Police quiz minister over murder cover-up

A senior minister has been questioned by police after admitting he destroyed documents during a murder investigation.

Transport minister Kim Howells could now face prosecution over his actions of 20 years ago during the miners' strike.

The affair relates to the most shocking episode of the year-long strike, when cab driver David Wilkie was killed by a concrete block dropped from a motorway bridge by two strikers.

Dr Howells was a senior official of the National Union of Mineworkers and destroyed union records he thought police would demand to see in the wake of the killing.

The Labour MP made his admission in a BBC documentary to mark the 20th anniversary of the strike this year.

Now police confirm that he voluntarily surrendered himself to South Wales Police last month and was interviewed under caution for several hours. A file of evidence is being sent to the Crown Prosecution Service who will decide if charges are to be made.

Dr Howells, 57, told the BBC he was worried police would use the death of Mr Wilkie as an excuse to raid the office of the NUM.

The 32-year-old driver was targeted as he drove strikebreakers back to work. The minister told the documentary of his shock at the death. "I remember for only the second time in my life my knees began to shake," he said. "I thought, 'Hang on, we've got all those records we've kept over in the NUM offices, there's all those maps on the wall, we're gonna' get implicated in this'. And I remember thinking, 'I've got to get to that office and I've got to destroy everything,' which I did. I've never told anybody that before."

Two men were convicted of Mr Wilkie's murder, a charge later reduced to manslaughter. They were released from jail in 1989. Dr Howells will return to Pontypridd

police station in six weeks' time when he will be told whether there will be charges against him.

A South Wales Police spokesman said: "We can confirm that a 57-year-old man voluntarily attended Pontypridd police station on Friday 21 May to be interviewed about comments he made in relation to the death of David Wilkie in 1984. He was released without charge."