About

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) includes ex-miners, Trade Unionists, activists and others who are determined to get justice for striking miners picketing the Orgreave coking plant who were subject to government orchestrated police violence, lies and coverups related to the 18th June 1984 during the miners’ strike.

The campaign is strictly non-party political and welcomes support from anyone who has genuine concerns about the government’s 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 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), social justice activists, campaigners, lawyers, trade unions and politicians have tried since 1984 to expose what happened throughout the miners’ strike and at Orgreave. The outcome of the Hillsborough Independent Panel gave renewed hope. A recent and very revealing BBC Inside Out programme had also been aired about what happened at Orgreave. The OTJC was set up in 2012 to call for a full and independent Orgreave public inquiry into what the Tory government engineered and micromanaged. It is essential to get truth and justice not just for the communities and families so deeply affected throughout Britain but because it is in the public interest and what we should expect in a democratic society.

The Background

What happened at Orgreave must be looked at in the context of what the Conservative Government was planning. The Report of the Nationalised Industries Policy Group (The Ridley Plan) was produced when the Conservative Party was in opposition. It was a secret report produced to plan to develop a more militarised police force to stifle dissent and attempt to destroy organised labour and the British Trade Union movement, introduce a mass privatisation programme and legislate against workers and human rights. In 1977, Tory backbencher Nicholas Ridley presented this report to Tory Party leader, Margaret Thatcher. The Conservatives were elected to power in 1979 and embarked on their plan. Ian MacGregor was appointed in 1980 as Chairman of the British Steel Corporation. This controversial appointment was part of a concerted effort to close steel plants and make mass redundancies. After doing this his next appointment, approved by the Tories, was in 1983 to head up the National Coal Board. His ruthless approach was similar to the line he had taken at British Steel, to close pits he deemed to be unprofitable and cut jobs.

Orgreave and the Miners’ Strike

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 coking plant supplied coke to the steel works at Scunthorpe some 30 miles away.

In March 1984 the NUM launched a national strike in response to the plans of the National Coal Board (NCB) pit closure programme which was to close a large number of pits. The NCB claimed that it wanted to close what they regarded as 20 ‘uneconomic’ pits. This would have been catastrophic and the reality would have been much worse as 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 and the economic and political landscape of Britain.

On Monday 14th May 1984, the NUM held a huge national demonstration in the market town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Alongside their families and supporters, miners gathered for a day out, much like the summer miners gala. Although the march and rally were peaceful and good humoured, protestors experienced one of the most violent days of the strike so far in an operation with parallels to Orgreave with baton charges and horse charges. There were 55 charges of riot against the miners at Mansfield which constituted a dress rehearsal for a new policing strategy culminating with Orgreave.

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 the steel works at Scunthorpe. It followed a series of smaller demonstrations at the plant in May and early June where the police had also committed extreme violence and made many wrongful arrests. In the first three months of the strike police forces had been deployed around Britain and had done their utmost to prevent pickets from travelling around Britain to picket. The police were using roadblocks and threatening arrests, sabotaging vehicles, being verbally and physically aggressive and lying about the legality of what they were doing. Many of these police tactics had been developed in Ireland. On 18th June 1984 it was quite a different approach. The police roadblocks were abandoned with police being helpful and guiding the thousands of miners who had travelled to demonstrate that day. The miners were ushered by the police to the Orgreave site, in particular to the “topside”, the field to the south of the coking plant. Many of the pickets were naturally surprised by this unusual display of police courtesy, and many 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”

The 18th of June was a hot summers day. The miners and supporters had arrived in casual summer clothing. The atmosphere was friendly and good humoured like a gathering at an outdoor festival or a family sporting event. Many of the miners were playing informal ball games to relax and pass the time. They had hoped to gather in solidarity to show a strength of feeling about what was happening to their industry and communities and in true picketing tradition, try to persuade the drivers transporting the coke to support them and join them in solidarity. This peaceful atmosphere was to change when it became clear to the picketing miners that they were being contained in a defined space by the police.

