Sgt Alexander Blackman (Marine A)

Steven Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today, Mr Pritchard, and I commend the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this important debate and the passion with which he spoke about Sergeant Blackman.

The case raises issues of serious concern and it should be carefully considered by the Government, Parliament and parliamentarians. I want to consider some of those issues because I have great sympathy for many of the points being raised across the Chamber, although I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that it is not for parliamentarians to interfere in an individual court case. Therefore I will speak generally, if I can, about some matters that come out of this.

At the heart of the matter for me is the question of culpability. We train our servicemen and women to an extremely high standard, including on how to operate with integrity on the battlefield. Yesterday, in preparing for this debate, I spoke to a friend of mine who used to teach that course to recruits in the Royal Marines. Based on that conversation, my question is: can that training ever be foolproof? Can it ever see every contingency, given the conditions that we expect these troops to operate in and the action they get into with enemy combatants? If not, where does the appropriate level of culpability lie?

When soldiers are ordered to go out on patrol in highly dangerous areas or to risk their lives defending positions, the stress and psychological toll must be draining. Over a sustained period, those factors must surely affect performance and judgement. The psychological toll must be ever greater on those with responsibility for others—those in command on the ground.

To what extent did the pressures on the sergeant have an adverse effect on his mental state when he made the mistake that he made? I am no expert, and I am not privy to every detail of the case—I have not seen the full coverage, as the hon. Gentleman has—but I would like to know that that was taken fully into account by the court martial; there are questions about whether it was.

I hope that the Minister can indicate how we monitor the psychological toll being taken on our servicemen when they are put in these positions. His comments would be welcome; if we are to have confidence in military justice and that our servicemen are treated fairly, it is important that that is taken into account. As has been said by a number of hon. Members, there are questions about the issue.

How do we determine that a serviceman or woman is psychologically fit to be on the battlefield in the first place, and where does responsibility lie when things go wrong? I also have concerns over the accountability of command for incidents such as the one involving the sergeant, particularly in light of the comments, alluded to by others, of Colonel Oliver Lee, which have been widely reported. Although a couple of hon. Members have mentioned them, I will repeat Colonel Lee’s comments because they are important:

“Sgt Blackman was therefore sentenced by an authority blind to facts that offered serious mitigation on his behalf. The cause of this is a failure of moral courage by the chain of command, the burden of which is carried by the man under command.”

For me, that is extremely concerning. I would like to hear a bit more about that, and it needs to be looked into.

I have a further concern about transparency. It seems to me that transparency is essential in any legal framework but that it does not seem to exist here. Without transparency, how can parliamentarians or the public have confidence that the system of military justice is effective and fair? Given the age in which we live, where information is exchanged and shared like at no other time in human history, we must have a transparent military legal system that we can all have confidence in. What are the facts of this case? Do we know them all—if not, why not? What matters did the court martial consider? Crucially, which ones did they not consider in this case and others?

It has been widely reported that the evidence about the context in which our soldiers were serving was not presented at the trial—the lack of equipment, troop numbers and the job being asked of them, for example. We really need to make sure that that is taken into account. It is also my understanding—this point was mentioned earlier by the hon. Gentleman—that this case is being reviewed, but that there is a reluctance to release the report to the public. In the interests of transparency, I hope that that can be done. I hope that there are no redactions so that we can judge for ourselves on the basis of full information. It is not for me to say whether such evidence would have changed the verdict in the particular case; that is a matter for others. However, I think clarification should be provided on what was considered by the court martial and what was not.

As I said at the beginning, I think there is a case for reviewing the law as regards the prosecution of such crimes. We have to look into that, and I think we have an opportunity to next year. In particular, there is the degree to which culpability rests with individual servicemen and women who are expected to act under orders in extremely difficult and dangerous theatres and under restrictions through rules of engagement.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me, but I think the law is clear. Servicemen and women have a duty and a right to kill the enemy, until that enemy comes under their control—de facto, a prisoner. Once the enemy is under control, they have a responsibility to care for that person. In this case, clearly, Marine A did wrong by killing, or assuming he was killing, someone. That is against the law of armed conflict and the Geneva convention. It is quite clear.

What seems to be wrong, having listened very carefully to my hon. Friends and colleagues explain, is that the defence did not defend properly and the judge advocate general in a court martial did not give options to the board. They gave one option: murder—sorry, Mr Pritchard, I do not mean to be making a speech. Murder was one option; manslaughter was another, and at the very least should be considered by the military authorities to sort this out. That should be done with a new legal team, which has a responsibility to go straight back to the military authorities and say, “This is wrong. Sort it, please.”

[Steven Paterson]

I do not necessarily disagree with that, but I did say at the beginning that I was going to try to speak generally, rather than on an individual case, if and when I could, to make my points.

In conclusion, very important points come out of this case. I have a great deal of sympathy with regard to the individual case, but I think Parliament should be considering how we deal with incidents such as this when we put our troops in harm’s way.