Army major learnt of new inquiry in distraught call from former girlfriend
has been wounded on tours of duty in Afghanistan, where he was a bomb disposal officer and awarded two medals and two commendations for bravery. He has been promoted from second lieutenant, his rank at the time of the alleged incident in Iraq, to major.
But the stress of the Ihat investigation has taken its toll. He is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and injuries on the battlefield.
Now, he wants out. “He has lost his career; he has lost his sanity; and he is in pain 24 hours a day from his physical injuries,” said Hilary Meredith, his lawyer.
Chris has been investigated over the 2003 death twice before – once as part of a wider official inquiry into the abuse allegations and once by the Royal Military Police, who first interviewed him under caution in 2004.
A specially convened preliminary hearing in Iraq in 2006 concluded that Chris and two others had no charge to ‘He has lost his career; he has lost his sanity; and he is in pain 24 hours a day from his physical injuries’ answer. The case was thrown out after a day when it emerged that two key prosecution witnesses, both Iraqis, lacked credibility.
The Army told the men “to put the inquiry behind them and move on”. Chris assumed, wrongly as it has turned out, he could get on with his life.
Then came the call from his ex-girlfriend. “It was so intrusive,” said Ms Meredith. Six months after that, in June 2015, the Ihat investigators arrived at the major’s barracks. They met with his commanding officer (CO) and informed him they wanted to arrest the major the following week.
“They seemed to imply to the CO that they were policemen, but in fact they were private investigators with no powers of arrest,” said Ms Meredith.
She has made the same claim in front of parliamentary select committee hearing. Ihat said it was aware of her claim but had been unable to verify it.
has seen questioning the emails from the CO powers of the Ihat investigators and seeking legal advice from Army lawyers. The newspaper has also seen emails in which he requests he be allowed to give evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating the treatment of British troops under investigation. The Ministry of Defence blocked the request in July. Chris was also banned from giving testimony.
The emails show that the Ihat investigators, one a retired detective, had requested that the major be made available the next week for arrest and that he would then be taken in a white Transit van to a local police station for questioning.
The major then heard little more until a bombshell last week. He was in Headley Court, the Ministry of Defence’s rehabilitation centre for wounded servicemen, receiving ongoing treatment for his various injuries, when his CO called him.
After two years, Ihat had sent his case to the Director of Service Prosecutions (DSP) with a recommendation the major and two others, one still serving, be charged with involuntary manslaughter. The maximum sentence is life in jail. If the DSP decides there is a case to answer, then the major will become the first person charged following an Ihat investigation.
The officer, who pleads his innocence and insists that far from killing the drowning boy he had tried to save him, has written directly to Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, pointing out he is now into “my 14th year of suspicion with no idea when I will either be charged or the case dismissed”.
In the powerful letter, a copy of which was passed to the parliamentary inquiry, he brands the civilian investigators as “thuggish” and blames the system, which has generated “obscene amounts of money” for lawyers and expolice officers and others, for his current predicament.
The major will not be feeling alone. Veterans of the Iraq conflict have found themselves in the dock for a variety of offences that includes a public inquiry into an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians that turned out not to have taken place. PIL may have gone out of business but the aftermath for the servicemen remains devastating.