THE long-awaited inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave was launched today, with the bishop chairing it saying “serious questions” about the events of that day remain unanswered.

The Bishop of Sheffield Dr Peter Wilcox promised “impartiality, humility and a firm commitment to transparency” as he launched the formal probe into events outside the Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire on June 18 1984.

“While policing has changed significantly since 1984, serious questions about the specific events at Orgreave remain unanswered,” he said.

Policing Minister Sarah Jones said that miners and campaigners would finally get the answers they deserve over the violent clashes between police and pickets during the year-long mineworkers’ strike.

There were 95 arrests for riot and unlawful assembly, but they were later dropped after police evidence was discredited.

Scores of mineworkers were injured after police, some on horseback, clashed with pickets over several hours.

Images showed police hitting mineworkers with batons and dragging them into police vans.

Kevin Horne, one of the striking miners who was arrested, said: “This was state-sponsored organisation against the miners and our livelihoods.”

John Dunn, a striking miner who was arrested on a Derbyshire picket line, said: “The mass media colluded with the Tories by lying in their headlines and reports about what was really happening, or not reporting it at all.”

Kate Flannery, secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, said: “The police have recently still been destroying vital evidence needed for this inquiry. 

“This is of great public interest and concern and is about a government who actively worked against its own population and handed the police paramilitary powers and destroyed an industry in the process.”