Al-Sweady Inquiry Report

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we, too, welcome the report and the spirit of the recommendations. It is a full account of what happened and we are most grateful to the chairman for his careful analysis of the evidence. I agree with the noble Lord that our Armed Forces are the best in the world. They were in great danger and we owe them only a debt of gratitude. A couple of months ago, I was honoured to meet many of the soldiers who served on TELIC 4 at their service in Southwark Cathedral commemorating the 10th anniversary of TELIC 4. It was a very difficult tour and the post-operation report by the 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment reported more than 850 contacts, 250 rocket or mortar attacks and close to 40 casualties during the period April to June 2004.

This report will come as some form of relief to the soldiers involved in this deadly insurgent ambush. The report identifies that they acted with exemplary courage, resolution and professionalism. The noble Lord said—and we agree entirely with him—that we must be accountable to UK and international law, and we must be open and frank when high standards are not met. While the vast majority of the accusations against the military were entirely without merit and the Army’s use of force was appropriate, there were some instances of ill treatment. We are satisfied that those incidents would not occur today thanks to changes made since 2004, including, as the noble Lord said, as a result of the Baha Mousa inquiry.

The noble Lord asked me about the recommendations. We accept the intent of all the recommendations but want time to study them fully and to consider their practicalities. In particular, we need to ensure that they will not prevent the Armed Forces carrying out vital tasks. We will announce the results to Parliament as quickly as possible.

Of course the Army and its soldiers must be held to account when they fail to uphold our high standards. I entirely agree with the noble Lord on that. However, this case raises—the noble Lord alluded to this—serious questions about how far the tentacles of litigation of this kind should extend into the battlefield, where our people are forced into making split-second decisions under the most intense and deadly pressures.

I wish to make one point on the recommendations. There was criticism of the storing of documents. We have implemented a better system for collecting, repatriating and archiving information created during military operations, and there has been no occurrence of failures since then.

The noble Lord asked whether we have improved detention. All this happened 10 years ago. The procedures have changed and lessons have been learnt in the decade since the early stages of the Iraq campaign. Our detention practices have now been brought fully into line with UK and international law. The Army Inspector, who is independent of the chain of command, confirmed in two inspections in 2010 and 2012 that these changes have taken effect.

The noble Lord asked about the service men and women who were involved and who might still be serving. I understand that one is still serving and the others have all left. No disciplinary action has been taken against any of the soldiers whose treatment of the detainees the report finds amounted to ill treatment, nor is it clear that disciplinary action could be taken now against any soldier still serving since the report accepts that they acted in accordance with their training.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

From these Benches I declare our complete support for the conclusions and recommendations of Sir Thayne Forbes and congratulate him on the thoroughness with which that report has been prepared. I also declare a personal interest as chair of the Association of Military Court Advocates, having appeared in the paratroopers case in 2005 and the Baha Mousa case in a defence role on both occasions.

I am taken back by the report on the paratroopers case, in which a witness was brought to this country by the prosecution: a lady who alleged that the paratroopers had ripped open the front of her dress and exposed her. She took the Koran at the court martial and then said to the court, “I have now sworn on the Koran and I cannot tell a lie. The allegations I made are completely false”. Back in 2005 the strength of these allegations was very much in question. Mr Shiner was represented either by himself or by a member of his firm throughout the Baha Mousa court martial, since which time an industry has grown up of collecting allegations which have been put forward in the words described by the Minister and which have proved to be completely false and had to be withdrawn. The noble Lord told us that an investigation is taking place into the conduct of that firm; therefore I suppose that I cannot say much about it. Perhaps I may just express the traditional position of the legal profession that ambulance chasing, as it used to be called in another context, was always unprofessional. Advertising used to be unprofessional. But this conduct of going round collecting allegations against British troops must surely enjoy the condemnation of everybody in this House.