Betrayal of soldiers

SIR – The case of Sergeant O (Letters, August 4) illustrates graphically the contemptible treatment being meted out to former soldiers by the “devolved” authorities in Northern Ireland 46 years on.

The Government wrings its hands, protesting they are tied, claiming that any statute of limitations would have to apply equally to Irish republican terrorists and to British Army veterans.

I had elderly constituents in Aldershot who had done their best in a dirty civil war, living their twilight years wondering whether they would get the knock on the door. This is no way to treat soldiers entitled to the backing of their superiors.

The Government must act now; we need an immediate statute of limitations for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Sir Gerald Howarth

Ipswich, Suffolk