Inquiry into police clash with miners

THE Government is about to announce an inquiry into police conduct at the so-called Battle of Orgreave in 1984, it has been reported.

The witnesses at Orgreave  have always insisted that the South Yorkshire Police orchestrated a pitched battle between striking miners and officers at the town’s coking plant.  At the time in 1984, the media tended to portray the miners as aggressors rather than the police.

But since the more recent findings over the Hillsborough disaster, which took place five years later in the same police force area, there have been allegations suggesting the evidence against the miners was 'falsified'. 

Now the Home Secretary is said to be considering what precise format the inquiry will take.

Reports suggest mounted police charged the crowd in response to some missiles being thrown. Labour MP Tristram Hunt, a historian, has previously described the episode as 'legalised state violence'.   Altogether 95 miners were charged with offences following the clashes, but their trial collapsed.