The 1970s was a time of acrimonious industrial relations in Britain, with left-wing trade unionists calling frequent strikes and demanding much higher wages. For years campaigners have claimed the police and Edward Heath’s government were in cahoots with the employers.
Actor Ricky Tomlinson and the other members of the so-called Shrewsbury 24 have had their names cleared by the Court of Appeal but are still demanding a public inquiry.
The 24 trade unionists were arrested for a string of crimes allegedly committed during a national builders’ strike in 1972.
All but two of them were convicted of unlawful assembly, conspiracy to intimidate and affray for picketing a building site in Shrewsbury in the English Midlands.
The Court of Appeal ruled that police had acted unlawfully in destroying original witness statements, the convictions were unsafe and there was no possibility of justice at a retrial.
On Tuesday 23 March the Court of Appeal allowed the appellants’ challenge to their convictions.
Tomlinson was a construction worker at the time but, after being serving time in jail for conspiracy to intimidate and affray, he found fame as an actor and star of the popular sitcom The Royle Family.
“This was a political trial not just of me and the Shrewsbury pickets, but was a trial of the trade union movement,” he added.
The Court of Appeal ruled the broadcast of a TV documentary, Red Under The Bed, during the first of three trials in 1973 was “deeply prejudicial” and could have “provoked panic in the mind” of the jury.
The surviving members of the Shrewsbury 24 – some, like Des Warren, have died – have mounted a long campaign to clear their names.
They claim their names were put on a blacklist by construction companies who refused to employ them on building sites during the 1970s and 80s.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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