A PUBLIC inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave will be set up later this year, the Home Office has announced.

The probe will investigate the events surrounding clashes between police and pickets at the Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire on June 18 1984 during the miners’ strike.

Some 120 people were injured, 95 pickets were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence was discredited.

Bishop of Sheffield the Rt Rev Dr Pete Wilcox will chair the inquiry, which is expected to start in the autumn.

The inquiry will be statutory, with powers to compel people to provide information where necessary, the Home Office said.

Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign secretary Kate Flannery welcomed the “really positive news.” 

She said: “We now need to be satisfied that the inquiry is given the necessary powers to fully investigate all the aspects of the orchestrated policing at Orgreave, and have unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films.”

The campaign group said it wanted to know who was responsible for organising and ordering the deployment of multiple police forces, including mounted police armed with truncheons, shields and dogs, against striking miners.

It said it wanted the inquiry to find out how it was decided that striking miners should be attacked and arrested at Orgreave and charged with riot and unlawful assembly, which carried heavy prison sentences.

And it added that it wanted to know why the police operational order for deployments that day disappeared and other evidence been destroyed or embargoed for decades to come.

National Union of Mineworkers general secretary Chris Kitchen welcomed the inquiry. He said: “The events at Orgreave, and throughout the strike, destroyed the trust between the police and mining communities even now, 41 years later. It is vital that this trust is won back and the NUM believe this inquiry will go some way to rebuilding that trust.”

Mayor of South Yorkshire Oliver Coppard hailed the “landmark moment for justice and accountability.”

Kevin Horne, a miner arrested at Orgreave, called for “a quick and thorough inquiry with a tight timescale so that surviving miners can at last obtain the truth and justice they have been waiting for.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said what happened at Orgreave “cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas. The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened.”