MOURNERS for wrongfully jailed former construction worker Arthur Murray have urged the Prime Minister to release secret government files relating to one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice.

North Wales construction workers, known as the Shrewsbury 24, were jailed for taking part in peaceful picketing during the 1972 national building workers’ strike.

Mr Murray was the first to submit a Criminal Cases Review Commission into their convictions, which were finally quashed in the Court of Appeal in March 2021.

The Home Office is however refusing to allow all official government papers relating to the dispute to be transferred to the National Archives, which normally receives all documents under the Public Records Act.

Speaking at Mr Murray’s funeral service on September 30 at Flint Crematorium — five miles from where the innocent workers were setenced at Mold Crown Court — his daughters Jillian Murray-Keddie and Cheryl Clark told of how he was blacklisted and found it almost impossible to get work.

Actor Ricky Tomlinson, who served two years in prison for his role in the dispute and last met Mr Murray just a few weeks ago, said at the funeral: “This was a vicious, spiteful and malicious conspiracy against ordinary workers who dared to challenge the construction industry bosses.

“The quashing of our convictions is not the same as justice. The real conspiracy was between the building employers, the police, MI5 and the government. When will they be held to account?”   

Shrewsbury campaigner Phil Simpson added: “We are calling on the Prime Minister to draw a line under this outrageous episode in industrial relations, where consecutive governments have used the same lame excuse that publishing the records would be a ‘threat to national security.’ I just don’t buy it.”

The Home Office was contacted for comment.