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Iraq: Fatal Shootings of Sergeant Steven Roberts and Zaher Zaher

My Lords, I declare an interest as having represented paratroopers in a case last October and being currently engaged in another court martial. I also express on behalf of these Benches our relief that the ordeal that the soldiers have undergone over a very lengthy period has now come to an end. However, uppermost in our minds is sympathy for Mrs Samantha Roberts and the family of the deceased sergeant for their loss. The Statement revealed some shocking failures on the part of the SIB to carry out absolutely basic things. For example, by August, months after the event, the soldiers had not been interviewed under caution; witness statements had not been taken; there was no ballistics investigation to find out which soldiers had fired the shots; and there had been no post-mortem on the body of Mr Zaher. Unfortunately, this reflects evidence which has been given in the cases to which I have referred. Your Lordships will recall that Mrs Roberts released tapes following the death of her husband which indicated that her husband complained of shortages of equipment. He described the shortages as ““disgraceful”” and said that the supplies to soldiers were a joke. There were many accounts at that time from soldiers serving in the field in Iraq of their having to buy equipment themselves. The Ministry of Defence’s report into this matter found that Sergeant Roberts would have survived if he had had the tough ceramic plates which he should have had in his flak jacket. It is surprising to discover that that flak jacket has been destroyed. The reason given by the Ministry of Defence is the potentially hazardous nature of bloodstains. In every murder case, there is always some clothing which is bloodstained and it is handled normally. It is not necessary to destroy important evidence, but the flak jacket of Sergeant Roberts which should have contained those ceramic plates was destroyed. Sergeant Roberts had been ordered to hand over the ceramic plates to another soldier because his regiment did not have enough of them; they had not been supplied with them. The Ministry of Defence has admitted liability for negligence in a case brought by the family. If an employee of a company were ordered to hand over protective equipment to another person and the employee were then killed or seriously injured, undoubtedly that company would be prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive. No political responsibility for these equipment failures in Iraq has been accepted. Mrs Roberts called on Mr Hoon—who apologised personally to her—to resign, but of course he did not do so. The CPS guidelines on involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence require the CPS, when considering an offence of that nature, to apply four tests. Did the defendant—in that instance, it is the controlling mind of the organisation—owe a duty of care towards the victim who has died? Did the Ministry of Defence owe a duty of care towards Sergeant Roberts? The answer must unequivocally be ““yes””. If so, has the defendant breached that duty of care? It has admitted liability. Has such breach caused the victim’s death? The guidelines state that the law of negligence must be applied to ascertain whether there has been a breach of that duty. It is admitted. The final test is: if so, was that breach of duty so bad as to amount when viewed objectively to gross negligence warranting a criminal conviction? Now that the soldiers have been properly relieved of responsibility for this, what about the Ministry of Defence and its equipment failures? Has any consideration been given to applying the guidelines of the CPS to those failures? If political responsibility cannot be taken by Mr Hoon by his resigning—and that is a feature of this Government—what about the criminal responsibility of those who sent our troops into a dangerous field of war with inadequate equipment?