A statutory public inquiry into the violent 1984 confrontation between police and striking miners at Orgreave will begin this autumn, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday, ending four decades of campaigners’ calls for justice.
The inquiry will examine the events of 18 June 1984, when approximately 5,000 picketing miners clashed with a similar number of police officers at the Orgreave coking plant near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, leaving 120 people injured in one of Britain’s most violent industrial confrontations.
The Bishop of Sheffield, the Rt Rev Dr Pete Wilcox, will chair the statutory inquiry, which will have powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and examine both the events of the day and their aftermath, including the collapse of criminal prosecutions against 95 miners.
“Every community should have confidence in their police, but we know what happened at Orgreave cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas,” Ms Cooper told reporters on Monday. “The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened.”
The announcement fulfils a Labour manifesto commitment and comes after successive Conservative governments rejected calls for an inquiry, most recently in 2016 when then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it would not be in the public interest.
Joe Rollin, from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), who has spent 13 years campaigning for an inquiry, said he was “cautiously elated” by the news. “It’s been a long slog these last 13 years and we can’t quite believe it,” Mr Rollin said. “We want all the people who live around the country in mining communities that have been so badly treated to have a smile on their faces.”
The confrontation occurred during the year-long miners’ strike of 1984-85, sparked by the National Coal Board’s announcement in March 1984 that it would close 20 collieries deemed unprofitable, resulting in at least 20,000 job losses. More than three-quarters of Britain’s 187,000 miners joined the strike in response.
On the day of the clashes, striking miners converged on Orgreave to prevent lorries carrying coke to fuel the Scunthorpe steel furnaces, believing that disrupting production would strengthen their position against pit closures. They were met with an unprecedented police response, including officers from 18 different forces equipped with riot shields, mounted units, and dogs.
Television footage from the day showed police on horseback charging picket lines and officers striking miners with batons. All 95 miners arrested and charged with riot and violent disorder saw their cases collapse after evidence was deemed unreliable, with courts later describing it as “discredited evidence.
Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), welcomed the inquiry as “hugely welcome,” stating: “The events at Orgreave, and throughout the strike, destroyed the trust between the police and mining communities even now, 41 years later. It is vital that this trust is won back and the NUM believe this inquiry will go some way to rebuilding that trust.”
The OTJC has long questioned who was responsible for “organising and ordering the deployment of multiple police forces, including mounted police armed with truncheons, shields and dogs, against striking miners.” The campaign group also wants to know why crucial documents have been destroyed or embargoed until 2066 and 2071.
Kate Flannery, OTJC secretary, said the announcement was “really positive news” but added: “We now need to be satisfied that the inquiry is given the necessary powers to fully investigate all the aspects of the orchestrated policing at Orgreave, and have unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films.
Former miners who were present at Orgreave described scenes of orchestrated violence. Carl Parkinson, who was there that day, recalled: “It wasn’t just one truncheon, there were about 30, or 40. And it was simultaneous, like it was orchestrated – just boom, boom, boom, boom. And there’s lads with a split down their heads for no good reason, they’d done nothing wrong. We were just there to peacefully picket.”
Chris Skidmore, another miner present at the confrontation, said: “It wasn’t frightening to start off with, but then what I noticed was the amount of police officers who had no identification numbers on. It all felt planned.”
Kevin Horne, a miner arrested at Orgreave, emphasised the urgency of the inquiry: “It is now over 41 years since a paramilitary style police operation was planned at Orgreave and it is important to remember that some of the miners attacked and arrested there are now dead and many others are old and ill. We need a quick and thorough inquiry with a tight timescale so that surviving miners can at last obtain the truth and justice they have been waiting for.”
In June 1991, South Yorkshire Police paid £425,000 in compensation to 39 miners for assault, wrongful arrest, unlawful detention and malicious prosecution. However, no official inquiry has ever examined the documents surrounding the events, their lead-up, or aftermath.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard described the announcement as a “landmark moment for justice and accountability.” He stated: “The Inquiry represents an opportunity to examine not only the actions of South Yorkshire Police and other forces on that day, but also the broader role of government at the time. We owe it to the miners, their families, and our communities to ensure that the events of Orgreave are finally understood.”
The inquiry’s announcement comes against a backdrop of other controversies involving South Yorkshire Police, including the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. Campaigners have drawn parallels between the two incidents, particularly regarding allegations of evidence fabrication and institutional cover-ups.
The Rt Rev Dr Wilcox acknowledged the significance of his appointment, saying: “I do not underestimate the weight of expectation or the significance of the task. I expect the panel to begin its work in the autumn, and we will endeavour to deliver an inquiry which is thorough and fair, and which will uncover what happened at Orgreave as swiftly as possible.”
Formal consultation between the Home Secretary and the Bishop of Sheffield on the inquiry’s terms of reference has already begun. The Home Office stated that the inquiry is intended to “aid the public’s understanding of how the events on the day, and immediately after, came to pass.
South Yorkshire Police said it would “fully cooperate with the inquiry in a bid to help those affected find answers.”
The Battle of Orgreave remains one of the most controversial episodes in British industrial history, with its legacy continuing to affect former mining communities across Yorkshire and beyond. The inquiry represents the first opportunity for a comprehensive examination of what campaigners have long alleged was an orchestrated assault on peaceful picketers and a subsequent attempt to frame miners for violence.
For many former miners and their families, the inquiry offers hope of finally uncovering the truth about a day that has haunted their communities for more than four decades. As the autumn launch approaches, expectations are high that this long-awaited investigation will provide the answers and accountability that have been denied for so long.
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Image Credit:
Orgreave Coking Works – Photo by Chris McKenna, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Geograph and Wikimedia Commons.
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