Veterans must not have to live in fear of spurious legal actions

Most people agree that servicemen and women who are guilty of serious unprovoked crimes must be prosecuted. Something else, however, is happening. There has been a search for ‘victims’ of unlawful killing. This has prompted David Cameron to promise to clamp down on what he describes as spurious claims.

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team has decided not to proceed in 57 cases of alleged unlawful killing, the Ministry of Defence said. This is welcome, because anyone who has more than a semblance of understanding of what is happening in Northern Ireland will be very aware of the speed with which anti security force witchhunts can gather pace.

The British forces who were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq put their lives on the line in the service of their country. More than 600 were killed and thousands were maimed, including young people who lost limbs. Many thousands more suffered deep psychological traumas.

It would be an unforgivable failure by the state not to see transgressions within that context of danger and sacrifice.

In a parallel emerging problem, there is already a potential difficulty recruiting police marksmen following the Paris massacre due to the way in which officers working in extreme pressure have been tried for shootings that went wrong.

Society puts such police officers and armed forces personnel in these deadly situations because it urgently needs them to be there.

British police officers and soldiers are well trained and professional and rank highly compared to most other security force organisations in the world. Overwhelmingly they acquit themselves and do their country proud.

Overwhelmingly they deserve our lasting gratitude.

For them to be living in fear of opportunistic legal actions is utterly unacceptable.