Armed Forces: Historical Cases

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I congratulate the Democratic Unionist party on their motion. I particularly congratulate the right hon. and gallant Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), not only on his eloquent words but on his gallant service—along with several of his parliamentary colleagues—as a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, which was far the most dangerous regiment in the British Army in which to serve.

I am deeply conscious of the pressure of time and the fact that so many Members wish to speak, so I shall be very brief. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) presented such a strong case in making points that I wished to make that I shall briefly echo two or three of his points before dealing with the other aspect of the motion.

Corporal Major Dennis Hutchings, when he served in the Life Guards, was by chance in the same squadron as a close friend of mine, an officer commanding one of the other troops. My friend says that Dennis Hutchings was one of the best senior NCOs with whom he had ever served, and he is absolutely astounded at the way in which this man has been treated. A constituent of mine, who has written to me in the last fortnight, is being investigated in connection with events that occurred in 1976, 41 years ago.

I listened carefully to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I have huge respect for him and I understand the considerations that he has to balance here, but I ask him to understand that while there is no Conservative Member who does not believe in the rule of law—we all believe in it—integral to the rule of law is confidence in the criminal justice system. The problem with trying to pursue soldiers in the same way as we pursue former terrorists is that, in most cases, there is no prospect of finding new evidence after all these years. Key witnesses have died.

The point about parity is not just the fact that it is morally repugnant to compare killings by the security forces, unless there is real evidence that they were criminal, to killings by terrorist organisations, but, as several other Members have pointed out, the practical fact that the other organisations we were up against—the paramilitaries on both sides—did not keep records, so there is not the same scope for pursuing them.

I firmly believe—my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk made this case so strongly that I shall not waste the House’s time by repeating it at length—that the only way to resolve this situation is to establish a transparent mechanism that will ensure that no case can be pursued to the point of charge without clear proof that new evidence has been uncovered. Unless that new evidence has been uncovered, it should not be possible to raise fresh cases after all these years.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My hon. and gallant Friend is making a great speech, and I thank him for letting me intervene. I am increasingly worried, because 38 years ago I gave my word to two men under my command who had been involved in a fatal shooting that if they went to court having been charged with manslaughter and were found not guilty, they would never hear anything again. I gave my word, and it looks as though my word may not be worth a fig if this continues.

[Sir Julian Brazier]

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend. Many Conservative Members share the view that a transparent procedure to show that fresh evidence has emerged should be required for any case of this kind to be pursued.

Let me now say something about the other aspect of the motion and about some of those other operations. The difference between the operation in Northern Ireland and the other three operations to which the motion refers is that we were in Northern Ireland as aid to the civil power. In Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan, at many points there was very little civil power; in fact, at some points there was none at all.

My right hon. Friend the Northern Ireland Secretary stressed, just after mentioning IHAT, the importance of upholding the law. We have to be clear, however, what we mean by the law when dealing with these other operations. The fact is that when a force has just captured a city, as we had in Basra, there is no civil law, as was the case then. In conflicts throughout the 20th century, it was always accepted that only one law matters on the battlefield: humanitarian law, grounded in the Geneva convention. In the past 15 or 20 years, there has been a creeping process whereby a second form of law—human rights law—has started to be introduced into the picture. When I served on the Select Committee on Defence, a number of organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, deprecated that. They made it clear that humanitarian law, which is tried and tested for protecting the interests of the vulnerable, should be the law that applies.

On IHAT, I ask the House to think about two questions. First, why did no other country—all countries in the west claim to uphold the rule of law—choose to set up a body like IHAT? Secondly, what exactly did we expect our soldiers to do in the very dangerous circumstances that applied in a number of the cases, which are likely to survive the IHAT process and go forward, in those months after we captured Basra, when, effectively, there was no police force and no rule of law? We had large numbers of dangerous people around, and we were dealing with rioting, looting and so forth. Some colleagues might have read the recent account of how the Americans dealt with one looting problem: they shot two or three of the looters and a potential riot was supressed. There was never any question of any follow up for that.

We have to realise that in such circumstances, while we can have humanitarian law in the background and rules of engagement and so on, a young officer with a very small number of soldiers in a dangerous situation and seeing vulnerable people threatened might have to make split-second decisions that would not stand up in a court of law in any context anywhere within the United Kingdom. Trying to retrospectively establish such rules, with human rights law being substituted somehow or other into the picture for the old, very clear and simple principles of humanitarian law, has exposed members of our armed forces in a way that many of us find unacceptable.

I want to end by making two points. First, while I was delighted by the way my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stressed the importance of Mr Shiner being struck off as a lawyer, it seems to me to be extraordinary that there has been no criminal prosecution. When we look at what the Solicitors Regulation Authority—which I have hitherto regarded as the most toothless of all professional bodies, from my own constituency casework—has found against him and realise what that implies for our armed forces, it is extraordinary that he has not been charged, and I very much hope that he will be.

