A PANEL reviewing policing in Scotland during the 1984-85 miners’ strike should consider recommending that convicted pickets be pardoned, Labour MSP Neil Findlay said yesterday.

Some 500 arrests were made in Scotland during the dispute, which shut down much of Britain’s mining capacity over proposed pit closures.

Scottish miners were disproportionately arrested, with 30 per cent of the sackings after arrest in Britain occurring north of the border, despite the country making up just 10 per cent of the mining workforce.

An independent review was announced by the Scottish government last year. It is being led by top QC John Scott, assisted by an expert panel.

At a series of public meetings in former mining communities, panel members have heard from ex-miners who say they pleaded guilty to charges in spite of being innocent, fearing longer prison sentences otherwise. But some workers lost their jobs as a result of those convictions.

Mr Findlay, who has campaigned for justice for wrongly convicted miners, said: “Mining communities across Britain suffered at the hands of politicised and often brutal policing as Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government used the power of the state to crush working people.

“Many of these workers lost not just their jobs and income, but their relationships, their homes — and many their mental and physical health.

"Some were blacklisted and others went to their graves the victims of a miscarriage of justice with a criminal conviction against their name when the reality was they had done nothing wrong.

“The review of these convictions should consider pardons, and ensure that politicised convictions are thrown into the dustbin of history where they belong.”