Do more to protect witch-hunt troops, top brass urge PM
MI L I TA RY top brass last night welcomed David Cameron’s pledge to ‘ shut down’ ambulance chasing lawyers – but warned more still needs to be done to protect British troops from the legal witch-hunt over Iraq.
As the Mail revealed yesterday, the Prime Minister has promised a string of changes to legal aid and no-win-no-fee deals to try to stop lawyers hounding the Armed Forces with ‘spurious’ claims.
The changes include putting a new time limit on when claims can be lodged and introducing a ban on foreigners getting legal aid unless they have lived in the UK for 12 months.
The blitz will help to stop new claims entering the system and halt the cash flowing to the lawyers who are hounding our troops. However, top brass say more needs to be done to protect soldiers already facing action.
In an unprecedented move, the Prime Minister i s also threatening to sue law firm Leigh Day to recover millions of pounds it has claimed in costs. The news follows a Daily Mail campaign revealing how troops who served in Iraq are being mercilessly hounded by legal aid lawyers.
Mr Cameron said yesterday: ‘It is clear that there is now an industry trying to profit from spurious claims lodged against our brave servicemen and women who fought in Iraq. This is unacceptable and no way to treat the people who risk their lives to keep our country safe – it has got to end.’
He added: ‘Our Armed Forces are rightly held to the highest standards, but our troops must know that when they get home from action overseas this Government will protect them from being hounded by lawyers over claims that are totally without foundation.’
However, with 1,500 claims of alleged abuse already lodged against British soldiers with the Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat), former senior officers said further action was required to help those already in the system. Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan, said: ‘These are measures that are to be welcomed as the Prime Minister is now taking seriously the plight of soldiers. ‘The Mail’s campaign has put the Government and the Prime Minister under pressure and the newspaper should be commended for its work.
‘Many former soldiers have come to me and told me how the Mail’s campaign has helped them and their comrades deal with the pressures of the inves- tigations. It is right that they should put a stop to it.
‘But it is not enough. It is not going to help those hundreds of soldiers who are already victim to the investigations and action needs to be taken to help them. They should have a supportive Ministry of Defence representative who informs them they are going to be investigated before they have someone knocking on their door.’
Lord Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff, said the PM was right to ‘draw a line in the sand and protect the freedom with which the military have to carry out i ts operations on behalf of the nation’.
He told the BBC: ‘ Once you start to contest cases, this is what the lawyers absolutely enjoy because the cost of the cases absolutely rise and their fees become excruciatingly high.
‘That is the sort of thing the Prime Minister is trying to bear down on. No one is saying the military is above the law.’
A spokesman for UK Veterans One Voice added: ‘This is a great day for members of the Armed Forces.’
And Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: ‘ Ambulancechasing lawyers frankly don’t make [soldiers’] lives any easier with some of the cases they try to bring.’
Falklands veteran Simon Weston also welcomed Mr Cameron’s clampdown. He said: A lot of these guys can’t afford to defend themselves. They are bankrupted by some of the cases. It’s a terrible thing to put men, women and their families who already have been through armed conflict through.’
Downing Street said that of 59 cases which Ihat has looked at so far, only one was actually referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions, who decided not to take a prosecution forward.
A further 34 cases were closed with no disciplinary action, while the remainder are still ongoing.
‘It is not enough’