WITCH-HUNT AGAINST OUR HEROES

accountability, securing the truth’. But yesterday a former head of the Navy condemned the firm’s pursuit of British soldiers.

Admiral Lord West of Spithead said former soldiers – including those with post-traumatic stress disorder – were being accused via post and ‘on the doorstep’.

And he pointed to evidence that Abu Jamal, an agent used by PIL in Basra, knocked on the door of a ‘distressed widow’ to try and take up her case.

‘There seems to be the creation of an industry which is trying to discover and bring complaints about British soldiers before British courts,’ he told the programme. ‘It is wrong if law firms genuinely are sending out people trying to get trade.’

He added: ‘There is a tendency for people to look upon actions that happened in war ... as if you’re on a summer’s day in Hyde Park and it’s not – this is very different circumstances.’

PIL has told the Ministry of Defence it will submit 1,154 suits alleging negligence by British personnel in Iraq. A single incident can lead to a serviceman enduring five separate investigations over more than a decade.

Since 2003, the MoD has spent £100million on Iraq-related investigations and compensation, with £44million more earmarked for ongoing compensation claims from Iraqis up to 2019. A further £55.7million has been set aside for the Iraq Historic Allegations Team to investigate cases up to 2019. It has been forced to pay PIL £3million for its legal costs.