Hillsborough activists back Orgreave inquiry

The Orgreave campaign was launched last month after Liverpool's Hillsborough families group finally won their long battle to uncover the truth about the deaths of 95 Liverpool fans at Sheffield United's Hillsborough football ground in 1989.

The Hillsborough inquiry found that South Yorkshire police conducted a propaganda campaign to blame fans for the disaster and covered up their own misdeeds.

Orgreave campaigners believe there is also a case to answer over their own treatment by the force.

Five years before Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police were deployed at Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire where miners were assaulted by cavalry and foot officers, beaten and arrested.

Courts subsequently threw out 96 charges of riot against miners and forced the police to pay compensation, but no officers were ever prosecuted.

Hillsborough campaign organiser Sheila Coleman said: "In order to understand the policing of Hillsborough it is necessary to understand the policing of the miners' strike in the 1980s.

"South Yorkshire Police Force is the common denominator that unites Orgreave and Hillsborough. This police force was responsible for policing both of these major events."

"The recent report into the Hillsborough disaster formally recorded what most of us already knew - not only was itcaused by the breakdown of control by South Yorkshire police, but they also then proceeded to orchestrate a cover-up on a scale beyond anything ever recorded.

"Those of us who were present at the inquests in Sheffield heard senior police officers refer to the crowd on the day of the disaster in relation to the policing of the miners' strike. Indeed their experience of the miners' strike was used as a positive indicator of their ability to police large crowds.

"The people of Liverpool supported the miners and their families during their courageous fight in the 1980s.

"In the same spirit of solidarity, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign extends its support to the Orgreave campaign for truth and justice.

"The corrupt policing of working-class communities throughout the Thatcher years must be rigorously investigated and truthfully recorded in history in order for justice to be served."