WITCH-HUNT AGAINST OUR HEROES

pledges to crack down on thousands of ‘ bogus, fabricated or poorly evidenced allegations’.

She said: ‘Veterans and serving personnel alike have been hounded by processes often not motivated by the pursuit of justice. Fixing this intolerable situation is one of my personal priorities. The measures proposed in our 12-week consultation would give greater legal protection to current or former personnel facing allegations of offences committed on duty abroad more than ten years ago.’

She added that she would consider extending the policy to Northern Ireland.

Miss Mordaunt’s pledge comes six years after Sergeant Alexander Blackman, known as ‘Marine A’ at his court martial, was jailed for life for shooting a dying Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan. Following a Daily Mail campaign, he was freed after his conviction for murder was reduced to manslaughter. It is understood the proposed new law would not have applied to his case.

MPs on the defence select committee said while criminality should be punished, cycles of reinvestigations risk damaging the morale of the armed forces and trust in the rule of law.

And they called for the Human Rights Act to be amended to make it harder to use its provisions to take veterans to court.

Committee member and Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former soldier, said: ‘The time for successive secretaries of state to put this issue in the “too difficult” box has officially passed.

‘I and others fully expect the next prime minister to end this ridiculous charade and legislate to prevent abuses of the legal system by those who seek to rewrite history.’