Orgreave inquiry update due as campaigners' frustration grows

The House of Lords will be given details of the latest position by Home Office spokesman Lord Keen, though it is understood there is ‘unlikely’ to be confirmation of whether an inquiry is to be held.

Prior to being chosen as Prime Minister by her fellow Conservative MPs, Theresa May had been facing calls to order a new probe into the 1984 clashes between striking miners and police at the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire.

But with a new Home Secretary now set to be appointed, campaigners fear a decision on whether a new inquiry will be called could now be delayed by several more weeks. Mrs May has been considering a legal submission from Orgreave campaigners since last December.

Conservative peer Lord Balfe will today ask about the progress on making a decision on whether there will be an independent inquiry.

Granville Williams, one of the founders of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, said members of the group felt frustrated as they believed they were close to getting a decision from Mrs May prior to last month’s Brexit vote.

He said: “We had planned to keep the pressure up. The issue is what happens now, what is the role of the Home Secretary.

“Will Theresa May say ‘it is on my watch, you need to do this’, or will the new Home Secretary say ‘I need to look at this again’.”

It emerged yesterday that the Independent Police Complaints Commission would not be publishing an unredacted version of its report into the Orgreave decision, which revealed links between the scandal and the Hillsborough disaster five years later.

In May, The Yorkshire Post revealed that in redacted sections of the 2015 report, it was disclosed that the same senior officers and solicitor were involved both in the aftermath of Orgreave and the Britain’s worst ever sporting disaster.

It was also revealed that these officials became aware South Yorkshire Police officers had perjured themselves at the miners’ trial in 1984, but kept this fact secret.

Another officer interviewed about the alleged Hillsborough cover-up by South Yorkshire Police claimed that some of his colleagues were told by unspecified officers not to write anything in their notebooks at the time of Orgreave and then instructed to do the same in the aftermath of the 1989 disaster.

The bitter dispute at Orgreave in June 1984 resulted in dozens of injuries on both sides. Pickets later complained of excessive force by some of the around 6,000 officers brought in for the strike.

A total of 95 miners were charged following the disturbances, but their trial collapsed.

South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the IPCC in 2012 over allegations officers colluded to write court statements.

The watchdog later said the passage of time prevented a formal investigation, but said there was “support” for the allegation that senior police exaggerated pickets’ use of violence.

The IPCC said it had decided not to publish the unredacted report after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service.

It said: “This is because there may be some material within that report which is relevant to the current Hillsborough investigation.”