Orgreave campaigners to protest outside watchdog HQ over delays

The actions of South Yorkshire Police officers during clashes with striking miners at Rotherham’s Orgreave coking works during the 1984-5 strike were referred by the force to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in November last year.

Television footage showed miners being beaten with truncheons by police, and a year later 95 miners, who had been prosecuted for alleged rioting and unlawful assembly, were all acquitted.

Since last November, IPCC officials have been looking through more than 65,000 documents relating to clashes but have yet to come to a decision about whether a full investigation should be launched.

Members of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), set up to represent the arrested miners and their families, now plan to picket the watchdog’s offices in Wakefield at 1pm on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the referral by South Yorkshire Police.

A spokesman said: “One year on there is no indication of how long it will take for the IPCC to examine all the police files and the OTJC remains concerned that no officers will face charges of assault, perjury, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in a public office.”

Cindy Butts, commissioner for Yorkshire for the IPCC, has taken on the review into reports of collusion between officers over the violence at the Rotherham coking plant.

She told the Yorkshire Post in July that no decision had yet been made about whether the case met the criteria for “exceptional circumstances” that would justify a full investigation into a historic matter.

She said: “To be honest I couldn’t say when [a decision will be made], what I do know is that I would like us to hurry up and make that decision.”