Scargill attacks coal board over deaths

Mr Scargill has accused pit management of negligence

Arthur Scargill has blamed the deaths of seven miners in Yorkshire's worst modern-day pit disaster on negligence by colliery management.

It is 30 years since 3.5 million gallons of water and sludge poured into Lofthouse pit near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, trapping the men 800 feet below the ground.

The disaster prompted Britain's biggest ever mining rescue operation but only one body was ever recovered.

Now the former president of the National Union of Miners (NUM) has told the BBC the deaths were the result of cost-cutting measures by the former National Coal Board.

Six bodies were never recovered

Speaking on BBC Look North's Inside Out programme Mr Scargill said the board ignored warnings that an adjacent Victorian mine shaft posed a serious danger to the miners.

"Some would say it was an act of God. It was not," he said.

"It was an act on the part of the National Coal Board in the pursuit of profit and cost cutting that directly lead to their deaths."

Pat Carragher, general secretary of the British Association of Colliery Management, rebuffed Mr Scargill's comments and said the official inquiry into the tragedy had backed pit management.

"Mr Scargill can say as he pleases but any objective analysis would conclude that given the statutory environment under which management were working this tragedy was not foreseeable at the time," he said.

"Yes it was a regrettable tragedy and yes lessons were learned but I stand by the management of the time."

Inside Out can be seen on BBC One at 1930 GMT on Monday.