You have given us glimmer of hope, says wife
THE wife of jailed Marine Alexander Blackman thanked Mail readers ‘from the bottom of my heart’ last night after their donations went over the £100,000 mark.
The huge sum was pledged to the Justice For Sgt Blackman campaign to raise money for the legal costs of the appeal against his murder conviction.
After speaking to him in Erlestoke Prison, Wiltshire, yesterday, Claire Blackman said he was overwhelmed to learn of the flood of support from thousands of people.
She added: ‘It has given him such hope. We are both overwhelmed with the support.
‘He is treated very well in prison and many of the inmates and prison officers do not think he should be in there.
‘Members of the public have written letters and emails with real feeling, and it means a lot to both of us that there are so many people who care. We’re j ust deli ghted with t he response and want to thank people so much. But this is just the start. We need to get as many people behind us as possible before we can launch the legal appeal.’
After the Mail broke the news of evidence being ‘deliberately withheld’ from Sgt Blackman’s court martial f or killing a fatally-wounded Taliban insurgent, the couple were inundated with messages expressing outrage at his ‘scapegoat’ treatment by defence chiefs.
We revealed how a high-flying colonel quit after being blocked
‘He was set up to fail’
f rom giving evidence that would have helped him at his court martial, and how he was convicted on a 5-2 majority of the Navy panel of jurors – which would be insufficient to convict in a civil court.
He was jailed for life and must serve eight years before being considered for parole.
Mrs Blackman, of Taunton, Somerset, told the Victoria Derbyshire show on BBC2 yesterday: ‘Al has always regretted the wrong decision he made in a difficult set of circumstances.
‘But at his court martial, he was set up to fail. There was never any option f or the reduced charge of manslaughter, which would have been perfectly possible in his case.’
She told Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show: ‘It’s very, very hard – but I remind myself that he came home alive, unlike many of his friends. We joke that the food is better where he is and he is not being shot at.’
She also told Mr Vine about the moment the court martial panel of Navy jurors trying her husband in 2013 broke with military custom and saluted him, adding: ‘When he was sentenced to life in prison, Al was expected to salute the panel.
‘But they saluted him. It went against protocol. I heard it was because they thought he was a decent man and they thought it appropriate to salute him.’
Top brass applied ‘considerable pressure’ on the Navy panel to convict Sgt Blackman, according to writer Frederick Forsyth, who leads the campaign.
Anyone wishing to contribute to Sgt Blackman’s appeal fund should go to www.justiceforsgtblackman.co.uk or fill out the coupon on this page.