My final point is about the operations that our armed forces are involved in today. The Government made a pledge that if we were involved in further combat operations, we would derogate from the Human Rights Act, and we are now engaged in two operations. We are increasing the number of soldiers in Afghanistan, where the mission has turned from a purely support mission back towards increasingly being a combat one. At the same time, we are very heavily involved in the bitter fighting in Iraq and we have airmen regularly bombing areas. We have the most accurate bombs and the most failsafe systems—civilians sheltering in an area being bombed by the RAF are safer than those sheltering in areas where any other air force might be operating—but the RAF’s activities in the attacks on Mosul and so forth could nevertheless threaten civilians. We do not talk about it in this Chamber, but some members of the special forces are also involved. What protection is in place? Why have we not derogated from the Human Rights Act for those two theatres?

I want others to have the opportunity to speak, so I will end by saying that I wholly support my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk and those Members on the Opposition Benches who are calling for an end to the pursuit of veterans unless serious new evidence emerges in Northern Ireland, and I believe we owe more to the troops engaged in operations elsewhere today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As a former part-time Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, it is a pleasure to speak on this issue. I was proud to wear the uniform in days gone by, and I am prouder still of the friendships I made with those who put their life on the line for security and freedom. My constituency of Strangford has an exemplary history of service personnel in the Prison Service, the RUC, the PSNI and all the armed forces. I speak daily to the widows, children and family of those who were murdered while serving Queen and country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) set the scene so well; this debate resounds not only with those intimately affected by relationships with ex-service personnel or current service personnel but should do so for every man and woman in this Chamber, and further afield, who has had their right to life protected by people they will never meet but to whom they owe an eternal debt of gratitude.

[Bob Stewart]

On behalf of so many other Members, I pay huge tribute, which is not often said, to the politicians of Northern Ireland who have been under huge threat. They have been under just as much threat as members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the armed forces, and every day they continue to do their duty to look after their constituents. We pay tribute to you.

[Jim Shannon]

As always, the hon. Gentleman has a salient point to make in the Chamber. We thank him for the gallant service he gave in Northern Ireland. As a soldier, he made a magnificent contribution to the peace process we have in Northern Ireland, and we thank him for that.

Some people may not know this, but I am sometimes known to be a bit of a fiery person—I believe it to be the Scots blood I have in my veins—and of late it has taken great restraint for me to sit back and view the attempts by many in a so-called “shared society” to rewrite the history of the troubles of our Province. By doing so, they are blackening the name of men and women who deserve nothing other than praise. Most recently, we have seen the complete disregard that Gerry Kelly has shown for the family of local Strangford man James Ferris, who was stabbed while on duty during the night of the Maze break-out and subsequently died from his injuries. This disregard was vile and it should be roundly condemned by all right-thinking people; there is nothing romantic about the Maze prison break-out and the death of a prison officer. That this should be glorified by offering a so-called “prize” of a “Valentine’s gift” shows an appalling level of disrespect, insensitivity, offence and lack of remorse. The suggestion that a tale of how prison officers were shot, stabbed and beaten should be acceptable as a Valentine’s gift is vile to say the least. The bizarre world of Sinn Féin representation attempting to rewrite facts never fails to astound and wound the good people of the Province, especially those thousands who have been traumatised by IRA terrorism. I wish to remind people in this Chamber today of the real story there, which is that of a man who served Queen and country and had his life ripped away by unrepentant terrorists. We remember that sacrifice as well.

The latest declassified files have been opened, and am I the only one—I know I am not—who is sick, sore and tired of seeing personal opinions turn into attacks upon past serving soldiers, in this case the members of the UDR? As my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned, a scurrilous opinion about the UDR in 1989 has been recently recorded as fact, which is insulting in the extreme. I served in the UDR in 1974-75 and 1976-77, and every one of those part-time UDR soldiers whom I had the honour of serving with were wonderful people; male and female alike, they joined to stop terrorism, from whatever source it came.

Let me remind hon. Members of a few truths that are backed up by the facts. The facts are that the UDR full-time and part-time soldiers worked long hours, under massive threat, checking under cars and living in the eye of the storm daily, along with their entire families. The facts are that 197 soldiers were killed, the majority when off duty, and a further 60 were killed after they had left the UDR. These are some of the facts of the case and people cannot deny them. I, along with many in this Chamber today, and indeed with most upstanding moral people of the day, was horrified to learn that 1,000 former soldiers, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s, were to be investigated, in respect of 238 fatal incidents. We are talking about men who gave up their family life and their freedom, who witnessed horrors, who were subjected to horrific life-changing scenes, and who held dying comrades in their arms and searched the rubble for missing limbs of their team. Having dealt with all of that, while wearing the Queen’s colours, they are to be subjected to investigations.

I understand very well the concept of closure and wanting justice. I want justice for my cousin Kenneth Smyth, who was murdered by the IRA on 10 December 1971, and for the four UDR men killed at Ballydugan, three of whom I knew personally, yet no multi-million-pound investigation is available for that. So I resent the idea that seems to be promoted at present that one life is worth more than another—it is not, and it never will be. The grief of a mother does not change with the colour of her hair, the area she lives in or the church she attends—it never can do, and why should it? As the Member of Parliament for Strangford, I call on this Government to turn around and do the only thing they can do, which is to ensure that our people are given the credit and fairness that they deserve.

