The senior legal adviser to the Welsh government has claimed that Downing Street was behind the violence at Orgreave during the 1984 miners’ strike. The comments by Welsh Counsel General Mick Antoniw came as BBC Wales revisited the events of what came to be known as the Battle of Orgreave. At least 120 miners and police officers were injured when striking miners gathered at the South Yorkshire coking plant to prevent deliveries. The miners were met by thousands of police and specialist units who used horses and snatch squads. Senior former police officer Robert Griffiths, who volunteered at Orgreave, claims miners attacked police horses.
Although 95 miners were arrested that day, 55 were charged with riot. This offence carried a potential life sentence. A further 40 miners were charged with unlawful assembly, but their trials collapsed following unreliable police evidence. The Organise Truth and Justice Campaign has led calls for an investigation into the events of Orgreave for the past four decades. Ninety-five miners have been arrested, but only 39 have successfully sued South Yorkshire Police for damages over assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution.
Labour’s manifesto committed to either an investigation or inquiry into events. The UK government has not yet set out its detailed approach to the issue. Antoniw, who represented some of those arrested in the 1984 incident, has now called on the new UK Labour government to pursue the matter. He asserts that Downing Street “directly intervened” in order to “give the miners a good beating, to teach them a lesson, to make an example of them by long prison sentences”. Antoniw also claimed that devolution of justice powers would have given miners in Wales the pardons already awarded in Scotland.
Former coal miner Ron Stoate, who attended Orgreave in 1984, described it as the “most frightening day of my life”. Stoate said that while he ended up in “rubbish jobs” after the closure of the pits, bitterness and anger remained almost four decades later. He joined Tal Jones, another miner at Orgreave, in calling for a full inquiry into events
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