Appalling Judicial Decision

Many of you may have been following the trial and subsequent media articles concerning the five Royal Marines who were accused of murdering a badly wounded insurgent in Afghanistan during September 2011. 

Two marines were acquitted and another two had all charges dropped, but ‘Marine A’ was found guilty of murder and will be sentenced today and quite probably given a life sentence which, I believe, will be undertaken in a civilian prison.  

He is the first British soldier to be convicted of murder on active service abroad since the Second World War. In no way do I condone Marine A’s actions but I think he has been badly let down by one/some of his colleagues.  From the little detail available on the internet, it appears marines were told not to use helmet cameras in certain situations and this was one of them.  However, it’s the actions of civilian judges which prompted this post.

Yesterday, the UK’s highest judge, sitting with two of his colleagues, ruled that it would ‘undermine open justice to conceal the identity of a convicted murderer’ and stripped Marine A of the anonymity granted to him during his court martial.  The Guardian has been very vocal in calling for his identity to be made public - the same newspaper that was happy to expose state secrets which could have repercussions throughout our society.

I have no intention of naming Marine A, because I consider Chief Justice Lord Thomas’s decision appalling. Given the particular circumstances of this case I can’t imagine there were any sensible legal constraints on the judges to force them to come to this ruling. 

There is no public benefit to naming any of the involved parties in this sad affair.  This is nothing more than political grandstanding which will involve the family and friends of Marine A being targets for fanatics in years to come. Not only has his family oat a husband, son, uncle but they too have now lost their freedom.

I firmly believe this case should have been kept within the military justice system and withheld from public scrutiny.  What good has exposing it to the public done other than feed those liberals who are clueless about military matters?  Our enemies must be laughing at how well this country supports its military and dependants.

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Easy Targets For the Borders Agency

Under current rules foreign and Commonwealth troops can claim British citizenship after four years of military service. There are currently 8,505 foreign and Commonwealth soldiers serving in the British forces and that number does not include the 3,880 Gurkhas who previously won the right to residency. But a new law, which appears to be increasingly used against foreign soldiers who have been disciplined at commanding officer level, is leaving them without basic rights or status.  The changes mean that foreign and Commonwealth soldiers, who receive a military summary punishment from their commanding officer for even minor non-criminal offences, will be given a criminal conviction in civilian life.  As a result they will be mandatorily refused British citizenship upon discharge from the Army, indentified as 'illegals' and deported. The previous rules allowed for discretion over such decisions.  Veterans' Aid, a small charity which has provided pro bono advocacy for these soldiers, says it has seen at least 100 such cases over the last year.  "We've dealt with well over a hundred cases since we've been doing this, but what is interesting is that each case takes such a long time. In fact for one case it was 18 months. So that's without income; without work. It's a very difficult system to work with. But the point is this morning we had six calls, two of them from serving soldiers."

General Sir Mike Jackson is correct when he says service by Commonwealth soldiers in the British armed forces should count towards British citizenship. Common sense should prevail in these cases, but of course ex-military are an easy target. They play by the civilian rules and don't disappear as so many foreign offenders do from civilian prisons. These soldiers have no rights; they cannot register with a GP, claim benefits or work and all because of their immigration status.

Our military justice system is completely different to civilian justice.  It's much stricter and punishments are usually far harsher.

As one soldier, who was recently given two years leave to remain after fighting the Borders Agency's decision, said: "If you don't want us in your country, don't accept us in your Army." I agree.   Apologies for the spacing but it must be influenced by the video's HTML. As my knowledge is limited I'm unable to fix it, but I consider the video to be a fundamental part of the post.

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Army 2020

In the aftermath of yesterday's excitement - well done Andy, you did us proud - I had a meal with friends.

The conversation drifted to the Westminster government's plans for the Army to comprise of 25% reservists by 2020.  It's planned the TA will expand to 30,000 part-timers who will be expected to fight on the front line with the regular Army.

But over the last two years the TA has failed to meet its recruitment targets by 20% and it will ned to recruit around 4,000 to 5,000 a year for the next eight years to have a fully trained, deployable force by 2020.

It would appear that the UK government have mistakenly bought into the idea of using reservist troops because the US military has successfully incorporated the use of part-time soldiers, marines and pilots into their regular forces.  But the US National Guard has a multi-billion pound budget, enjoys huge support from employers and provides a range of benefits for troops.

A new UK TA recruit is paid £35.04 a day which rises to £43.54 once basic training has been completed.  All soldiers who complete a minimum training commitment, 19 to 27 days depending on the unit, will also receive a bonus of £424.

Some TA units are run very professionally; in fact a few specialist units only recruit from within the regular Army, but there are other units run like weekend boys' clubs and the level of their expertise is limited.

Today's modern Army requires high quality personnel and, as many regular soldiers will tell you, a large percentage of the TA aren't fit enough to be on the front line. That is not a reflection upon TA personnel, but a criticism of naive politicians who have little understanding of military duties which require constant training and practice.  A few weekends and a week or two on exercise a year spent training an individual in military skills will never produce the equivalent of a regular soldier.

Yesterday, one of my dinner companions was a local employer.  He said he would not employ anyone who belonged to the TA, purely because of the disruption the absences would cause to his business and he was sure any government plans for financial compensation would be inadequate. We all agreed that was a perfectly acceptable reason.

The MoD is confident more people will join the TA under their new plans, but if yesterday's conversation is anything to go by, their confidence is misplaced. Private businesses will not want to be involved in the MoD's scheme, which will leave the public sector carrying the majority of their recruitment numbers.  But will there be enough public sector workers willing to join the TA and put their lives at risk for £43.54 a day?

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