Starmer v British Army

Starmer v British army

Contributed to a book by the now disgraced solicitor who said the ECHR should be used against British soldiers.

LAURA PERRINS

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s previous life/career as a leading human rights barrister was back in the spotlight last week. It emerged that he acted pro bono as ‘intervener’ in a human rights case brought by others, against British soldiers.

The Telegraph and the Times had separate reports. Now pay attention.

The claim, known as Al-Skeini and others v Secretary of State for Defence, was brought in 2007 on behalf of the families of six Iraqis who alleged their relatives had been unlawfully killed by British troops after the 2003 invasion of the country. Starmer did not act for any of the families.

Starmer did act – for free – for intervening groups to assist the court “on points of law, not to advocate for either side” according to the PM’s spokesman.

The Times “Starmer acted pro bono on the case on behalf of a number of human rights campaigners, including Amnesty International, Liberty, British Irish Rights Watch, and The Kurdish Human Rights Project, which had intervened in the case.

The intervention sought to establish that the European Convention on Human Rights applied to British forces operating in Iraq.”

Phil Shiner was the solicitor who brought the case on behalf of the families. His firm was later struck off and convicted of fraud. He made false claims and paid intermediaries to procure evidence in Iraq. Overall, “the case triggered years of criminal investigations into soldiers who had been wrongly accused, at great cost to the taxpayer.”

“As part of the 2007 case, Starmer and Hermer (the current Attorney – General here and here and here and here) urged the courts to order an inquiry into a British soldier who had already been cleared twice of murder over the death of an Iraqi man in 2003, telling judges that earlier investigations had been “perfunctory” and “wholly inadequate.”

“Sgt Richie Catterall was wrongly pursued for 13 years before an independent judge ruled that he had acted in self-defence. The prolonged investigations left Catterall suicidal and suffering from serious mental illness.”

Sgt Richie Catterall told the Times: “I am gutted Keir Starmer helped bring this case against me.” Catterall said. “He is now the prime minister, and he owes me an apology. You are only supposed to be investigated once. I was investigated three times. I wasn’t well when I got back from Iraq but they kept coming for me. Keir Starmer must share some of that responsibility.”

The Telegraph has more. Starmer contributed to a book by the now disgraced Shiner who said the ECHR should be used against British soldiers. That’s kind of interesting as Starmer is frequently now seen in military fatigues.

The Telegraph: “Sir Keir Starmer called for European human rights laws to be used to investigate British troops in Iraq in a book edited by Phil Shiner, the disgraced lawyer.

In the book, the Prime Minister accused Gordon Brown’s government of a “deliberate effort” to alter international law. He claimed it had given British troops an effective immunity when operating in Iraq.

Sir Keir’s chapter was published in a 2008 book, entitled The Iraq War and International Law, put together by Shiner, who was subsequently convicted of fraud and struck off as a solicitor over false claims of abuse made against British soldiers.”

To clarify again. “Shiner’s legal claim, ultimately successful at the European Court of Human Rights in 2012, forced the government to expand criminal investigations into troops through a new body called the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat).

By then, Sir Keir had stopped working on the case, having been appointed Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008.”

A few things on this. I am sure that chapter in the book is just a rip-roaring read. This highlights yet again that when it comes to human rights lawyers, the idea that the cab rank rule is sacrosanct is a load of nonsense.

Those lawyers take the cases they want to take, it often involves suing the British state and it frequently leads to what they love to call ‘systemic change.’ As was the case in this case, Starmer wanted to ‘intervene’ so much, he did it for free.

Now you may say, that’s all water in the bridge Laura. So what? Back in the day Starmer with his partner in non-crime Lord Hermer liked to sue the British state. Now they are the British state, I am sure they have the interests of British soldiers and veterans and indeed taxpayers at heart. If that’s what you think – well you do you.

However, what gets me, is how these lawyers love running around all over the place and demanding inquiries into this and that, but when it came to an inquiry into the Muslim rape gangs of white working class girls, well suddenly there wasn’t a human rights lawyer to be found. Now that Starmer was Prime Minister, he wasn’t so interested in public inquiries. A human rights lawyer who was no longer advocating for a pubic inquiry! It’s a miracle!

Why – lo, who wants to investigate the very real ‘systemic’ or cultural problems of a subset of Muslim Pakistani men? Not the usual suspects, that’s for sure.

That grooming gang inquiry, which Starmer was browbeaten into ordering, hasn’t started. Interesting. Blow me down with a feather – we have on our hands a public inquiry that the lawyers don’t seem that interested in working on. I could be wrong but that’s the ‘vibe’ I get. I’m sure there is a foreign rapist somewhere that needs representation.

It was only in December that they got a chair. Baroness Anne Longfield will lead the inquiry, which was derailed when four women resigned from its survivors panel and two leading candidates to chair the investigation pulled out.

So let’s see how that one goes.

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This article (Starmer v British army) was created and published by Laura Perrins and is republished here under “Fair Use”