Awards for Valour (Protection) Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. There are two ways of trying to preserve the right—I would call it that—of family members to sport medals. One is to be very definitive and to list everybody who qualifies as a family member, as the Children Act 1989 attempts to do, and the other is to keep it open and allow the courts some discretion.

The difficulty with trying to define exactly who is a family member is that we will always miss people out. Is the boyfriend of a niece a family member? It probably depends on the circumstances. The list goes on. I have deliberately taken the view, therefore, that there should be a wide definition of “family member” in order to allow the courts to decide whether it applies. No doubt, that point will be debated in Committee. It is something I am open-minded about. I do not want to be over-prescriptive. I just want to preserve this great custom and ensure that loved ones and family members can still sport, often on the right breast, the medals earned by others in their family of whom they are rightly proud.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The only position for medals that have not been earned is on the right breast. Anyone wearing a medal on the left breast has earned that medal.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am well aware of that custom. The Bill is not intended to deal with people who have wardrobe malfunctions when looking in the mirror. What I want it to do is to catch only those who deliberately intend to deceive others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right: the Armed Forces Act repealed the provision, and the repeal came into effect in 2009. Therefore, we currently have no law of this nature, which is often seen throughout the world, to protect veterans.

Let me return to an earlier point and reiterate the point about family members being able to wear medals that have been won by loved ones. I say categorically that I would never introduce a Bill that would cut across that excellent custom. It would be unworthy and contrary to common decency.

You will know, Mr Speaker, that medals are not permitted to be worn in this Chamber. However, if I were to wear a medal, I would wear my great-grandfather’s medal. He served in the East Kent Regiment—the Buffs—and was killed at the Somme. As I say, I would wear that medal if it were permitted in this Chamber. I appreciate that it is not. I think that illustrates that my intention is to preserve the custom that family members are able to sport the medals of loved ones without fear from the Bill. The tradition of doing so should be not only protected but enshrined in the Bill.

However, those who deliberately attempt to deceive people will be caught by the Bill—I make no apology for that. People who commit this act do so for a variety of reasons. Some, sadly, as we have heard, do so because they are affected by serious mental health problems. As I mentioned, the Bill creates an offence of specific intent, so anyone with a serious mental health problem who is unable to form that intent cannot be convicted of this offence. The Crown Prosecution Service would have to satisfy, as I said, a public interest test before any prosecution could even begin against someone who carried out this action. It has been brought to my attention that there are occasions when people with mental health problems do commit this act, but I repeat that there will be those safeguards in the Bill.

Some people can be very manipulative and can use medals for their own advantage, seeking the respect that comes from them to advance their own cause. I am thinking of a councillor in Thanet who wore medals that he had not earned in order to help his election campaign. I am sure that we will hear more about that later from my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay). I am thinking of Roger Day, who marched past hundreds of veterans and their families wearing numerous medals that he had not won. Yet no prosecution could be brought against him and many other people because, quite simply, as things stand, behaving like that is not against the law.

Estimating exactly how widespread the problem is can be very difficult. There are no arrests and so no records. The Naval Families Federation recently surveyed over 1,000 of its members and found that around a third of them had experienced these Walter Mitty-type characters. The Walter Mitty Hunters Club—I have no connection or association with the organisation—claims to receive something in the order of 20 to 30 complaints a week. I understand that it is investigating 70 cases that have been brought to its attention.

I am president of my local Royal British Legion group in Greenhithe in Kent, and there have been two instances there of people pretending to be decorated veterans when they had not even served in Her Majesty’s armed forces. This cannot go on. If we leave things unchecked, we will get to a situation where trust in the whole medal system and trust in valour evaporates. I have been contacted on numerous occasions by veterans who have recounted to me their experiences of witnessing impostors at remembrance services. They feel deeply hurt, offended and insulted by the actions of these individuals. The problem is genuine and, anecdotally, it seems to be increasing.

We therefore need the deterrent factor that the Bill would provide, and I think it right for the offence to carry a term of imprisonment as well as a fine. I have suggested a three-month period; that would mirror the legislation referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), which is no longer in force. Of course, any sentence would be up to the courts, but making the offence imprisonable would allow them to impose community-based penalties that would not be available if the offence were subject only to a fine. It is right, proportionate and appropriate for a term of imprisonment to be available to the courts at their discretion, for the worst cases, should that prove necessary. I should make it clear, however, that although the Bill provides for a three-month sentence, it would not be possible to impose a sentence of imprisonment in a youth court: a custodial sentence would not be available there, and I am content with that. It would be quite rare for people aged 17 and under to fall foul of the law, but I also think it right not to provide for their imprisonment, purely because of their age.

