RICKY TOMLINSON has launched a Britain-wide appeal for inside information into one of the 20th century’s most infamous political conspiracies — the prosecution of the Shrewsbury pickets.

The builder-turned-actor wants the information to make a documentary finally exposing the collusion between police, judiciary and government leading to the prosecution of 24 building workers involved in Britain’s first national construction strike in 1972.

Mr Tomlinson, one of three pickets jailed, told the Morning Star: “I want people to come forward.

“I don’t know if there are still people out there who were with the police, or other people, who know the truth. But we want the information. I have started collecting material for the documentary.”

Pickets from north Wales travelled to Shrewsbury on September 6 1972, tailed by police to every site they visited.

Police made no complaints about pickets’ behaviour on the day and even congratulated the strikers on their good order throughout the day but 31 workers were arrested and released without charge in November.

Five months after the strike, 24 of them were arrested on Valentine’s Day 1973 and charged with a total of 247 offences, including unlawful assembly, affray, intimidation, criminal damage, assault and conspiracy.

After three trials, pickets Des Warren and Mr Tomlinson were jailed for three years and two years respectively. John McKinsie Jones received nine months.

Surviving pickets and fellow trade unionists decided to renew their fight for justice in 2006, launching the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign.

But the campaign’s quest to uncover the truth about the conspiracy has faced barrier after barrier, being blocked from access to vital government documents.

The case was referred to the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice, in 2013.

Mr Tomlinson said: “For some reason the authorities are dragging their feet. It’s quite sinister. We have had three commissioners at the CCRC. Each one collects and collates stuff and then moves on and it starts again.”

Mr Tomlinson, now 76, said he believed that a hard-hitting documentary could help unblock the information logjam.

He said public response to a Jimmy McGovern drama-documentary about the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster had helped campaigners uncover the truth about police culpability in events which led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool football fans in Sheffield.

“Jimmy McGovern’s documentary helped the Hillsborough campaign enormously,” he said.

And he said he had been staggered by public response to The Blitz, a documentary he recently took part in about the suffering and resilience of Liverpudlians during the bombing of the city in WWII.

“There has been more reaction and feedback from that than from anything I have ever done,” he said. “That’s why I am determined to get this documentary done and out into the public domain. We need to get this documentary out as soon as possible.”

Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey and former miners’ leader Arthur Scargill have voiced support for the project, Mr Tomlinson added.