Bramall: stop ‘macabre charade’ of hounding Bloody Sunday troops
LORD BRAMALL, the former head of the Armed Forces, has called for an end to the “macabre charade” of soldiers facing the threat of prosecution for their actions in Northern Ireland.
He said it was “absurd and unfair” that troops present on Bloody Sunday in 1972 should now be facing questioning by the police.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Lord Bramall calls for an end to the police investigations. He writes that it is “absurd and grossly unfair” that the police should still be “harrying” soldiers. “In the interests of justice, fair play and evenhandedness the Government must, by whatever means, put a stop at once to this macabre charade,” he says.
The Telegraph has disclosed how a 76-year-old former paratrooper was interviewed under caution for attempted murder for firing his rifle and dislodging masonry which may have hit two protesters on Bloody Sunday. The soldier, Sergeant O, still does not know if he will be charged two years on.
It is absurd and grossly unfair that, 46 years after the tragic event generally known as Bloody Sunday, the Northern Ireland Police Service should still be harrying and questioning individual soldiers of the British Army, some in their seventies and in ill-health, in a desperate attempt to bring criminal charges for what happened all those years ago.
Eight years ago, in a speech I made in the House of Lords, I warned strongly against any such action. I was commenting on the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday which, 38 years after the event (and at enormous cost), had taken the view that on that day, in one small area alone, some British soldiers had used an unjustified (because it was not in strict accordance with the “yellow card” rules of engagement) and therefore unjustifiable use of force.
I pointed out that this assessment had been fully accepted by the then prime minister, David Cameron. In a masterly statement, he gave a fulsome and heartfelt apology to those who had suffered and to the bereaved, with which, I said, all who minded about the rule of law and indeed the high reputation of the Army would wish to subscribe.
I concluded by saying that, in the interests of justice and fair play, I hoped we could leave the matter there.
My speech received strong support in the House of Lords, including from some Law Lords. There also appeared to be no dissension to what I had said either from the government or, at that time, from the Republican elements who appeared to have accepted Mr Cameron’s apology in the Commons.
It is therefore bewildering that the Government has somehow allowed the Northern Ireland Police Service to resurrect the whole affair and to introduce this extremely lengthy and slow-moving questioning under caution of British soldiers.
Bearing in mind the time span, the shortage of reliable witnesses and the various imponderables and special circumstances of that specific area of operations at that time, it was always going to be difficult, if not impossible, to pin serious charges on a specific individual.
There certainly never had been any premeditation to target a particular individual – indeed, Lord Saville described the fire as “indiscriminate”. The most that might be established was a conscious error of judgment to discard the yellow card rules, which allowed a soldier to open fire without warning if he feared for his own life or the lives of those he was seeking to protect. Because this judgment is often made under the most extreme circumstances and within a hostile and dangerous environment, a soldier usually has only a split second to make the decision.
And yet the questioning and emotional stress continues, which I submit (as does the new Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter) greatly abuses these hapless soldiers, who should not have been there in the first place. Whatever their shortcomings, they were trying to do their duty as they thought fit in aid of the civil power, as the Army has generally done most successfully over so many years.
In the interests of justice, fair play and even-handedness, the Government must, by whatever means, put a stop at once to this macabre charade.
Field Marshal Lord Bramall is a former chief of the defence staff