Unusually, I am endeavouring to introduce a law that has applied in the past, but does not apply today. Stolen valour has a history in this country. After the first world war, Winston Churchill introduced the offence as Secretary of War. He said at the time:

“We want to make certain that when we see a man wearing…a medal, that we see a man whom everybody in the country is proud of.”—[Official Report, 2 April 1919; Vol. 114, c. 1277.]

He was absolutely right. The same principle applies today, and it applies equally to the women who serve our country. The Armed Forces Act 2006 repealed the offence because it was a bit too messy and uncertain, but unfortunately it was not replaced at the time. That decision has been criticised by the Defence Committee. While it is possible to prosecute for fraud when monetary gain applies, or under the Uniforms Act 1894 if a full regimental uniform is worn, the law does not cover people who steal valour in the way that I have described, and public confidence can therefore be shaken.

[Bob Stewart]

I have met many people wearing SAS berets. An astonishing number of people walking around the streets appear to have been in the Special Air Service, but I reckon that one in 20 of them actually has.

[Gareth Johnson]

That is an important point, made by a distinguished and experienced veteran. I am told that pretending to have been a member of the Special Air Service is the most common example of people stealing valour from others in order to curry favour and win respect for themselves, and it is often done in a way that is deeply insulting. Veterans frequently have a good nose for people who are stealing valour from others, as I have observed in my local Royal British Legion club, where they sometimes notice that something is not right. That ability is often deployed to identify Walter Mitty characters of this kind, and if my Bill is passed, it could be used to prosecute them.

The stealing of valour has been recognised as a problem around the world. For instance, the Americans recently adopted their own Stolen Valor Act to protect recipients of the Purple Heart, because a huge problem had developed as a result of people pretending that they had received it when they had not. In fact, very few countries do not have an equivalent of my Bill, and I am not aware that any that have such legislation have felt it necessary to repeal it. I think we can deduce that the law has worked well in other countries, so why should it not work here? Why can we not have our version of stolen valour legislation, which has worked well in America and elsewhere, and which I think we can be confident would work well in the United Kingdom?

We have a proud military history. Each of the regions that make up the United Kingdom has contributed significantly to our armed forces, and has excelled in wars over the years. It therefore seems wrong to me that we do not afford veterans the protection that they are given in so many other countries. Many people braver than I have put their neck on the line for this country. We owe the freedoms that we enjoy in this Chamber to those who have fallen and those who risked their life for us. Indeed, we are overlooked, at either end of the Chamber, by the shields of colleagues who gave their life for us in one of the world wars. We cannot allow that valour to be stolen. We cannot allow the public to lose trust in our veterans, and we cannot allow their memories to be undermined. I therefore ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Mackinlay]

Absolutely; my hon. Friend gives a good account of his knowledge of the law in such cases.

What greater community payback could there be for people convicted under my hon. Friend’s proposed legislation than to do service to war widows, perhaps, or war graves, or the great memorials around our country by repairing and cleansing them? I want to mention the case of Kevan or Konnor Collins in my constituency. He was elected as a UK Independence party councillor last year. He made a remarkable array of claims: that he had served in the Paras, and had been awarded an MBE, the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, the Military Cross, and the Distinguished Service Cross. If that had been true, he would have been the most decorated veteran in the entire country. He was outed online.

[Bob Stewart]

He would also have had to have served in practically all three services to have got those medals.

[Craig Mackinlay]

My hon. Friend highlights the ridiculousness of the situation. Mr Collins was outed by campaigners, and later resigned as a Thanet councillor. He was further found to be a bigamist. He was a Walter Mitty character of enormous proportions. I would not usually mention such cases and rely on the privilege of this House, but Sky News has covered this, as have The Sun and the Isle of Thanet Gazette, and he has even belatedly offered an apology for his lies and deceit.

How can we solve this? The United States has created, under its 2013 Act, an online database. That might be a sensible route for us to take, but love it or loathe it, the great internet already affords us a great deal of information about people who claim to be what they are not.

There is an international dimension to this. This country would not be doing something unusual through this Bill; we would be aligning ourselves with what happens among the rest of our friends in the EU, and also in Australia and the United States. For the deterrent effect, such an offence, which was taken away in 2006, is long overdue. I very much support the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, and I hope that his Bill makes progress today.