Police force destroys files on the Battle of Orgreave: Is British law enforcement facing a crisis of accountability?

By George Marshall

In recent weeks, it has been revealed that in April 2024 Northumbria Police quietly destroyed several documents relating to the infamous 1984 Battle of Orgreave – a defining moment of police brutality in the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. Just two months later, Labour ascended to power with their manifesto promise to hold an inquiry on the police’s actions in the riot.

The conspicuous timing of this, alongside other historic instances of police negligence and institutional self-preservation, poses several pressing questions about law enforcement’s current state in modern Britain: Is there a systemic reluctance to take accountability for wrongdoings? To what extent are the police truly apolitical? How far will the police go to in order to protect themselves from public scrutiny?

Many of these questions lead back to Orgreave. The Orgreave confrontation occurred on the 18 th of June 1984, when the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) organised a mass picket at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham. In an attempt to stop the transportation of furnace-fuelling coke to local steelworks, 5,000 mineworkers protested by blocking exports from the Coking Plant. The confrontation between the striking mineworkers and 6,000 police officers quickly escalated with mounted units, riot squads and officers witnessed charging at picketers with excessive force.

The brutal confrontation between police and striking workers resulted in 95 protesters being arrested and charged with serious criminal offences. However, many prosecutions collapsed in court amid suggestions that the police had fabricated evidence against the striking workers.

Calls for accountability have persisted ever since; the actions of the police on that day

alongside later allegations of fabrication and media collusion have long been motives in calls for a public inquiry, right up to the present. In November 2024, The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) told the Home Secretary that an inquiry should take place urgently, to which the government has provided their assurance that the creation of one is underway.

Yet revelations of document destruction relating to the police’s actions in the riot have brought a fresh wave of calls for action, as well as some pertinent questions and public

scrutiny about problems within police forces across the country. Northumbria Police has stated that the destruction in April 2024 is “in line with force policy and the Data Protection Act 2018.” However, the OTJC has said in confirmation to documents being destroyed that it is “deeply disturbing news.” With MPs calling for immediate action amidst increasing calls for an inquiry, Northumbria Police face seismic pressure to not only answer for their recent actions, but actions relating to Orgreave going back over four decades.

One thing is clear: the destruction of documents relating to Orgreave in April 2024 is not an isolated instance of institutional self-preservation, it follows a historical path of obstruction, denial and lack of accountability.

Whilst the matter of whether the police had political motivations behind the destruction of the Orgreave documents is legitimately questioned, considering Northumbria Police had long been protected by Conservative governments by their refusal to hold an inquiry in 2016 – this and other instances of misconduct are revealing a long-term desire to protect the institution of law enforcement at whatever cost, appears to be having a serious impact on the public’s perception towards the police.

The destruction of Orgreave documents is just the latest instance in what many see as a long-running pattern of longstanding resistance to transparency in policing institutions. From historic failings and injustices to recent high-profile cases, public confidence in the police and their ability to be apolitical has been frequently undermined by a lack of accountability.

Hillsborough, the response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the abduction and killing of Sarah Everard and oversights surrounding Lucy Letby illustrate how systemic failings have fostered a culture of suppression, erasure and obstruction. There is little doubt these have had an impact on the public’s attitude towards law enforcement today as well as on UK politics.

The 1989 Hillsborough disaster is one of the most devastating incidents of institutional

evasion within British policing, having seismic impacts on Britain’s political landscape right up to the present. Police negligence in this case is two-fold: the preventable deaths of the 96 Liverpool fans and the subsequent blaming of fans, altering of statements and misinformation by South Yorkshire Police to protect the force’s image, indicates one of the earliest cases of avoidance of accountability within UK law enforcement.

Decades of struggle by victims’ families fighting for justice highlighted how UK law

enforcement was willing to distort the truth to cover themselves from criticism. The state’s complicity, seen in the delayed justice and unwillingness initially to investigate wrongdoings of the police demonstrated an ignorance of working-class voices in cities like Liverpool, fuelling distrust in Conservative governments. The Hillsborough disaster, alongside the police’s actions at Orgreave, exposed how policing and political institutions could obscure the truth and avoid responsibility. At its core, it began to implant the notion that the police were not impartial, and the government would not always hold them to account.

Just four years later in 1993, the Metropolitan Police’s gross mishandling of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in their investigation evoked long-term public distrust in the police. The Macpherson Report’s conclusion that the Metropolitan Police were “institutionally racist” highlighted how the police’s wrongdoings impact the state and the public perception of the state, prompting greater anti-discrimination policies and reforms to stop-and-search procedures. Beyond these changes, the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence sparked a deep-rooted mistrust in the police; the initial refusal to acknowledge their failings in this case added to the culture of defensiveness and denial which was becoming all too recognisable, resulting in political tensions arising and successive governments dealing with the legacy of the Lawrence case.

In recent years, two cases have stood out as being central to eroding public trust in the police and fuelling political disharmony: the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by a

Metropolitan Police Officer and the concerning response to warnings of Lucy Letby.

Whilst Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley issued a formal apology for the death of Sarah Everard in 2021 and later evidence of institutional misogyny, the mishandling of vigils by officers (arresting women who had gathered at vigils to protest gendered violence) sparked great amounts of outrage and contributed to a growing sense that the police and the state were not on the side of the British people. The response to the Everard case revealed a crisis of the police being unable to learn from past errors seen in cases like Stephen Lawrence and take transformative action to amend these.

The oversight of the police surrounding Lucy Letby in recent years has also played some role in contributing to this growing mistrust towards the police being able to protect individuals. Since the devastating case publicly emerged, it has been revealed that the police had been informed of concerns surrounding the series of infant deaths at the hospital and Letby long before her arrest. Early investigations reflect a hesitancy to disrupt institutional order seen in cases like Orgreave and the failure to act promptly, highlights an unwillingness to listen to whistleblowers. Whilst predominantly an NHS scandal, hindsight has shown in this case that the protection of police reputation was seen as more important than the safeguarding of individuals involved, adding to the argument that there is crisis of accountability in UK law enforcement.

Combined, these cases continue to put the British people in a very difficult position:

questioning their trust towards the people who are supposed to protect them the most when they need it. Beyond adding to the sense of there being a crisis of accountability within UK policing, the way these cases have influenced politics pushes us to question if the police are truly ever apolitical when they shape so much in our day-to-day political lives.

One thing is clear: the destruction of documents relating to Orgreave in April 2024 is not an isolated instance of institutional self-preservation, it follows a historical path of obstruction, denial and lack of accountability. The UK must work tirelessly to restore its faith in law enforcement, but the police must be willing to be held to account for past uncomfortable, dangerous and derogatory wrongdoings.

Image: Wikimedia Commons