Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill (First sitting)

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are tight for time, so I will call Carol Monaghan next, and then, if we can, we will squeeze in Liz Twist and Stuart Anderson, who have both indicated a wish to speak. Gentlemen, could you, at the other end, give short, sharp answers as well?

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Q Thank you, Mr Mundell. Could I take Mr Young back to something he said earlier? One reason given for the Bill being brought forward is the industrial scale of claims against the MOD. You said that you reckoned there might be exaggerations about that. How big an exaggeration do you think it is?

Douglas Young: I cannot quantify it, but I certainly have seen a suggestion that a large proportion of actual claims has been on behalf of forces personnel—[Inaudible.] Only the MOD can really answer that. I have mentioned before my concern about some of the language. Lawfare actually exists and it is a threat, but many of the cases are not lawfare at all in the sense of being employed by bad or malicious actors in order to make things difficult for the United Kingdom. Many of the cases are not like that at all. If people feel that they have a claim, they will make a claim. It is exactly the same in this country. Why wouldn’t you, if you were in Basra or Helmand and you thought you had a genuine claim? People exaggerate. I have absolutely had experience of that in the Balkans. People tell stories and it is difficult to get to the truth.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Do you think the phrase “industrial scale” has been misused?

Douglas Young: “Industrial scale” refers to large numbers. The numbers mentioned by the MOD are high. I would like to see the breakdown and how many were settled, in which case presumably there was something in it, and how many were not by indigenous residents but by members of our armed forces.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Part 2 of the Bill proposes a six-year limit for civil claims against the MOD. Typically that would be personnel who have suffered injury as a result of MOD neglect or negligence. Why do you think a six-year limit has been put forward?

Douglas Young: I think six years is a reasonable presumptive time limit, but the absolute limit, the longstop, should be longer than that.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Without an absolute longstop limit, do you foresee difficulties, or have you had any experience where people have had injuries that have only come to light, or where they have only claimed, much later than that six years?

Douglas Young: On the first point about coming to light, we are all right with that. The time limit only starts at that point. I do not have any experience of facts that came to light.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Could I put the same question to Mr Sutcliff? Can you see any difficulty? You talked about your experience in the Royal Navy. Can you see any difficulty whereby a situation might arise and an individual might want to claim beyond the six-year limit?

Michael Sutcliff: The example I gave you is exactly that. I can see it for everyday injury, but when you are using equipment, machinery and things like that—this problem with asbestos literally only started raising its head many years ago. To be fair, the MOD dealt with that very fairly. There are always exceptions to the rule. You should be able to make a submission as something that arrives and is seen by the necessary medical people or scientists as an issue. I am not sure that that answers your question, but you cannot just shut things down like that, or else we would have been in trouble.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q I suppose the reason for my question is that different organisations have concerns that some conditions come to light and the individual has left a period of time before actually pursuing a claim, so although it has come to light on a particular date, the limit would prevent them from pursuing the claim. There are issues like, for example, radiation poisoning or hearing loss.

[The Chair]

Gentlemen, this will be the last question, so if you could both answer succinctly, that would be helpful.

Douglas Young: One thing about a shorter period is that, properly described by the MOD and by lawyers and others, a shorter time, if properly used, would actually remind people that the clock is ticking and that they need to get in. So there is that case for shortening that limit, but we should be careful.

Michael Sutcliff: I accept that. That is a reasonable comment.

[Carol Monaghan]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair]

Thank you to the witnesses. We have reached the end of the time. I apologise to the two Members who wished to put questions but were unable to do so. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us and engaging with the technology successfully.

Examination of witness

Hilary Meredith gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Thank you, Chair—it is an honour to serve on the Committee. Ms Meredith, you have mentioned what you think is wrong in the Bill. Obviously, we are looking to protect serving personnel and veterans in the future. If you do not think the Bill is right, what do you suggest we do?

Hilary Meredith: I think the overarching view of the Bill is correct, but there does need to be protection in place. When criminal prosecutions arise out of civil compensation cheques being dangled, there should be a presumption of innocence and no prosecution should really take place without extra care and caution.

