Sgt Alexander Blackman (Marine A)

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Johnny Mercer

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I have been asked a few times for my views on the case, for a variety of reasons, and I have not offered them, but as it is yet again in Parliament and I am now, fortunately, a Member, I will use the opportunity to set out my view.

To give some context, I never achieved anything particularly great in the Army, but I have a unique viewpoint. I served three tours from the beginning of the Afghanistan conflict. I served in the chaos that was 2006, when we first went there; and at the strategic level in 2008 and 2009, with a unit that was involved in the strategic man-hunting outside of Task Force Helmand. I then served in 2010 in exactly the same area where the individual we are talking about served. At the end of that tour, my CO told me I was probably the most combat-experienced terminal controller in the Army at the time; so I have an intimate understanding of the issues at stake in the case.

I served in the exact same area as Marine A just 12 months before him, during a final tour of duty in southern Afghanistan. The area was renowned as one of the most contested in Helmand. In January 2010, the Americans had completed a huge operation in Marjeh to the south, which was complemented by a British effort called Operation Panther’s Claw to squeeze the heavily enemy-occupied areas around Nad-e Ali and the district centre in that area. All operations have unintended consequences, and the main one on this occasion was that the heavily armed and well organised Taliban commanders—what we would call tier 1 and tier 2 Taliban commanders—had been squeezed into an area just north of Nad-e Ali just south of the main Nahr-e Bughra canal; so they were fixed geographically in that area. The area is known on the map as 31 west; to the rest of us it became known as the jungle.

The area that I and subsequently Marine A served in was so demanding that, half way through that last tour, the holding ground unit that I was supporting was replaced by the theatre reserve battalion. My small fire support team, with one already dead, was asked to stay and be the continuity—the corporate knowledge, if you like—for that area of operations. The truth is that at that time, and no doubt a year later when Marine A was there—I shall call him that throughout my speech, because I do not believe that he should have been publicly named—the area was the darkest place in Helmand. That title switched areas as the campaign wore on. At times it belonged to Sangin, at others to Musa Qala. As I have said, I served in multiple areas on multiple tours, with different forces from strategic down to tactical level, and I have no doubt that it was the most demanding place I served in.

I found life a challenge when I came home from that tour. As ever, I made sure I could look my wife and daughter in the eye. No one died who did not need to die; but it was perhaps the most formative experience of my life. I suspect that for Marine A the experience was broadly similar. I would at this stage like to make an important point clear. I am no apologist for Marine A. I have been in his position, as have many others, but we have not broken the law and stepped over the abyss as he did. I also do not think it is for politicians to interfere with the judicial process, and I respect the opinion that has been given; but there are some serious problems with the case that I am deeply uncomfortable with, and I feel I have a duty to speak out about them.

One of my driving forces for coming into Parliament was how we look after our people within the military whom we ask and expect to keep us safe—although often we do not want to know how they do it. There is no doubt that the past 10 years have had a chronic effect on a generation of young men and women. There is also no doubt of the desensitising process that occurs when one is engaged with the enemy on a daily basis. It is how people cope and get by—morphing from human to animal and back again, as they learn to fight, live and survive like an animal in the backstreets of “the jungle”. Taking another man’s life is a serious and sobering engagement; extreme violence is to be expected, but as humans we adapt and cope, and as British soldiers we do what needs to be done to survive and win.

None of that trumps professionalism in the conduct of one’s duty. I give no traction to the views of those who say, “Marine A did what any one of us would have done,” or even, “He only did what they would do to him, given the opportunity.” I am afraid they entirely miss the point and do not help his case. However, we must never take the collective faults of a system or policy generated by the demands placed on our men, and hang them around the neck of one individual, as has happened in this case. During the maturing process of the Afghanistan campaign, there were some epic failures in the chain of command. “Courageous restraint” was a great concept, which most of us employed anyway before they gave it a fancy name; but that did not stop the commander of British forces in 2010 suggesting that summer that we start giving state awards for those who showed “courageous restraint”. I think the Americans are still laughing at us now.

A strange culture developed around the conflict at that time. Commanders wanted to “do” Afghanistan—to get it on their annual reports. As ever, most new officers in theatre would start trying to outdo their predecessors. We started to be asked to follow up direct action strikes from the air, which meant conducting a ground patrol to check for collateral damage on a target just after it was hit, which is insanity, considering where those targets are in enemy territory, and the IED risk—notwithstanding the fact that the effects of strikes are pretty obvious straightaway. The effect of that on our blokes was that every single step they took and every single round they fired was raked over time and again, under microscopic scrutiny with potential strategic effects. The pressure that that placed on men engaged in mortal combat was never correctly assessed or accounted for by the chain of command, or in the court case of Marine A. That pressure has never been higher in the history of armed conflict. There is a reason why Marine A is the first man to be convicted for the crime in question since the second world war. The effects of the strategic corporal, as it became known, have never been correctly assessed, and due care and attention have not been paid to the problem.

Into that arena stepped a deeply scarred man, of whom we had asked more and more as a nation, without respite. He had conducted multiple combat tours, yet those who thought they knew better down the other end of the radio did not heed his assessments of the specific threat to his patrol base in his area of operations. He had already lost his officer; he had seen body parts displayed and had been involved in the hunt for Highlander McLaren, which ended in such bad circumstances that to this day they rightly remain unreported.

My point is that someone should have seen what was coming. Marine A made a mistake and he got caught, and it would be naive to suggest that he should not be punished; but the mitigating circumstances in this case are great. He killed a mortally injured enemy combatant—of that there is no doubt; but does he deserve to be serving an eight-year prison sentence for murder? That is something I am deeply uncomfortable with. To my mind, the situation represents a serious and unfortunately characteristic failure in the chain of command to protect the man at all costs and assume a collective responsibility for a duty of care.

The trauma risk management procedure instigated to try to ameliorate the onslaught of disturbing experiences was a good idea but, again, tokenism prevailed. It was appallingly implemented and administered. I had a conversation only three weeks ago with someone at the top of the Ministry of Defence about how the TRiM procedure is being implemented, and all I can say is that it is delusional, the way assessment is done. We need to get that right. We have no one prepared to take responsibility for a care pathway for our servicemen and women once they leave, and I am determined to implement that.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My hon. Friend’s comments are very powerful. I think most Members of Parliament would be surprised at how many of their constituents are suffering from PTSD to this day.

[Johnny Mercer]

As to the PTSD system, there is a chronic effect on a generation that we have asked to do our bidding in conflicts miles away. There is often a time lag before the effects kick in, but there still seems to be an idea of putting it aside, and that is simply not good enough. We have to look after our blokes better.

If a civilian commits murder they are entitled to a psychiatric assessment as part of the trial process. Why on earth was that not done in Marine A’s case? That man broke the law. He knew it, and he got caught; but someone must have seen it coming, and there was the point of failure. In this country, we do not look after our blokes well enough, and he is yet another example. We are getting better; the first thing the Prime Minister and Chancellor think of when more LIBOR fines come through is veterans charities. We now have a unique opportunity to get veterans’ care right. The sector needs clearing up, but that is for another day.

We have a justice system that is one of the fairest and most stringent in the world, and I have little doubt that Marine A’s conviction will not stand by the end of this Parliament. He has killed a man when he should not have done, in the heat, intensity, fear and sweat of a modern counter-insurgency campaign; but convicted of murder and sentenced to eight years? I am not comfortable with that, and I suspect I am not in the minority. We must do right by this man. I support efforts to look again at his conviction, and am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak.