‘Now stop Troubles veterans witch hunt’
Generals, politicians and campaigners demand end to prosecutions after case against soldiers collapses
THE “witch hunt” of soldiers who served in Northern Ireland must stop, campaigners and military leaders said last night after the first of a series of murder trials collapsed in just six days.
Two paratroopers, both in their 70s, walked free from court yesterday, 49 years after a senior IRA commander allegedly responsible for the deaths of 15 British soldiers was shot and killed as he tried to evade capture.
The veterans, identified only as Soldier A and Soldier C, sat impassively in the dock after prosecutors asked Mr Justice O’hara to find them not guilty.
The trial was due to last four weeks but foundered in days when the judge ruled as inadmissible statements the soldiers had been compelled to make hours after the shooting of Joe Mccann on April 15 1972. Veterans’ lawyers said the ruling made it highly unlikely that future cases against Northern Ireland veterans could succeed, as many of those would seek to rely on interviews soldiers were ordered to give at the time.
Campaigners, senior politicians, military leaders and victims of Mccann’s terrorist activities last night labelled the prosecution a “farce” and demanded the Government act immediately to introduce legislation to stop hundreds more soldiers being dragged to court.
Last night, it was reported prosecutors were urgently examining the evidence in seven other cases, including four soldiers already charged, among them a paratrooper accused of murder on Bloody Sunday in Londonderry in 1972. Sources suggested soldiers implicated in about 50 other deaths were at risk of future prosecution.
In today’s Daily Telegraph, Johnny Mercer, the former defence minister for veterans’ affairs, writes: “This witch hunt should never have got this far.”
Gen Lord Dannatt, former head of the Army, said: “The Government needs to stop these historical prosecutions. Boris Johnson promised he would stop these prosecutions but they are still going on.”
Gen Sir Peter Wall, Army chief under David Cameron, said: “It’s an utter disgrace that former soldiers going about their duty can be brought to court on such flawed evidence 50 years on. This is a politically motivated witch hunt.”
Soldier A, now 71, and Soldier C, 70, were flown out of Belfast under special security measures after the case collapsed. They had been cleared of wrongdoing in 1972 but re-interviewed in 2010 as part of a process to examine “legacy” deaths during the Troubles.
The decade-long case is estimated to have cost the taxpayer up to £5 million.
The soldiers declined to comment and were unlikely ever to do so, fearing future legal challenges to their courtassured anonymity. But one friend said of them last night: “The lads are absolutely ecstatic and they hope this is going to make a difference for the other soldiers still facing investigation.”
Philip Barden, of Devonshires solicitors, who represented the soldiers, said his firm made legal submissions in 2016 making clear evidence from their clients was inadmissible. He called for an inquiry into the “decision-making process” that led to the charges.
“The stress on the soldiers and their families cannot be underestimated. They have spent five years of their retirement facing an unjustified prosecution for murder nearly 50 years after the event,” he said.
Questions will be asked about the conduct of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which made no attempt to interview the men before charging them with murder. The soldiers were told in 2010 that investigators had found no “compelling or new evidence” to justify a prosecution, but four years later Northern Ireland’s attorney general referred the case to the director of public prosecutions in Belfast, leading to charges in 2016.
Last night, Paul Johnston, former deputy director of the Historical Enquiries Team, which re-examined Mccann’s shooting in a review of 3,250 Troubles killings, said: “The case was always going to fail because there was no new evidence.” He said both the PSNI and the Public Prosecution Service were made aware of his view shortly after the men were charged. In 2016, Mr Johnston, a former detective chief superintendent, told the lawyers for Soldiers A and C: “In over 40 years of investigative experience, I can honestly say I have never encountered such an appalling injustice.” It is understood his email was passed to prosecutors.
Sir Michael Fallon, a former defence secretary, said legislation was needed to give the UK Attorney General power to veto prosecutions of British troops in
What a farce. I’ve been in Belfast for most of the trial of Soldiers A and C. Of course, even those ciphers dehumanise them. They are someone’s father, someone’s grandfather. One of them has had a stroke. Their crime? Attempting to prevent a civil war in Northern Ireland in 1972 as members of the British Army at the behest of the Government.
The Troubles were messy; war generally is these days. The vast numbers of killings (90 per cent) were carried out by terrorists. But of course not everyone in uniform kept themselves clean. They never do. War does that. I’ve seen it.
But the idea you that can retrospectively attempt to find new evidence of wrongdoing or view the actions of young men attempting to survive and bring peace to this corner of the UK through the prism of today has predictably been found to be inadmissible in court.
Good. But this witch hunt should never have got this far. These men’s lives have been decimated over the past 10 years. That successive UK governments – fully aware of the attempts to rewrite history and pursue historical grievances in the complex political tapestry of Northern Ireland did nothing – and I mean nothing – to protect these men, is perhaps the lowest moment in our country’s torrid record on Veterans’ Affairs.
No one wants an amnesty. I don’t want soldiers to be above the law. We want all wrongdoing to be investigated. But the evidential thresholds must be improved, and those bringing these cases in Northern Ireland should be subject to the same scrutiny of the likes of Phil Shiner. This case wasn’t even close. And we’ve ruined two more of this nation’s defenders. The bad news? There are plenty more in the pipeline.
The cowards at Westminster must fulfil their promises – there is no other way. The self-aggrandising industry of legal practitioners in Northern Ireland – the only party satisfied in these proceedings on account of the taxpayers’ money they have trousered – must be curtailed in law.
The Prime Minister promised he would do this. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has missed every deadline he set himself. My position as Veterans’ Minister became untenable after what I had promised Northern Ireland veterans – on his behalf, no less – had no prospect of being delivered.
The train has left the station on its route of vindictive persecution, and it will not stop of its own accord. For as long as these trials persist, the Government’s commitments to veterans are hollow. Here in this courtroom is the awful crystallisation of all those promises. Old men who can hardly hear the charges being put against them; bullied endlessly by those who they fought against on behalf of this country; facilitated by a government unwilling to stand up for them. Abandoned and left to their own fate.
I will not stand for it. I will keep going with this campaign until it is so uncomfortable for the Government that its hand is forced. For how we look after these folks defines us as a nation, and I have every right to fight as hard for them as my colleagues fight for their causes – irrespective of the personal or party cost.
I look forward to the Queen’s Speech next week. I am more than aware that there was a line about dealing with Northern Ireland legacy issues in the last Queen’s Speech. Unsurprisingly, the one before that contained a similar line too. I sometimes wonder whether my colleagues think that I sailed up the Thames in a mess tin straight from Afghanistan and have no idea how things work. Watching them rejoicing that “it’s in the Queen’s Speech” again is a little disturbing: the end result of this gruesome spectacle in a Belfast courtroom remains unchanged. It requires an intellectual application and resolute commitment we are yet to see in Westminster.
It’s a disgrace. Time to honour our promises to a generation of veterans to whom we owe so much.