ROYAL MARINE THROWN TO THE WOLVES BY PC BRIGADE TO GET SENTENCE REVIEWED

AT LAST, after a full year dawdling away up in Birmingham, the Criminal Cases Review Commission has reported that there must be a review of the grotesque court martial and murder sentence against Royal Marine Alexander Blackman.

It was last December that the CCRC took possession of a forensic review of the court martial that completely dismantled the case against him, exposing every bias and irregularity that led to his conviction by five officers against two. For three years Sergeant Blackman has languished in jail for a crime, murder, that he never committed.

The task now is to find in the Military Appeal Court a judge prepared to release him on bail while yet more months drag by as what passes for military justice in our country ekes out its snail-like course.

Having studied every aspect of this case I remain convinced it will prove, when all is revealed, the most shaming episode in recent British judicial history, in which an exhausted sergeant made a three-second mistake, lost his temper and put a bullet into what he was convinced was the body of a dead Taliban terrorist.

The senior “brass” of the Marine Corps threw him to the wolves, a scapegoat after 19 years of brave and loyal service.

Even if the dying Taliban was still just alive (and there was no doubt he had no more than seconds to live) a genuine mistake in a vicious war zone is manslaughter, not murder. But every rule in the book was twisted and distorted to secure that conviction.

There was an agenda here – the use of political correctness to destroy a fighting Marine. It will take time but those responsible, presently under their flagstones, will be named and photographed.

I know a bit about the code of honour and loyalty that binds the British special forces, the best in the world, and I suspect those responsible will drink alone in the bar for the rest of their lives.