Ministers have announced an inquiry into the violent policing at Orgreave and the collapsed prosecutions of 95 miners accused of offences there, 41 years after the infamous scenes of 18 June 1984. Here we set out some key details about why the inquiry has been set up and the crucial questions it may seek to answer.
Why has the government set up the Orgreave inquiry now?
The revival of campaigning about the Orgreave injustices developed after the Guardian published an article in April 2012 making the link between the South Yorkshire police operation in 1984 and a collapsed trial in 1985, and the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 people were unlawfully killed. The same force, led by the same chief constable, Peter Wright, was responsible for the disaster, and orchestrated a false narrative to blame the victims.
The BBC in Yorkshire then broadcast a documentary in October 2012, highlighting that dozens of police officers’ statements alleging criminal behaviour by miners at Orgreave had the same opening paragraphs, apparently dictated to them by detectives. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) formed after that, and it has argued for 13 years that the injustices endure today and an inquiry is needed. Yvette Cooper began calling for an inquiry in 2015 when she was shadow home secretary, and Labour has pledged to hold an inquiry in every election manifesto since 2017.
What will the inquiry seek to establish about policing on the day?
OTJC founding member Joe Rollin said they expect the inquiry to finally access all relevant documents, including some that have remained classified on grounds of national security. The overall police operational plan has never been made public.
The National Union of Mineworkers has always believed the police attacks were pre-planned, kettling miners into a field and deploying strategically positioned mounted officers, dog handlers and units with short shields and truncheons.
During the miners’ strike police set up roadblocks across routes to mining areas to prevent people picketing, but many miners who were at Orgreave still talk with bewilderment about the police directing them into the site that day.
What questions will the inquiry seek to answer about the failed prosecutions?
No police officer has ever been held to account for the apparently dictated statements and false evidence that was used to charge 95 men with riot and unlawful assembly. All defendants were acquitted in July 1985 after a 48-day trial in which defence barristers repeatedly accused police officers in court of lying and fabricating evidence.
A 2015 report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) said it found suggestions that senior South Yorkshire police officers later acknowledged there was evidence of perjury, and in effect covered it up.
The IPCC referred to a note regarding the force’s 1991 settlement of a civil claim, paying 39 miners £425,000 compensation but with no admission of liability. “The note also raises further doubts about the ethical standards and complicity of officers high up in [South Yorkshire police],” the report said.
What form will the inquiry take?
The inquiry will be a panel of relevant experts, chaired by Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield. This builds on the pioneering Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), chaired by the then bishop of Liverpool, James Jones. Unlike that panel, the Orgreave inquiry will be statutory, which means it has powers to compel people to provide information. Wilcox will develop the terms of reference, format and panel membership in consultation with the Home Office. He said that he expects the panel to begin its work this autumn.
After it emerged last month that Northumbria police had destroyed their documents relating to Orgreave, Cooper, now the home secretary, said she has written to all police forces believed to have relevant records, saying they must be preserved.
What is the likely outcome?
The inquiry may follow the model of the HIP, which considered only documentary evidence and did not hold hearings where witnesses such as retired police officers would be questioned in person. It is presumed the Orgreave inquiry will produce a report that will seek to illuminate the full truth of the police operation and prosecutions.
Campaigners also hope that it will help redress the broader historical narrative, the negative portrayal of the miners in large sections of the media, and prime minister Margaret Thatcher labelling them “the enemy within”, while her government fully supported the police.
Given the four decades since these traumatic events of the 1980s, it appears unlikely anybody could be prosecuted, whatever the inquiry finds. But Cooper did not rule it out, saying she could not pre-empt the inquiry’s findings, or any outcome.