SGT BLACKMAN: A DAY OF HOPE

Prosecutors accept Marine A was ‘unequivocally’ suffering from a mental disorder when he shot Taliban fighter

ALEXANDER Blackman was suffering from a mental illness when he shot a wounded Taliban fighter, prosecutors admitted last night.

In a huge boost to the jailed royal Marine’s hopes of justice, the Crown said it accepted the view of psychiatrists that his mind was disordered.

He must now wait to see whether his murder conviction will be substituted for one of manslaughter.

At the end of his appeal hearing yesterday judges said their decision would ‘take some time’ – but they appeared to rule out a retrial. Sergeant Blackman’s wife Claire left the royal Courts of Justice to huge cheers from hundreds of ex-Marines and supporters.

Three leading psychiatrists diagnosed an ‘adjustment disorder’ – a recognised mental illness they say muddled her husband’s mind when he pulled the trigger.

The hearing was told that soldiers went ‘feral’ when abandoned by their com- manders in Afghanistan. Sgt Blackman’s were ‘shockingly bad’, worsening his mental state.

The Crown had rejected the psychiatric diagnosis. But when prosecutor richard Whittam was asked yesterday if this was still the case, he replied: ‘It seems to me that the evidence is unequivocal that he has an adjustment disorder.’

The QC said the Crown did not feel the condition was severe enough to excuse shooting the mortally-wounded insurgent in 2011.

Sgt Blackman – known at his original military trial as Marine A – was given a life sentence in 2013, later cut to ten and then eight years.

regimental Sergeant Major Stephen Moran told yesterday’s hearing it was essential for morale and discipline that officers understood the daily difficulties of their troops and were

not remote figures. ‘It can lead to a loss of control and loss of discipline by a soldier,’ he said. ‘If he is feeling isolated and if he is getting hammered by the enemy at the same time, he can go into survival mode and essentially become feral.’

Experts told the court that poorly-led soldiers were ten times more likely to have mental health issues.

The absence of 42-year-old Sgt Blackman’s commanders made his mental state worse, according to the man who took over as his chief, Colonel Oliver Lee.

He condemned the performance of Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Murchison, who led Sgt Blackman’s unit for most of its ‘tour of hell’ in Helmand province.

The Lieutenant Colonel visited Sgt Blackman’s remote and vulnerable outpost, Checkpoint Omar, only once or twice during the six-month tour, the court heard.

Col Lee said he would have visited 12 times over such a period. Major Aaron Fisher, who led Sgt Blackman’s J-Company, apparently went only every ten days to two weeks.

In a witness statement, Col Lee, who resigned his commission in disgust over the Marine A case, said: ‘At the heart of these factors is my view that the leadership and oversight of Sergeant Blackman by his commanders Lieutenant Colonel Murchison and Major Fisher was shockingly bad, and directly causal to Sergeant Blackman’s conduct.’

Sgt Blackman’s QC, Jonathan Goldberg, called this ‘an extraordinary indictment by one senior colleague of another’.

Mr Goldberg told the court: ‘It hardly needs a psychiatrist to point out that the conditions under which Blackman was serving at Checkpoint Omar were ripe for mental illness or breakdown, if any conditions anywhere in the world could be.

‘Why should it come as any surprise? This is not some banker taking the Tube to the City each morning and complaining of a stressful job. This is not only a matter of psychiatry we suggest but of common human experience.’

He said it would be a ‘grave miscarriage of justice’ for the court to ignore ‘ such uncontradicted and reputable fresh evidence’ from the psychiatrists.

The barrister submitted that it was ‘plain as a pikestaff’ that one expert, Dr Philip Joseph, was right when he told the court it was a question of ‘manslaughter not murder’, adding: ‘The safety of the conviction is inevitably not safe.’ The unprecedented case is being heard by five of Britain’s most senior judges – Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Lord Justice Leveson, Lady Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Openshaw and Mr Justice Sweeney.

They have been told that Sgt Blackman was ‘not Rambo’ and that his split-second mistake was caused by a temporary numbing of his ‘moral compass’.

Yesterday afternoon the Lord Chief Justice concluded the hearing by saying: ‘We will take time to consider our decisions. If it is quashing the conviction then we will have to reconvene in relation to the sentence.’

If the judges do decide to commute Sgt Blackman’s murder conviction to manslaughter, they will resentence him.

He is serving life for murder, with a minimum of eight years in prison.

Under manslaughter, it could be a shorter sentence than eight years – even to the extent that he would be freed immediately on the basis of the three years already served.

If the judges substitute his murder conviction for manslaughter, it would be on the basis that Sgt Blackman accepted he had ‘intended’ to kill the insurgent – something he has previously denied.

Mr Goldberg told the court that the Marine would accept this responsibility with whatever consequences it entailed.

The judges are expected to deliver their ruling next week or the week after.