Recent discussion about the need to pardon miners charged during the 1980s strike, and your report, raise a number of issues (Striking miners were wrongly convicted, says former minister, News, December 4).
I should state that as the daughter of a miner, and child of a mining community, I am perhaps not entirely an objective observer.
There is a need to review this issue. Far too many miners were criminalised for simply trying to save their industry. A judicial review is long overdue.
It seems to me however that far too many politicians, from all political parties, are using the injustice to miners as a means of gaining attention. Look at me, I'm supporting a controversial cause! Aye, right.
Miners convicted during the 1980s strike action deserve better. Where the conviction is effectively for striking it should be overturned. Where it is for violence, evidence should be examined and a decision made on the merits of the case. Every man who has the stain of a conviction removed deserves the dignity of "proved to have been unlawfully convicted", in other words complete exoneration, not a mass removal of embarrassing historical actions.
In the meantime it would be helpful if politicians stopped using this serious issue for personal gain and worked together to bring justice to a group of exceptionally brave and hard-working men.
Ann Ballinger
Cumbernauld
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