A former policeman embroiled in the Battle of Orgreave has revealed he refused to obey “wrongful orders” from senior officers.
His evidence will bolster evidence that the police, given a free rein by Mrs Thatcher, fabricated statements, imposed bogus charges and instigated much of the violence.
Former Detective Superintendent Mike Freeman, later of Greater Manchester Police’s professional standards branch, has told how the operational briefing involved a “bizarre ticketing” system to secure 95 arrests, although the cases ultimately collapsed and the police had to pay damages to more than half of them.
As a young PC in 1984, Freeman and other GMP officers were bussed to the coking plant in South Yorkshire to stop the hundreds of miners converging in a bid to stop production. Closure of Orgreave would in turn shut blast furnaces at the Scunthorpe steelwork.
Freeman revealed that during an operational briefing they were told that South Yorkshire Police officers would write statements even if they had not arrested the pickets themselves. That ran against the fundamental of policing: the arresting officer makes the arrest statement concerning the prisoner, and nobody else.
He said: “What sticks in my mind is the briefing we were given, passed down through our public order command chains – and that was, particularly on that day, that if you arrest a prisoner you will take that prisoner back to a prisoner reception area, you will be given a reference number, you will return to the (police) lines. And at the end of the operation, you will return to the prisoner reception area, where there will be a statement ready for you to sign.”
Freeman refused to go along with that and said he had never encountered it before or since. Many of his colleagues felt the same way. “I knew in my own mind that was wrong, and I can clearly remember saying to colleagues that I was with that day, ‘I will not be making an arrest on that operation’, and I didn’t,” he added.
When he got to Orgreave the South Yorkshire officers were ready for this arrangement and not in riot gear. “There were no South Yorkshire officers, from my recollection, on (police) lines that day. I remember that South Yorkshire officers were wearing flat caps with orange head bands; they were called logistics.”
South Yorkshire Police said: “The Hillsborough Inquests brought into sharp focus the need to understand and confront the past and give people the opportunity to explore the circumstances of such significant events. South Yorkshire Police would welcome an appropriate independent assessment of Orgreave.” Greater Manchester Police declined to comment.
Last year the Independent Police Complaints Commission concluded there should be a full inquiry into South Yorkshire Police’s actions at Orgreave, a move now agreed by the government. Freeman told a Channel 4 reporter: “The miners’ strike broke a lot of families and I think there’s possibly a good case for a public inquiry because people need closure. I’m prepared to speak out because I found policing that strike particularly difficult because of my own political views. I’m now a local Labour councillor.”
Meanwhile, No 10 forced new Home Secretary Amber Rudd to back-pedal after she appeared to promise an official review next month. Ms Rudd wanted an investigation that delivers “complete” answers but will not “drag on”. However, that appears to have been relegated to just an option.
Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham said: “The dignified and patient Orgreave campaigners deserve much better than these anonymous briefings and mixed messages coming out of the Government. This is unfair and a clear decision needs to be communicated properly to the campaigners without delay. It is important to remember that Theresa May as Home Secretary personally invited the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign to make an official request for an inquiry. If she throws that back at them now, people will conclude it is for all the wrong reasons and it will not reflect well on our Prime Minister.
“All that people are asking for is the full truth about what happened on a day that still is still shrouded in secrecy and was the most divisive moment in our recent in history. What possible justification can there be for preventing people from knowing the truth? The Government promised the Hillsborough families the full truth and it is clear we won’t have that until we also know what the South Yorkshire Police was doing five years earlier.”