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.
In a statement after the ruling, Tomlinson, said: “Whilst it is only right that these convictions are overturned, it is a sorry day for British justice. The reality is we should never have been standing in the dock.”
Tomlinson said: “We were brought to trial at the apparent behest of the building industry bosses, the Conservative government and ably supported by the secret state.”
“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.
Chairing the appeal judges, Lord Justice Fulford said: “If the destruction of the handwritten statements had been revealed to the appellants at the time of the trial, this issue could have been comprehensively investigated with the witnesses when they gave evidence, and the judge would have been able to give appropriate directions.”
“By the standards of today, what occurred was unfair to the extent that the verdicts cannot be upheld,” he added.
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.