What happened on 18th June 1984 was not a battle but a rout. The police lines confining the pickets into a particular area were becoming increasingly threatening. There were a number of what were by then ritual but ineffectual pushes by the miners against the police lines. The police in full riot gear also engaged in rhythmic shield banging with their truncheons creating an overwhelming and intimidating noise.

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 could not or would not run were assaulted with batons, causing several serious injuries, and dragged back through the police lines to the police’s temporary detention centre opposite the plant. Police dogs were also used to attack and intimidate the miners.

Several similar police 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.

It is our understanding that altogether 55 miners were arrested at the topside, and all of them were eventually 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 eventually charged with the marginally less serious offence of “unlawful assembly”. These figures were not the ones mentioned in parliament the following day and we also understand the number of arrests could have been over a hundred but have no record of who those people were. We are aware that the police operational orders for the day have never been located or revealed to the public. Some miners have also reported to us that they were arrested on a different charge to the one they were eventually given. Miners have talked about the absolute fear they experienced either as people who were being attacked or as witnesses. Miners have also talked about the appalling situations in the police cells where people were screaming in agony, vomiting and wetting themselves in fear. Many of the arrested miners were so badly assaulted that they should have been in hospital.

The BBC news footage that evening reversed the order of events giving the false impression that the miners were the ones who had started the violence. The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, Home Secretary, Leon Brittan and other Tory politicians spoke in parliament the following day accusing the miners of violence and mob rule. This media and conservative false narrative has been repeated and perpetuated and continues to this day.

The Trial, May – July 1985

It was not until May 1985, almost a year later, that the case came to court with all the stress, anguish and anxiety that the miners, their families and friends had to endure throughout that time. Many miners were naturally fearful about being given lengthy or even life prison sentences for crimes they had never committed. 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 prosecution evidence, when the prosecution abandoned the case. It became clear as each police witness gave their evidence 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. 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 before the Prosecution accepted there was no realistic prospect of any convictions and offered no evidence resulting in the dismissal of all charges against the 15 miners and subsequently the cases of the remaining 80 miners all being dropped as well.

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 tragedy, 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 police officers from many other forces from all over Britain, many of whom were not wearing identification numbers.

The Independent Police Complaints 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. There was serious gross negligence by the police, and the police told widespread lies to try and unfairly blame the football 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 and government 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 government and police, the media 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 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 Orgreave matters

Orgreave represents one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in this country’s history of industrial disputes and it has never been adequately addressed. It is important that the truth is established and that the police and government are exposed and brought to account.

Miners were the workers who regularly risked their lives underground doing a dirty and dangerous job to extract the coal that fuelled Britain and the world. The NUM had fought long and hard to try to get them decent wages, terms and conditions. Many of the miners after their maltreatment by the police have been left with ongoing physical and psychological problems. Many were criminalised, demonised, lost their jobs and financial security and were blacklisted. Many lost their marriages and relationships and were left with a sense of grievance at their unjust treatment that haunts them even today. Many were frightened that the police would contact them and arrest and frame them again. Orgreave led to a massive breakdown of trust in the police in the former mining communities and 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 created an atmosphere of fear to prevent miners picketing and a warning of what could happen to others taking strike action. It emboldened the police to rampage through mining communities and pit villages, attacking strikers, creating panic and making wrongful arrests, while Prime Minister Thatcher was talking about the rule of law and the enemy within.

Many trade unionists and activists became worried about taking strike and industrial action in the future in case they were physically threatened, attacked, arrested, lied about, sacked, blacklisted and demonised by the government, media and police. The government involvement in the miners’ strike meant they were encouraging the NCB to sack miners who had been arrested, whether they were found guilty or not. The criminal justice system was used to weaken the strike. A significant portion of those charged were acquitted or had their cases thrown out of court, but this often occurred after they had already been sacked.

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. Police conduct later at Wapping in 1986 throughout the print workers dispute involved them using riot tactics and mounted charges against peaceful demonstrators.

