THERESA MAY has failed to respond to evidence of police brutality in the infamous Battle of Orgreave, furious former miners heard on Saturday.

Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) secretary Barbara Jackson told the audience at Saturday’s With Banners Held High festival that the Home Secretary had pledged to respond to a legal submission given to her by the campaign.

“She said she would respond by last week but has not done so,” Ms Jackson reported.

Despite the setback OTJC chair Joe Rollins vowed the fight for justice “will continue.”

The event was a follow-up to last year’s first festival which marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the miners’ strike against pit closures of 1984-5.

It was held just months after the latest Tory government closed Kellingley colliery, Britain’s last deep coalmine, in December.

National Union of Mineworkers president Nicky Wilson said the Tories had finally “destroyed the industry” after a five-decade assault.

But he said: “It is important that the message goes out from here today — they might have the demise of the industry, they will certainly not have the demise of the NUM and the fight will continue for years.

“The communities we fought for are still there. The courage to fight is still there.”

This year’s event also had an international flavour, with visiting trade unions from France and Denmark, who had organised vital support for the striking miners and their families during the strike.

Danish trade unionist Lief Mikkelson told how workers across his country donated £200,000, 50,000 toys and lots of clothing for their British comrades.

He also recounted the little-known story of a three-day strike by shipping workers in Denmark which stopped Thatcher’s government importing coal.

“The miners lost, but it would have been tragic if they had lost without having had our support,” he said.

Lee Pickin, the son of a Yorkshire miner, remembered how during the strike he and other miners’ children were taken on their first foreign holiday paid for by international unions.

“I was taken to Switzerland with a miners’ support group,” he told the gathering. “I didn’t know who had paid for it. Now I know it was international solidarity.”

He told the gathering how the children and their adult guardians stayed in Swiss lodges, people’s homes, visited a chocolate factory — and were each given a cuckoo clock as a parting gift.