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What everyone seems to forget is that ‘Our Brave Boys’ are different to other countries soldiers. They are all paragons of virtue and would not dream of abusing foreign persons without just cause. It therefore makes sense that the civil and criminal law should not apply to them since there is no need.

On the other hand these Jonny Foreigner soldier types have no such morals and it is extremely important that the rule of law applies to them. If it did not then we would have difficulty complaining about them abusing our soldiers when they were in captivity. Chances are they would respond by saying the rule of law does not apply to your soldiers why should it apply to ours?

I have no knowledge of the rights and wrongs of the claims that Leigh Day have launched against the MOD. However it would appear that 300 have been successful which presumably means that the MOD have admitted fault on behalf of the soldiers. I am sure that some of the claims are likely to be ‘try ons’ and if they are no doubt the MOD will turn them down. Leigh Day are not meant to make a judgement call over their client they are there to assess the evidence and advise whether or not on the basis of the evidence there is a reasonable case to put forward. Bearing in mind that any Judge who hears the case will certainly have a significant bias towards any British soldiers appearing in their Court then I guess that it would be extremely difficult to get Judgment even in the ‘good’ case never mind those that have just reasonable prospects.

So far as David’s comment is concerned I personally agree that on the battlefield it is arguable that anything goes. However I suspect these claims have nothing to do with the heat of battle and relate to abuses that take place after the dust has settled when the persons involved are in custody. If I am correct then personally I would have thought it would be difficult to justify such abuse just because the person involved is one of our brave boys.