SIR – The Independent Police Complaint Commission’s (IPCC) decision,not to favour an inquiry into what happened at Orgreave during the striking miners’ picket of the coking plant there in 1984 is badly flawed.

At the time, the BBC showed scenes on television which gave the distinct impression that the police had in fact been violently attacked first by miners, to which the police responded. The BBC admitted much later their video pictures were not shown in a chronologically-accurate manner during those news reports at the time. On the contrary, it has emerged since that what actually happened was that the police herded miners en masse into a field from which they were later charged by police on horseback, violently wielding batons.

This led to an aggressive response from certain miners.

Without a proper investigation, justice and the truth is not served and the impression is allowed to be given that the state is free to mistreat and cause harm to the public when it deems this necessary.

In Britain we assume we will be treated fairly and protected from arbitrary violence and cover-ups by the state. However, whenever this fails to happen, or the principle not be upheld, (whatever our views of the victims) it surely sends out an ominous and worrying message to us all.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose