsborough Inquest many officers gave evidence that they were told not to write up their notebooks in the usual way, but instead to write undated statements on plain paper, which were then edited, often quite radically, by more senior officers and lawyers acting for the police.
Both cases involve the police colluding with the media to portray a false picture of events and blame the innocent so as to conceal their own wrongdoing and failings:
After Orgreave, encouraged by the police, the media unfairly vilified the miners for provoking the violence when in fact it was the police who instigated it;
After Hillsborough, egged on by the police, the media unfairly blamed the fans for the disaster, accusing them of being drunk, arriving late and trying to get into the match without tickets, an account which the Inquest jury roundly rejected.
In neither case has there been any proper accountability for what the police did wrong.
There is a clear and direct chronological link between the two events:
The way in which the police abused their power at Orgreave, lied about it and got away with it, fostered the culture of impunity which allowed the cover up after Hillsborough to take place.
Had the police lies after Orgreave been properly and publicly addressed, the Hillsborough cover up may never have been allowed to happen.
Why does Orgreave matter?
Orgreave represents one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in this country’s history, and it has never been adequately addressed. It is important that the truth is established and that the police and government are brought to account.
Many of the miners have been left with ongoing physical and psychological problems. Many lost their jobs, their marriages and relationships and were left with a sense of grievance at their unjust treatment that haunts them even today.
Orgreave led to a massive breakdown of trust in the police in the former mining communities (and indeed more widely) and this continues today among the children, grandchildren, families and friends of the miners.
Orgreave marked a turning point in the policing of public protest. It sent a message to the police that they could employ violence and lies with impunity. It was only a year after Orgreave that the so-called “Battle of the Beanfield” took place, with violent and unprovoked attacks by the police on New Age travellers, followed by large-scale wrongful arrests. More recently there have been many examples of police violence and “kettling” demonstrators for several hours – a kind of pre-emptive imprisonment. With the Conservative Government’s current raft of policing and other legislation aiming to further restrict our rights and freedoms, the right to protest in public is in serious danger.
An Orgreave Inquiry
In December 2015 the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign provided the then Tory Home Secretary, Theresa May, with a lengthy legal submission calling on her to set up an independent public inquiry into the policing of events at Orgreave on 18th June 1984. An inquiry could take the form of a panel type inquiry, like the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which reviews all the documents, a full public inquiry which can call witnesses, or another type of authoritative inquiry which has the power to require all the relevant information and evidence to be produced to it. The Campaign wanted to discuss with Theresa May the scope and terms of reference of any inquiry set up.
By the time of the EU referendum vote Theresa May had not made a decision on the legal submission despite growing pressure from OTJC, the media and supportive MPs. In the event she was appointed Prime Minister in July 2016 and Amber Rudd became Home Secretary. An OTJC delegation met Amber Rudd in September 2016 for what the campaigners thought was a constructive meeting. She gave the end of October 2016 as a deadline for announcing when there would be an inquiry. On 31st October 2016 Amber Rudd announced in Parliament that there would be no investigation or inquiry of any type on the grounds there had been no deaths, no convictions, no miscarriage of justice, no new lessons for current police forces to learn and that it was a long time ago.
We have the support of many Trade Unions, Councils, political parties and community and campaigning organisations.
We ask all those who support our aims to contact the current Home Secretary, urging an inquiry to be set up without any further delay. Please email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gov.uk
Here is the link to our latest information leaflet about an Orgreave Inquiry:
https://otjc.org.uk/support-us-in-our-campaign-for-truth-and-justice/
Where can I find out more?
Email:Orgreavejustice@hotmail.
www.facebook.com/
You Tube Films
Orgreave Justice: https://
Battle for Orgreave: https://www.
Orgreave truth and justice campaign: https://www.youtube.
Lesley Boulton: https://www.
Books
State of Seige by Jim Coulter, Susan Miller and Martin Walker (Canary Press, 1984)
The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners by Seumas Milne (Verso, rev. Ed. 2014) Seumas Milne argues that the breaking of the miners’ union was the outcome of a concerted secret police campaign.
Settling Scores: The Media, The Police and the Miners’ Strike Granville Williams (www.cpbf.org.uk 2014) Explains the events which led to the setting up of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.
Images From The Past: The Miners’ Strike by Mark Metcalf, Mark Harvey Martin Jenkinson (Pen & Sword, 2014) Good narrative of the miners’ strike accompanied by the great photographs of Martin Jenkinson.
In Loving Memory of Work: http://www.
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