Army veteran MP: ‘I’m gutted by what happened to Dennis Hutchings’

The Conservative MP said he was “gutted” to learn that the former Life Guards soldier had died in the city’s Mater Hospital on Monday after testing positive for Covid-19.

Mr Hutchings, 80, who lived in Cornwall, was on trial accused of attempting to murder John Pat Cunningham near Benburb, Co Tyrone in 1974.

Twenty-seven year-old Mr Cunningham was shot in the back as he ran from Mr Hutchings’ army patrol.

Mr Hutchings, who was already suffering from kidney problems requiring regular dialysis, denied the charges.

He claimed he only fired warning shots in the air during the incident.

Speaking on Wednesday, the MP for Beckenham, who also served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, said someone so ill should not have been put on trial.

“I just can’t believe that justice was served by bringing Dennis Hutchings to Belfast when he was a dying man,” Mr Stewart said.

“This has been investigated and investigated a long time ago.

“Dennis himself told me that he never fired the fatal shots, and that the people who did... are now dead. And now Dennis is gone,” Mr Stewart told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster (GMU) programme.

“I feel that justice was not served by what happened. If new evidence comes forward, of course it has got to be considered.

“Frankiy, I am gutted by what has happened to Dennis.”

Following Mr Hutchings’ death, a lawyer who had been acting on his behalf called for any new legislation brought forward to halt the prosecution of military veterans should be called “Dennis’ Law” in his honour.

The UK Government is proposing new legislation that will prevent anyone being charged over Troubles-related offences prior to the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

John Teggart of the Ballymurphy families said the success of his own group, in campaigning for an inquest into the deaths of ten people during an army operation in west Belfast in 1971, showed that people “wanted their day in court”.

Speaking on the same GMU programme, Mr Teggart said: “We went through the same legal system for the inquest. We had 80 witnesses, many frail, and they wanted their day in court, to let people know what they saw.

“If a soldier has to come and give evidence then that is his day in court.”

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