I think that the time limit is a bit of a red herring, to be honest. We do not need time limits on it; most of the allegations were brought in a timely manner. I have searched to see whether our courts ever exercise their power of discretion under the Limitation Act for human rights allegations—they have to be brought within 12 months. I cannot find a single case on a preliminary investigation in which the courts have extended a 12-month time limit under the Human Rights Act. I can see one case where they have extended the date that time begins to run, and in multiple proceedings, that is not at the beginning of the process but at the end.

For example, under IHAT, it was only in June this year that we found out that of those 4,000 vexatious criminal claims, there was not a single prosecution. In those circumstance, if a member of the Armed Forces wishes to bring their own human rights claim for lack of a speedy trial, that time runs from June this year.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Thank you for your evidence so far. In response to Emma Lewell-Buck’s questioning, you talked about the need for proper investigation. Can you expand on that and tell me what you see that as being?

Hilary Meredith: The investigations that took place following the civil claims were shambolic to be honest. I know that you will hear from Robert Campbell after me; he would have liked to have been heard in the European courts, because our system was so shambolic and went on forever. That is a very extreme viewpoint to take—we cannot investigate properly in this country.

The Royal Military Police need special training. You have to understand that they are investigating crimes overseas and in a war zone. It is extremely difficult. It may be that they take training from, for example, the Metropolitan police on investigating crimes. It is a very difficult area to investigate. We need to have a robust system of procedures to investigate crimes, rather than putting time limits on it.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Thank you. When we hear about repeat investigations, what sort of form do they take?

Hilary Meredith: For example, if I can use the case of Major Campbell, the investigation against him included a drowning in the river in Iraq. That allegation came within a year of the incident. He was told by his commanding officer not to worry about it because it would be cleared—it would be sorted. Then began a process where over 17 years, he was investigated 11 times for the same incident. That is the shambolic system of procedure that we are operating in this country and that is what needs to be reviewed and overhauled.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q And who was carrying out these repeated investigations?

Hilary Meredith: I think the original investigation was by the Royal Military Police. It was perceived that they were not independent enough, so the IHAT team was formed. Under the IHAT team, we then had this terrible form of investigation through Red Snapper, which Parliament has heard about before. Its methods of investigation and what it put those accused through was quite horrific. Had there been an independent advocate that had the backs of the individual members of the armed forces—not the Ministry of Defence, which cannot act; there is a conflict—there would have been a buffer between the Red Snapper team and the IHAT team and the individual person. I think that would have solved a lot of mental health issues as well.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q You mentioned that you are concerned about the six-year longstop in part 2 of the Bill. Can you give an example of where that would be problematic?

Hilary Meredith: There is a difficulty putting a time limit on the Human Rights Act—I do not even know whether we can do that constitutionally, because it is a European convention. If there is a six-year time limit on criminal allegations, I have concerns about that. I think most of those criminal allegations were brought well within time anyway; as I said, it is the process that was wrong.

For civil claims against the Ministry when people are injured or killed in service overseas, I do not think a longstop should be applied. There are tremendous difficulties in placing people in a worse position than civilians. In latent disease cases—diseases that do not come to light until much further down the line, such as asbestosis, PTSD, hearing loss—it is not just about the diagnosis. Many people are diagnosed at death. It is about the connection to service. That connection to service may come much later down the line, and by that time they will be out of time to bring a claim.

[Carol Monaghan]

Thank you very much. Thanks for your answers.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Q One of the things that has come out from what you have said, and certainly what I have read throughout all of this, is the issue around poor investigations and the investigation industry, as it became, in Major Campbell’s case. You have already said that there should be an advocate on behalf of somebody who is accused. If we could put that into the Bill, would you welcome it? Secondly, is there any way we could put time limits or controls on the length of investigations?

Hilary Meredith: That is a really interesting point, actually. I had not thought of a time limit on investigations. Certainly under the Human Rights Act, there is a right to have a speedy trial, and that did not happen in these cases. There were no speedy trials. A limit on the time that an investigation takes would, I think, be really welcomed. Sorry, I cannot remember your second question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Atherton]

Q Hello, Major. I would like to thank you for your services, and I am horrified at what you have been through. Some critics say the Bill will increase the number of prosecutions and allegations taken to the international criminal courts. Given your experiences and knowledge of the Bill, what is your opinion on that?

