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

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

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

[The Chair]

Thank you very much, sir. I have four Members who have indicated that they want to ask questions: Stephen Morgan, Kevan Jones, Carol Monaghan and Stuart Anderson. If anybody else wants to ask a question, please indicate. I will go first to Stephen Morgan, who I am sure will follow the Major’s instructions.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

Q Major Campbell, thank you for giving evidence before the Committee today. You have obviously recently been in the news for the eight investigations. How did the MOD provide you with support? Was there good care and assistance during the investigations?

Major Campbell: No, there was none. Depending on which investigation you wish to address, in the early investigations under the Royal Military Police we were told just not to think about it and to get on with stuff. No concession was given to us in our day-to-day duties. Later on, when the Aitken report was written in 2008, we were not approached prior to the publishing of the report; I heard about it on the radio like everybody else, while I was driving home. It is rather unpleasant to discover on the radio that your own Army accuses you of killing somebody in Iraq, three years after you have already been cleared of that allegation.

Moving forward to the later investigations, there was a civil claim made by Leigh Day in 2010, in which we were ordered to give another statement and we were ordered not to seek our own legal advice by the Treasury Solicitors. We ignored that instruction: we got our own legal advice, and we declined to assist the Ministry of Defence in defending the civil claim, because frankly we thought they had rather a cheek after previously accusing us of committing that offence.

When IHAT came in 2015, I had just started my intermediate officer education at staff college. I knew IHAT was going to come and arrest me and question me, so I approached the course colonel to ask whether I could defer the course, because I had to concentrate on this allegation. He wrote to me in an email, “Based on the version of events you have described to me, which would doubtless be corroborated by your colleagues, I do not believe you have anything to fear. Given the utter discrediting of Iraqi witnesses in al-Sweady, I believe you can take further confidence. I know this is extremely unsettling business for you, but I would urge you to try to put it to one side and focus on this course. That in itself will be a distraction and help you get on with your life.” So, to briefly answer your question, no, we were not offered any type of meaningful support other than some rather unhelpful advice to try not to think about it.

[Stephen Morgan]

Q How was the chain of command? Did they take responsibility? Should they have done?

Major Campbell: No. Again, that last instance was my direct line manager—okay, it was slightly different from the normal chain of command because I was on a course. Their belief was—this is what kept being told to me—if you have done nothing wrong, you have got nothing to fear. While I tried to explain to them, “Look, I have been through many investigations and, trust me, they are very, very unpleasant” they would not have it.

I pushed it up the chain of command to Army headquarters, and again they were not really interested in helping. They expressed to me that they were being told by the directorate of judicial engagement policy not to get involved. In terms of hindering me, if you like, I was appalled to discover that the Army personnel centre had handed over my service and medical records to IHAT without my knowledge or consent.

Apart from the military chain of command, I wrote to Penny Mordaunt, Mike Penning, Mark Lancaster and the Secretary of State, Michael Fallon, in response to some of their public statements in order to correct some things they said that were not entirely accurate when they were making claims that everybody was fully supported. They all responded back to me, “You don’t understand—we have to do this because we have to be seen to be doing something.” The impression I got was that me and my two other soldiers being multiply investigated was necessary for the reputation of the United Kingdom or the Army.

[Stephen Morgan]

Q We heard from other witnesses about the challenges that veterans have faced in getting information and suggestions of improvements to the armed forces covenant or a phone line or advocates. Will you say a bit more about what support you would have wanted?

Major Campbell: The Army is a large and compartmentalised place. For example, when public statements are being made about these investigations, nobody actually checks with us or our solicitors if they are indeed true. Certainly, Brigadier Aitken did not think to check with us or our solicitors if we might wish to dispute anything that he was going to write in his report. He wrote retrospectively that our case was included in another load of cases, some of which were true and some of which, I believe, were false. However, I think a greater degree of a direct communication would have been better.

I also suggested in my letter to Michael Fallon that an officer at least of colonel rank should be set up somewhere like Army headquarters—I will focus on the Army because I am not too sure about the other two services—to be the one-stop shop for anybody who is under investigation. I was told that that was not necessary. Both Michael Fallon and Sir Stuart Peach in the Defence Sub-Committee on this matter said there is no need for such a thing because there is the chain of command, which will do everything. The chain of command folded at the first hurdle. The administrative process in place to apply for our legal fees to be reimbursed failed at the first hurdle, because the form did not have a box for an IHAT investigation.

On top of that, there was just to be no concession on how we were supposed to conduct ourselves in our day-to-day life. Because there was no single point of contact, we had nowhere to address our concerns. I had a very tedious series of correspondence, again with all those people I just named, who all responded, “If you’ve got a problem with it, complain to IHAT.” That is not the most helpful piece of advice.

[Stephen Morgan]

Q You will have seen criticisms that the Bill does not do enough to protect our troops. What would you do to improve the Bill in its current form?

Major Campbell: In terms of legal protections of soldiers, I would not change anything in terms of historic allegations, let me make that point clear. Had the Bill been in place during my case, it would have meant, at the absolute worst, that our torment would have ended in 2009, and neither IHAT nor the Director Service Prosecutions would have had any method of dragging it out further. For me and my two soldiers, SO71 and SO72 as they are cited in the IFI report, that would have meant that we could have at least enjoyed the last 11 years in peace.

Secondly, if the Bill had been in place during my time, Leigh Day would not have been able to bring about false allegations. That would never have got off the ground. I am no legal expert, but if the Bill was in place, it would make the vexatious, scattergun, “throw a thousand allegations at the wall” process unprofitable, and people like Leigh Day and Phil Shiner would have to find some other human misery to exploit.

The last point about this hard stop of five years is that it would be a useful device, because it would focus the minds of the MOD and the investigators. It was the MOD that dragged it out for the last 17 years. If they had this hard stop, they would have to really focus and decide whether they are going to prosecute or not. Putting them under a bit of pressure would have saved us a lot of angst in the years past.

[Stephen Morgan]

Major Campbell, thank you for your answers.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Thank you, Major Campbell. It is an absolute disgrace that you have had to go through everything that you have. It is horrible to hear, but we need to learn lessons from this and look to move forward. You just mentioned that if the Bill had been in place since 2009, you, SO71 and SO72 would have been able to lead a normal life, and the torment would have been over. Will you confirm whether you welcome the Bill or whether you are against it?

Major Campbell: I fully welcome the Bill, both in its intent and in its content. Again, in my amateur legal opinion, there may be a legitimate argument to be had over whether the Attorney General is the correct address in terms of being the final arbiter of further prosecutions, due to the advice he gives to the armed forces on the legality of a conflict.

My other slight concern is that previous Attorneys General have done us no favours at all. Lord Goldsmith had a lot on his shoulders for how we ended up in Iraq and the manner in which we conducted operations there. When I appealed to Jeremy Wright, and when he gave evidence to the Defence Sub-Committee on this several years ago, he took the view that this was an entirely fair process and that there was absolutely no reason to stop IHAT or even to scrutinise it any further than necessary.

The last point I would make about the Bill is that I cannot really adhere to some of the arguments against it. When I wrote to all these people, such as the CGS, the Adjutant General and previous Ministers Mordaunt, Penning, Lancaster and Fallon, they would all express a variation of, “Well, we have to be seen to be doing something.” I do not believe that public relations and being seen to be doing something are a good enough reason to destroy a soldier’s life or to drive them to suicide. I do not think that is morally acceptable in any way, but apparently they thought that was a price worth paying.

To answer your question, yes, I support the Bill. There may be some minor tweaks here and there, but, in principle, and in the absence of anybody doing anything to help us in any way, it has my full support.