Ray Riley was a young miner during the epic strike against pit closures of 1984-5.

He and his wife had a four-year-old son, and their daughter was born during the strike.

Ray worked at Frickley colliery in the pit community of South Elmsall, located between Wakefield, Barnsley and Doncaster, in the Yorkshire coalfield.

The pit had a long tradition of solidarity.

As the strike drew on, a "return-to-work" campaign promoted by the National Coal Board (NCB), the government and their lap-dogs in the media was relentless. Attempts to drive the men back by starving their families had failed, but the propaganda onslaught by the NCB and the media began to tell.

"We got a message saying one man was going to scab at Frickley," said Ray. "You didn't scab at Frickley."

As the word spread, around 200 striking miners headed for the pit to find themselves confronted by massed ranks of police.

"There were hundreds of police. There were about 200 of us," he said. "I heard glass smashing, maybe an office window. Next thing I knew there was pandemonium and chaos. Hurtling towards us were police on horseback and riot police."

The miners fled.

"There were running battles up and down South Elmsall that night," said Ray.

"There were some bungalows, and my idea was to go into the back garden of one and duck down behind a coal shed, give it ten minutes, then regroup.

"There were some police in the next garden. I heard them shout: 'There's one!' Not 'he's the one!'" he said, indicating that police were after any striker - every striker - to dole out what was to come.

"I turned around and ran, and ran into two riot police.

"What happened next was that they pinned me against the wall. Then four or five others came and they started hitting me, grabbing my genitals. Then one grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and it felt like I had hit a concrete wall. Then all I can remember is being on the floor."

He said two officers then dragged him through the ranks of the police.

"They were kicking me and spitting on me," he said. "They dragged me up to a little first-aid desk. They were treating someone, putting on a gauze patch.

"They put a gauze patch on my head and took me into another office. I heard a shout. 'Lie fucking down!' Someone said 'Ray, do as they tell you!' Then they hit me on the knee with a truncheon, then on my arm. I went down on my knees, then laid down, my arms in front of me.

"There was a police sergeant. He came round, whacked me on the arm again, stuck the truncheon into my back.

"Next thing I was being taken to hospital. When the hospital had patched me up, I thought 'I'm going to go home, bloody and battered.' But when I got off the bed the police arrested me for public order offences. This was 10am. They wouldn't let the union solicitor see me until 11pm that night. I was in custody for 36 hours. I was not well. I think they gave me valium.

"Next day at 2pm I was in court.

"My solicitor was arguing with the magistrates, saying 'look at what they've done to him,' saying I shouldn't have conditions on bail. They put me on bail conditions saying I couldn't go near coal board property until May 1985. I was charged with a public order offence. But more to the point I was a young miner and had a young family. If they found me guilty I would be sacked and it would be a bleak future."

Ray feared he would be appearing before a stipendiary magistrate, professional minor judges who had been brought in by the government because local lay magistrates were usually members of the local community, and so less likely to treat miners brought before them harshly. Stipendiary magistrates had been briefed on how to treat miners, with severe punishments for imagined offences.

"If it was going to be a stipendiary I was going to pretend to be too ill to go to court. But it wasn't a stipendiary."

He appeared before local magistrates. Two police statements were read from two different officers.

"They were word for word," said Ray.

"What the police didn't know was that two elderly ladies lived opposite where it happened, and saw me get the beating, and I was acquitted.

"The story doesn't end there. We took civil proceedings against the police. We sued West Yorkshire Police in December 1990, and I was awarded damages for assault and false arrest. I think I was the only miner to successfully sue the police.

"But I wanted to speak up for someone who did not get justice - my friend who was arrested. What they did to him was a blight on society, and a blight on the police. He was beaten mercilessly, then fitted up, coerced into signing a confession. He was in Strangeways (prison) for months.

"He died last year. He was one of the many who did not get justice."

Ray told his story at a Leeds meeting on Thursday to launch a book to which he has contributed a chapter Settling Scores - The Media, The Police and The Miners' Strike, published by the Campaign For Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

He has appealed for widespread support for the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign - a demand for a public inquiry into just one of the many co-ordinated acts of violence by police against miners during the strike.

Today in Barnsley miners, ex-miners and their friends are gathering at the National Union of Mineworkers' headquarters for an annual lecture commemorating the deaths on the picket line of Yorkshire miners Davy Jones and Joe Green during the strike. No-one has ever been charged or prosecuted over their deaths, or for any of the thousands of acts of violence carried out against innocent miners like Ray Riley by police.

Frickley colliery was closed in 1989. Ray Riley now works in the voluntary sector.

Davy Jones and Joe Green memorial lecture begins with wreath-laying at 10.45am at NUM HQ, Barnsley