Questions remain after Home Office releases 18 ‘Battle of Orgreave’ files

CAMPAIGNERS SAY “deeply disturbing” questions remain about the role of Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the policing of the 1984 Battle of Orgreave after the Home Office released 18 files relating to the scandal.

The newly declassified documents, released to the National Archive, show that in 1985 then home secretary Leon Brittan feared a “witch hunt” if a public inquiry was held into the policing of the miners’ strike. But they do not include the all-important operational order, which would have revealed the tactics officers were told to adopt before the clashes between striking miners and police at the Orgreave coking plant near Rotherham on June 18, 1984.

A further 15 files are yet to be made public, and Yorkshire MP Yvette Cooper, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has urged the Government to make sure the public can see “all the information about what happened that day”.

The files relating to the 1984/5 Miners’ Strike were released four months after Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced she would not be ordering a public inquiry into Orgreave.

A total of 95 miners were arrested at Orgreave after clashes with police. When the cases came to

court, all were abandoned after it became clear that evidence provided by police was unreliable.

The first 18 files were deposited with the National Archive with no public announcement. They can only be accessed by physically going to the archive in London or applying online, a process which can take weeks.

A BBC report says the documents contain the revelation that Mr Brittan told a 1985 meeting that the “Government should not encourage any form of enquiry into the behaviour of the police”.

Other revelations include the fact that South Yorkshire’s then-Chief Constable Peter Wright called on the Government to introduce a new offence of “missile throwing” after the events at Orgreave.

On Monday, the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) and other groups will hold a protest outside the Home Office. OTJC founder member Granville Williams said the new disclosures “help us to put one more piece of the jigsaw into place”.

But he said: “It also helps us to understand why, 32 years later, in spite of the compelling evidence presented to her by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, Home Secretary Amber Rudd blocked an enquiry.

“There are deeply disturbing questions about the role of Margaret Thatcher’s Government which we need answers to.”