Inappropriate and aggressive policing continued years after Orgreave and more recently there have been many examples of police violence and “kettling” demonstrators for several hours – a kind of pre-emptive imprisonment. With the 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 appropriate 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, trade unions 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 any future plans for 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. Despite this terrible setback the Orgreave campaign went from strength to strength, attracting more attention and gathering more support from many who wanted to get involved and help to ensure an inquiry would happen. This has included working with a number of other justice organisations, many of them still campaigning for justice.

Start of Orgreave Inquiry

After many more years of intensive campaigning and continued rejection for an Orgreave inquiry from all the Tory Home Secretaries after Amber Rudd, the OTJC published and submitted a public report to all the major political parties in June 2024 to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, putting the case for an Orgreave inquiry and highlighting what the 1984 Conservative government had been saying and what they were actually doing. An Orgreave inquiry was announced by the newly elected Labour Government in July 2025 and launched in March 2026. It is an absolute scandal that it has taken 42 years after the miners’ strike to get an inquiry. Many miners have now died and never saw justice. This inquiry must reveal what the Conservative Government of the day planned and what the police, media, judiciary and politicians did.

Much has been written and produced about Orgreave and the Miners’ Strike and many documents, films and photographs are already in the public domain including in the National Archives, the Thatcher papers, Cabinet papers, Warwick University, Arthur Scargill archives, Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Police Watch archives, Parliament Hansard etc. South Yorkshire Police have recently accumulated an archive as a consequence of the work done by the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Home Affairs Select Committee in preparation for an Orgreave inquiry. We understand however that there are a number of government and police documents associated with Orgreave that are embargoed – some until 2066 and 2071. Many documents relating to Orgreave have been ‘lost’ or destroyed by the police. Many photographers, film makers and television companies still have their original photographs and unedited footage.

Some useful links and access to more information

Reports

Orgreave Truth and Justice 40 years on – the case for an inquiry
https://otjc.org.uk/orgreave-truth-and-justice-the-case-for-an-inquiry/

Independent Police Complaints Commission report
https://otjc.org.uk/independent-police-complaints-commission-report-2015/

Report of the Nationalised Industries Policy Group (The Ridley Plan)
https://otjc.org.uk/ridley-plan/

Documentaries and Videos

The Battle For Orgreave – Yvette Vanson 1985 film and the BBC 2012 Inside Out programme
https://www.yvettevanson.com/the-battle-for-orgreave.html

Open Space -Taking Liberties
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2nkeKjgD7YQ&t=1516s&pp=2AHsC5ACAdIHCQlPAqO1ajebQw%3D%3D&ra=m

Orgreave Justice: https://vimeo.com/148549592

Still The Enemy Within 2014
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi457355033/?ref_=tt_vids_vi_1

Strike: An uncivil war
https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81769948

Orgreave Inquiry announced – OTJC press conference
https://otjc.org.uk/orgreave-inquiry-announced/

The BBC and the Miners’ Strike – Tony Garnett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tPNPTFfKog

Lesley Boulton – Orgreave police attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggEug2JQZ7E&index=1&list=PLckigBFtiYQcd6iPGUS9p5zAF5iQLNw1b

Books

The Battle for Orgreave, by Bernard Jackson

State of Seige, by Jim Coulter, Susan Miller and Martin Walker

The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners, by Seumas Milne

Images Of The Past: The Miners’ Strike by Mark Metcalf, Mark Harvey, Martin Jenkinson

Charged: How the police try to suppress protest, by Morag Livingstone and Matt Foot

Settling Scores: The Media, The Police and the Miners’ Strike, edited by Granville Williams

In Loving Memory of Work – A Visual Record of the UK Miners’ Strike 1984/5, edited by Craig Oldham

Email
Orgreavejustice@hotmail.com

Social Media

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/OrgreaveTruthAndJusticeCampaign

Instagram
OrgreaveTruthandJustice

Bluesky
@orgreavejustice.bsky.social

Twitter – X
@orgreavejustice

Contact the Orgreave Inquiry

Website:
www.orgreave.public-inquiry.uk

Email:
legal@orgreave.public-inquiry.uk

Write to:
Freepost ORGREAVE INQUIRY