On the day, 18 June 1984, an estimated 8,000 miners who had travelled to picket the plant at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, which made coke for the steel industry, were met by massed ranks of 6,000 police officers. With force unprecedented in mainland Britain, mounted police charged their horses into the crowd, and officers used batons and shields to beat miners over the head.
The 95 men arrested at Orgreave were charged with unlawful assembly or riot, which carried a potential life sentence. But at the trial in 1985 their lawyers, led by Michael Mansfield, exposed flagrant inaccuracies in police statements and evidence given in court, and all were acquitted.
This story is from the June 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the June 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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