Labour calls for Orgreave investigation

Nearly 100 miners were charged with rioting after the brutal policing action at Orgreave coking plant near Rotherham in 1984. But the trial collapsed after serious doubts were raised over the testimony of police.

A BBC documentary last night featured allegations that some police involved in prosecutions colluded when they wrote their statements.

Former Labour MP Vera Baird QC, who represented Orgreave miners in court, said: "I was frankly shocked by Orgreave. By the deliberate nature of putting together this case."

The allegations come after a report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel found that South Yorkshire police had doctored statements in a bid to cover up failures in the policing operation that day and shift the blame onto those who died.

Miners' union NUM former president Ian Lavery MP told the Star that the allegations surrounding the doctoring of statements by police following Orgreave, while bearing similarities to the action of the same force following the Hillsborough disaster, must be investigated separately.

Speaking before what he described as a hugely emotional and vitally important debate on the Hillsborough disaster in the Commons today afternoon, Mr Lavery said: "The debate on Hillsborough is hugely important, they are two very separate issues and should be treated as such.

"There is a common denominator, however, in the way in which police in South Yorkshire acted behind the scenes.

"The reality is that the same people who were in charge at Orgreave were in charge at Hillsborough and they acted with impunity.

"Police officers were given a narrative and instructed to put things down in statements which they had not actually seen.

"Before the (Orgreave) court hearing in Sheffield there were dozens of statements with identical wording. It's an absolute disgrace. After Hillsborough 164 statements were tampered with. There are striking similarities."

He said that it appeared that there was "endemic corruption in South Yorkshire Police."

He also drew comparisons between the role of the media in perpetuating the police and the state's version of events in both cases.

"At Orgreave it was the media, the police and the state against ordinary, honest, working people and it was the same at Hillsborough," he said.