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

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

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

[The Chair]

If at any point during the meeting when members of the Committee ask you questions you cannot hear them, please indicate so that we can make the necessary arrangements.

I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill. We must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 10.30 am.

Do any members of the Committee wish to declare any relevant interests in connection with the Bill?

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

To err on the side of caution, I should say that I have served on overseas operations. I have also made a successful claim against the Ministry of Defence for my injuries during service.

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[The Chair]

Thank you. As you have seen from the previous session we have some logistical issues, because Members who wish to question you will have to move to a seat where there is a microphone, or we have a standing microphone just behind you. I hope that you will bear with us as we move forward with those logistics. The two Members who have indicated that they wish to question you during this session are Emma Lewell-Buck and Carol Monaghan. If there is anyone else—Sarah Atherton, I will take you as well. So, Emma.

[Stuart Anderson]

I want to be on every question, Chair.

[The Chair]

I suggest that we might logistically arrange for people who do want to ask questions, or anticipate asking questions, to be at the table where they would have access to a microphone. It makes it so much easier. Emma Lewell-Buck, I call on you to start the proceedings.

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[The Chair]

Thank you for observing the microphone requirement. I call Stuart Anderson.

[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.

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[Joy Morrissey]

Q Hilary, do you agree that it is impossible to actually reach a fair verdict if you do not have the national security background or the military files on what was decided at the time? If that is restricted information—some of those documents may be classified for several years or decades—how is the service person supposed to defend themselves if they do not have that level of information?

Hilary Meredith: I agree; it is extremely difficult. When I am putting forward an independent person, I am talking about somebody in civvy street, which would be even more difficult. Unless you sign up to the Official Secrets Act and there is a full cards-on-the-table procedure, it would be very hard to defend.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Going back to when you said the time limit is a red herring, how do you think the serving personnel and veteran community will take it if we took your recommendation and removed the time limit from the Bill?

Hilary Meredith: The time limit, on the face of it, is welcomed by most veterans and military personnel, but the reading of it is a concern. For example, time limits will be introduced if military personnel serving overseas are killed or injured in service. Putting a time limit on that puts them in a worse position than civilians. That alone outweighs the prospect of a time limit on a criminal prosecution. Most criminal prosecutions were done in a timely manner. It was the process that caused them to be historical. Differentiating between the two and sorting out the process is more welcome than actually putting a time limit on an allegation.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q What about from the point of knowledge?

Hilary Meredith: In civilian cases, with the date of knowledge of, for example, of PTSD, you may consider that there is something wrong post service, but it can take up to 15 years for PTSD to actually raise its head. An example of that is the young men and women who came back who have lost limbs. People were surviving triple amputations and went on to do fantastic things; they climbed mountains, they skied, they had great prosthetics—they all did remarkably well. But as the ageing process takes place, they cannot walk on prosthetics; they become more wheelchair-bound, they put on weight, the Invictus games is not available to them, and that is when PTSD sets in. PTSD is not just the diagnosis; it is the date you realise it is connected to service, and 15 years down the line it can be difficult to differentiate between, “Yes, there is something wrong with me,” and, “Ah, but it’s also connected to service.” It is the causation issue—the service caused the PTSD.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Hilary. With that, we have reached the end of the time period that was allocated for your evidence. On behalf of all the members of the Committee, we are very grateful to you for the evidence you have given and for bearing with us and the logistics we have to follow to comply with social distancing. Thank you very much for your evidence.

Examination of Witness

Major Bob Campbell gave evidence.

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[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.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Just a follow-up. We had the Second Reading of the Bill in Parliament a few weeks ago. I am not sure whether you saw that; it was a very interesting debate. There were a lot of recommendations, and one of the recommendations to the Bill Committee is to shelve the Bill and start again. In my new term as a politician, that means to stop it. What is your view, and what do you believe the veterans community and armed forces will feel if the Bill does not pass the Bill Committee?

Major Campbell: From my very unscientific survey of veterans, I think that generally—in my orbit—the Bill is welcomed. If the words of the Bill are not welcomed, the principle of attempting to improve the lot of veterans and service personnel is welcomed. There is deep anger and distrust between the veteran community and the MOD. It is all very well for the MOD to blame Phil Shiner and Leigh Day for this, but it was the MOD that carried out the repeated investigations.

To answer your question, I think that if the Bill were to be squashed, it would send a very depressing message to the veterans community—probably one that has been felt quite harshly by the Northern Ireland veterans—that we are not important enough to get any type of assistance when facing legal assault.

[Stuart Anderson]

Thank you for your comments, and thank you again for your service.

[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.