Lessons from Orgreave: Police Power and the Criminalization of Protest
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12190 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Author | Joanna Gilmore |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 46, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2019
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 612±39
Lessons from Orgreave: Police Power and the
Criminalization of Protest
Joanna Gilmore*
In October 2016, the Home Secretary ruled out a public inquiry into the
`Battle of Orgreave', arguing that `very few lessons' could be learned
from a review of practices of three decades ago. It was suggested that
policing has undergone a progressive transformation since the 1984±5
miners' strike, at political, legal, and operational levels. This article, in
contrast, charts a significant expansion of state control over public
protest since the strike, including a proliferation of public order
offences and an extension of pre-emptive policing powers. Whilst
concerns have been raised about the impact of these developments on
protest rights, there is an absence of socio-legal research into the
operation of public order powers in practice. In this article, I begin to
fill this lacuna. Drawing on three empirical case-studies of protesters'
experiences of arrest and the criminal justice process, I highlight the
relevance of Orgreave for contemporary policing practice.
INTRODUCTION
On 18 June 1984, three months into the 1984±5 coal dispute in Britain,
striking miners staged a mass picket at the Orgreave coking plant on the
outskirts of Sheffield. There they were met by some eight thousand police
officers, many of whom had been drafted in from regional Police Support
Units under recently established `mutual aid' arrangements.
1
As the pickets
612
*York Law School, University of York, Freboys Lane, York Y010 5GD,
England
Joanna.Gilmore@york.ac.uk
I am grateful to David Dixon, Simon Halliday, Paddy Hillyard, and the anonymous JLS
reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I am indebted to
the research participants for sharing their experiences and to the lawyers and activists
who helped to facilitate the research.
1
T. Bunyan, `From Saltley to Orgreave via Brixton' (1985) 12 J. of Law and Society
293; R. East et al., `The Death of Mass Picketing' (1985) 12 J. of Law and Society 305.
ß2019 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2019 Cardiff University Law School
began to assemble, police officers charged into the crowd on foot and
horseback. Police `snatch squads', with shields and truncheons, beat and
arrested protesters indiscriminately. Bernard Jackson, a striking South
Yorkshire miner, recalls the moment he was arrested:
As I was dragged through the cordon the coppers nearest lashed out with their
truncheons. ` Bastard miner ', `Fucking Yor kie miner'. Fi sts, boots or
truncheons, it didn't matter so long as they could have a go at you. I may
have been saved the worst as half way through the cordon I heard one of them
say: `Just watch it fellas, there's a camera down there.'
2
In a critical intervention, the sequence of events in BBC news coverage that
evening was transposed, making it appear that mounted police charges were
a response to stone-th rowing pickets, rat her than an act of police
aggression.
3
Speaking in the House of Commons the following day, Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed that `what we saw there was not
peaceful picketing, but mob violence and intimidation', and interventions
from the Home Secretary encouraged the courts to impose the maximum
sentences on those convicted.
4
Ninety-five miners and supporters were
subsequently charged with riot and unlawful assembly, but were acquitted
after a seven-week trial in light of allegations that police officers had lied in
court and fabricated evidence. In 1991, seven years after the Orgreave
confrontation, South Yorkshire Police paid £425,000 in an out-of-court
settlement to thirty-nine pickets who had brought civil actions against the
force for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, and assault.
5
No criminal
proceedings or disciplinary action was ever brought against any of the
officers involved.
In 2012 the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign was established with
the aim of securing a public inquiry into the policing of the event. The
campaign was inspired by the decision to re-open the inquests into the deaths
of the ninety-six victims of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, after
an independent inquiry uncovered evidence of systemic corruption by South
Yorkshire Police.
6
Despite garnering widespread support, in October 2016
the then-Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd ruled out a public
inquiry into Orgreave, arguing that `very few lessons' could be learned from
a review of events and practices of three decades ago. In a statement to
Parliament, the Home Secretary claimed that:
613
2 B. Jackson and T. Wardle, The Battle for Orgreave (1986) 36.
3 K. Jones, `The Limits of Protest: Television News Coverage of the Orgreave Picket
During the British Miners' Strike 1984±5' in Coal, Culture and Community, ed. D.
Waddington (1993) 87.
4 M. Thatcher, 62 H.C. Debs., col. 137 (19 June 1984).
5 S. Milne, `Police to pay £425,000 to 39 arrested in miners' strike' Guardian, 20 June
1991, 1.
6 P. Scraton, The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (2012).
ß2019 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2019 Cardiff University Law School
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