Battle of Orgreave (1984)

Mon Jun 18, 1984

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Image: Police officers charge striking miners, mass picket of the Orgreave coking plant, miners’ strike, Yorkshire. Photo by John Harris. [theguardian.com]

On this day in 1984, the Battle of Orgreave took place in Rotherham, England when 6,000 cops attacked 5,000 picketing miners during the UK Miners’ Strike (1984-85), leading to one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history.

Media reports at the time depicted the battle as “an act of self-defence by police who had come under attack”, however the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) had to pay £425,000 in compensation to 39 miners for assault, wrongful arrest, unlawful detention, and malicious prosecution in 1991.

While the striking workers were dressed casually in t-shirts and not armed, the police came dressed in riot gear and were well-armed: they brought 42 horses, whose mounted officers wore helmets and carried staves twice as long as truncheons, and police with dogs were stationed at the side of the long field in front of the plant.

Mounted police charged and attacked the picketers, and footage of the event contradicted the official police narrative regarding the level of force involved. 95 people were arrested and more than 100 were injured.

Journalist Alastair Stewart characterized the Battle of Orgreave as “a defining and ghastly moment” that “changed, forever, the conduct of industrial relations and how this country functions as an economy and as a democracy”.