Major Campbell: I think that is a false allegation, and I will tell you why. Again, when I wrote to all these people—even internally within the Army—I was told repeatedly that if IHAT was interfered with in any way, the International Criminal Court would swoop in and clamp us in leg irons, and we would all be off to The Hague. Michael Fallon repeated in the Defence Sub-Committee that he had no power to stop such investigations and that, if he were to do so, the ICC would get involved.

I decided to test that theory, and I wrote to the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Ms Bensouda, asking in exasperation whether I, SO71 and SO72 could surrender ourselves to the ICC rather than go through several more appalling years at the hands of the Ministry of Defence. Ms Bensouda responded that our allegation does not fall within her remit, because her job is not to prosecute individual soldiers; her job is to prosecute commanders and policy makers for the most grave crimes. In her orbit, manslaughter, which is what I was accused of, is not a war crime. It is a domestic crime—a regular crime, as opposed to what she would normally deal with. I reported that rejection to the Ministry of Defence, which continued to repeat that the ICC would fall in.

The second point I would make is, what would be so terrible about the ICC being involved? We kept getting told that the ICC has a bit of scrutiny over IHAT and is keeping a very close eye on it. Personally, I do not have a problem with that. Like I said, the ICC was not going to ruin our careers, the ICC was not going to harass our families, and the ICC was not going to go and bully soldiers who had left the Army for a witness statement—not even a suspect’s. The ICC would conduct itself professionally, and it would have no incentive—no financial incentive—to drag things out for years, like Red Snapper, which provided most of the detectives to IHAT, did. Finally, the ICC would probably not use the investigative technique that IHAT used, which was to pay Phil Shiner’s gofer to be the go-between between them and witnesses because IHAT was too scared to go to Iraq.

So regarding the whole spectre of the ICC, first, I do not find it remotely as scary as people make it out to be and, secondly, it is completely false, because I attempted, with my two soldiers, to surrender ourselves in order to spare us another several years of the MOD fannying about, and the offer was refused. So to answer your question, I do not see that as an issue at all.

What I would say, though, is that I think I understand why the Government would be reluctant for the ICC to be involved, because the scrutiny would not be on Tommy Atkins; the scrutiny would be on General Atkins and Minister Atkins. Those are my thoughts on the ICC.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Major Campbell, thank you so much for the evidence that you have given us already today. I think that all of us here are sorry to hear of your experience, and I think that the sympathy of all of us is with you.

Clearly, a lot of this is still very raw for you, and you have talked about the MOD dragging it out over the last 17 years. Can you tell me how you think this Bill will actually tackle the MOD’s actions and inactions, which you have been subjected to over the last 17 years?

Major Campbell: Like I said in the previous response, if there was a time limit within which these things can be actioned, then I feel that a higher level of scrutiny and decision making would be necessary to make them work. I also think that the kind of dithering manner in which this process has been carried out to date would be nullified. If there is a time limit within which they have to get on with it, get it done right the first time and get the correct legal advice, I think that would improve matters no end.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q How would you see a proper investigation being carried out?

Major Campbell: That is a good question, because I do not know. The reason I say that is that I do not believe that there is a police force in the United Kingdom that would be able to carry out such a contested, political and adversarial investigation. If you think about the way that it has been done in the past, when IHAT got this group of ex-detectives who were used to domestic crime, and they are asked to investigate an allegation in a country they have never been to, in a culture they do not understand, in a combat environment they have never experienced and in a language they do not speak, I just think that you are already on a hiding to nothing if those are your parameters.

I do not know how a war crimes investigation can be done effectively while hostilities are ongoing. For example, if there was an allegation against our forces in Syria, I really do not understand how you are supposed to be able to gather good evidence in an area that may be occupied by the regime, Russia or ISIS, and I do not understand how you would achieve the right level of evidence. But what I do know is that the way they did it in the past was an absolute shambles.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Given that it would be difficult—I know that we are very short of time, Chair—to gather evidence when there is still an ongoing conflict, is five years a realistic point?