The investigation revealed that bogus claims were made in a concerted attempt to defraud the Ministry of Defence and destroy the reputation of our armed forces, and this can never be allowed to happen. Intimidation of individual soldiers and the impact on their families must be assessed, and support and apologies at least must be given to them all. There must also be an assurance that the disregard shown to soldiers and their families throughout this farce of a procedure will never be allowed to happen again. Action should have been taken more swiftly than this; credible claims should have been differentiated more quickly from the bogus ones, and “innocent until proven guilty” should always have been the fall-back position. With the greatest of respect, this failure by the MOD must be addressed at this moment in time. It has taken the investigations by the Defence Committee and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) to make a difference, and I congratulate all those involved in that scrutiny. Because of that, I hope that the lessons will be learned by all of us: never should claims without evidence be progressed; never should service personnel be left out on a limb; and never should we leave a man behind as we have seen done here, facing a republican agenda that revolves around attempting to portray murder as freedom fighting and terrorism as the end of oppression.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

What a moving speech we just heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—well done to him indeed. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on his powerful speech, which set the tone for today. I am really pleased that this debate is happening. I had hoped that we would have one ourselves, but we were not allowed to do so until after the election, so these proceedings are very timely, and I congratulate everyone involved.

The whole point of this lies in looking for fairness and balance in how justice is served, but what I really want to get across is that this is not just a Northern Ireland problem; these were our troops, from the whole of the United Kingdom, and this is a problem that this House must embrace all the way through. We cannot just say that it relies on the legacy being sorted out at Stormont, although we have a huge part to play there and all of us want to see that happen. This is a call for unity, with everyone pulling together so that we come up with a solution. If a Stormont Government are not in place after this election, the duty will fall on this House and all of us to find the right way forward. Let us ensure that we do that.

I have always wanted to say a huge thank you to all those who served in Northern Ireland—not just the soldiers and the security forces, but the community workers and the political staff. There is a mass of people who have done and are doing so much work, and they are the people we should praise. In my party, Doug Beattie, Steve Aiken and Andy Allen are ex-servicemen who show what we have all been through. Andy Allen lost his legs and his eyesight in Afghanistan. He is one of the greatest heroes we have, and he was, and will be again in the future, one of our Assembly Members. He has really gritted his teeth and found a way forward. We must all be proud of that.

I was pleased to hear mention of the Defence Committee report that was put together by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). It contains terrific recommendations, and it was extremely sad to see how the Government dealt with it and took it from under him. The report has some wonderful recommendations about how we should approach future investigations. If I have any complaint, it is that it talks only about the future; it should consider present and future investigations. It is extremely good that IHAT has been closed down, but we need to look at the recommendations in the report and follow them because there are good ideas there that the House should take on board.

Last weekend, I met a senior officer in the services who told me that he came home the other day to find out that two plainclothes detectives had been knocking at his door, asking about the past. Naturally his wife was concerned, and his children were very concerned, as were the neighbours. That is just one example of what is going on at the moment, and that is why we are having this debate. Let us make the most of not only the report, but the chance we have to work together. We really have to find a way through this.

There are good mechanisms in place. The historical investigations unit is a good idea, but we must make sure it does not result in our looking at cases twice. It would be better to give the powers to the police and to carry on with what we are doing now, while making sure they have the powers and resources required to conclude on all matters.

We have to take on board the fact there is a continual tarnishing and blackening of the security forces in Northern Ireland in the papers every week, and we do nothing about it from our side. If one follows what Sinn Féin has been doing—this fits in nicely with the tarnishing I mentioned—one can see that it intends continually to do down our armed services. It calls them imperial and indisciplined, but we know that the 250,000 who served in Northern Ireland were, in most cases, most professional. We have to support them and to make sure that things are fair.

My interest started with the case of Corporal Major Hutchings, so I am pleased that the whole House has pulled together to make sure that we look at this issue. I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments about being fair, balanced and proportionate, but we have to act now. We cannot just keep waiting; we have to keep going.

[Bob Stewart]

It was a political decision in one case to allow someone’s sentence to be reduced from 105 years to only three years, so surely a political decision could be made to sort out this problem.

[Danny Kinahan]

The hon. Gentleman is right that it is a political decision, and we have the chance to make it. We must be sure that we do not just give amnesties to the terrorists; we need to find a way forward that involves equivalence. We must find a way that resolves it all. That is possible if we all sit down together.

We need truth and justice for the victims—that must be underneath everything—but there is one thing that has bothered me all the way through and I have found uncomfortable. We are in an election period, and we are being told that we should blame it all on the Belfast agreement, some of the architects of which are in this Chamber—indeed, one of them is the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, who moved the motion. We should be working together, not attacking each other. It bothers me to hear that Jonathan Powell said in his book that certain members of the party that sits here with me tried to get Tony Blair to write to Dr Ian Paisley, who was our First Minister at the time, to say that they would accept the on-the-runs but blame it all on David Trimble. I hope that is wrong, but I put that out there, because election points were being made today. Nevertheless, to return to my main point, let us all work together.