Actor Ricky Tomlinson brings fight against Shrewsbury pickets jail term to club
Actor Ricky Tomlinson will give a talk on the controversial Shrewsbury pickets that saw him jailed in the 70s.
The former Royle Family actor, who was working as a plasterer at the time, is coming to Oswestry Cricket Club on April 18 and wants to hear from any local pickets or ex-police officers who were involved in the national construction workers' strike in 1972.
Mr Tomlinson was one of three men jailed for conspiring to intimidate workers at building sites in Shrewsbury and Telford during the bitter strike.
Today, ahead of the talk in Oswestry, the former Brookside star said he still wants answers.
He said: "I'm going on 78 years old and I will go to my grave fighting. I just want answers now. They can prosecute me again.
"I want to know why our court case cost in today's money £15 million, why we were considered that level of threat. We're coming to Oswestry because we know there are a few men involved in the town, and we want to hear what they know and think.
"We were striking not only because of the low pay, but the dehumanising conditions. Someone died every day and a boss would only be fined £100 – that's three weeks' wage, that was how much workers lives' cost."
The actor said a decision from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who an appeal has been lodged with, is due in the next fortnight.
Mr Tomlinson served 15 months of a two-year jail sentence, and has always protested his innocence. The meeting, at 7pm, forms part of Mr Tomlinson's plans to create a documentary about the pickets.
