Farewell To a betrayed veteran
MEDALS sparkling, they came from every corner to honour the man who became the face of the witch-hunt against Northern Ireland veterans.
Everywhere was a kaleidoscope of berets – maroon for the Paras, green for the Royal Marines, sandy for the SAS – all there to pay their respects to Dennis Hutchings.
For this was the funeral which shamed the British Government.
Tough ex-Life Guards regimental corporal major Dennis, 80, died alone in Belfast last month during a 1974 shooting trial for which he was twice investigated and exonerated.
On the first day of his trial – before a judge only, as if he were a terrorist – the prosecution admitted they could not prove who had fired the fatal shots.
Then Dennis, who was already terminally ill, caught Covid and died within hours.
Yesterday, on Armistice Day, veterans and the public rallied to show their support for him, partner Kim, son John and daughter Sharon and other family members.
At least 700 packed into Plymouth’s Minster Church of St Andrew and 2,000 listened to a relay of the service outside.
Dennis’s cortege was accompanied by campaigning motorcycling veterans the Rolling Thunder.
Their machines roared defiance at a political establishment that has repeatedly failed to honour its promise to protect Northern Ireland veterans from vexatious prosecutions.
To spontaneous applause, serving Life Guards shouldered the Union Flag-draped coffin and carried it with military precision into the church.
They were only there after defence chiefs grudgingly overturned a refusal to send serving troops from Dennis’s old regiment.
On top of the coffin was his cap and Armistice poppies. A Newcastle United shirt wreath was placed beside it – a reminder Dennis was a son of Northumberland.
Dennis’s family wanted his funeral to be a celebration of his life, rather than a replay of his last six stressed-out years as the focus of Northern Ireland’s so-called legacy investigations.
But simmering in the background was anger at the treatment of him and so many other veterans.
Even the Bible reading, Ephesians 6:10-18, hit out, declaring: “For our struggle is...against the rulers, against the authorities...”
The eulogy of exArmy officer and Tory MP Johnny Mercer, sacked as a defence minister after railing at the Government’s failure to protect veterans, captured the mood perfectly.
He described Dennis as “a good man who lived a good life, who did as he would be done by, the quintessential British non-commissioned officer”. But he added: “I am not proud of how we currently remember those who served in that appalling conflict trying to prevent a bloody civil war.
“We can be too quick to forget, or indeed cowed by the rewriting of history into some sort of misplaced shame...of the awesome sacrifice and service of our veterans and their families in trying to keep the peace in Northern Ireland. “And I know these feelings can intensify when we watch the grotesque spectacle of what happened to Dennis in a Belfast court.” Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson, who flew in from Belfast, said: “The fact we enjoy a relative peace today is thanks to the service of men like Dennis. That should not be forgotten
because there are those trying to rewrite history.” Dennis had been accused of the attempted murder of John Pat Cunningham in Co Tyrone and a count of attempted grievous bodily harm with intent.
Mr Cunningham, 27, who had the mental age of a child and was afraid of soldiers, was shot in the back after fleeing an Army patrol hunting IRA terrorists.
Despite previous investigations finding no need for further action, 18 police officers arrived at Dennis’s home in Cornwall in 2015. He was arrested, sent to Belfast and interrogated repeatedly.
This was the start of a six-year ordeal which only ended with his death in a Belfast hospital.
He was suffering from end-stage renal failure, heart disease, hypertension and atrial fibrillation, but insisted on going ahead with the trial in a bid to clear his name.
At the heart of veterans’ anger is that under Tony Blair’s 1998 Good
Friday Agreement, 500 terrorists were freed early and up to 300 suspects reassured they would not be prosecuted.
About 90 per cent of the deaths during The Troubles were at the hands of terrorists, yet about 230 veterans face reinvestigation over shootings. Dennis’s lifelong friend, ex-Life Guards captain Derek Stratford, 88, from Windsor, said: “This is not a witch-hunt. This is a terrorist organisation trying to get its name in the papers.”
Retired Gurkha Dhan Gurung, 59, from Basingstoke, said: “I knew Dennis very well. He should have had justice but there was no justice. That’s why we are so sad.”
Paul Young, of the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement, said the funeral turnout “tells the Government that we are absolutely serious about our campaign.We are going to hold them to account”.
The Government is now proposing a Statute of Limitations, effectively a time limit on prosecutions of veterans or terrorists for incidents during The Troubles.
The deadline is expected to be the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Meanwhile John Hutchings, 58, of Wokingham, Berks, has vowed to clear his late father’s name.
He said: “We have to stand up and stop the witch-hunt against soldiers – and we will stop it.”