Northumbria police destroy Battle of Orgreave and different miners’ strike information | The miners’ strike 1984-85

Police have destroyed paperwork regarding the Battle of Orgreave in 1984 through the miners’ strike, which is the topic of a forthcoming official inquiry.

Northumbria police disposed of the papers lower than a month earlier than Rishi Sunak referred to as final summer time’s election, which introduced the Labour occasion into authorities with a longstanding manifesto pledge to carry an inquiry into the scenes of violent policing at Orgreave.

In response to a freedom of knowledge request from Joe Diviney, a PhD researcher on the College of Sheffield, the power mentioned final week: “We will verify that two packing containers containing paperwork/information in relation to the miners’ strike and Orgreave had been destroyed on 29 April 2024 and 30 April 2024.

“These weren’t moved elsewhere. As a part of the information administration evaluation course of they had been destroyed as they had been outdoors of the retention interval.”

Kate Flannery, the secretary of the Orgreave Fact and Justice Marketing campaign (OTJC), which has led requires an official inquiry for a decade, mentioned: “That is extraordinarily disturbing information. We at the moment are understandably fearful about what number of different police forces might have lately destroyed or intend to destroy vital data that might be very related in an Orgreave inquiry or investigation.”

The violence on the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire on 18 June 1984, when putting miners had been charged by police on horseback and hit over the pinnacle by officers carrying truncheons and quick shields, is remembered because the landmark confrontation of the bitter 1984-85 strike. About 8,000 miners assembled for a mass picket of the plant referred to as by the Nationwide Union of Mineworkers, and had been met by 4,500 cops from forces nationwide, led by South Yorkshire police.

A felony prosecution of 95 miners for the offence of riot collapsed a yr later after the miners’ barristers repeatedly accused cops of mendacity and malpractice, together with that an officer’s signature on a police assertion had been solid.

The OTJC has all the time pointed to the reference to the 1989 Hillsborough catastrophe, through which subsequent inquests discovered 97 folks had been unlawfully killed on the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on account of gross negligence manslaughter by the South Yorkshire police officer in command, Ch Supt David Duckenfield. The power had mounted a false narrative responsible Liverpool supporters after the catastrophe, which bereaved households fought for many years to overturn.

In 2016, when Yvette Cooper, now dwelling secretary, was chair of the house affairs choose committee, Northumbria police’s then chief constable, Steve Ashman, confirmed to her that the power held paperwork regarding the Orgreave operation. They included a superintendent’s report on an incident through which a constable was proven on tv information hitting a miner along with his truncheon.

Northumbria police despatched 4 items, 92 officers in whole, to South Yorkshire, Ashman mentioned, and the superintendent had outlined “the administration and logistics” related to their work, together with a timetable of the day at Orgreave beginning at 4.50am.

One of many OTJC’s key goals has lengthy been to see police planning paperwork to see if the violent policing was predetermined or a response to preliminary stone-throwing by miners, because the police alleged on the time.

Diviney mentioned: “As a historian, I’m mortified that Northumbria police would destroy proof that’s of significant significance to an inquiry. I’m saddened for the miners and their households who’ve waited too lengthy for reality and justice.

“It illustrates inherent issues with the police being custodians of their very own proof. And it’s another excuse to rush up with an inquiry.”

A Northumbria police spokesperson mentioned: “We will verify two packing containers containing knowledge in relation to the miners’ strike had been disposed of in April 2024 following a proper evaluation, retain or disposal course of consistent with power coverage and the Information Safety Act 2018.”

Labour has promised an Orgreave inquiry for the reason that 2017 basic election, and pledged in its 2024 manifesto to “guarantee, by means of an investigation or inquiry, that the reality in regards to the occasions at Orgreave involves mild”.

Cooper wrote to the OTJC this month earlier than the forty first anniversary of the Orgreave occasions, saying she was persevering with to think about “the scope and format of an investigation or inquiry”, and that “my officers are working at tempo”.