HC Deb 02 August 1957 vol 574 cc1699-719

12.58 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)

should start by making the Minister's apology for his absence today. We are always pleased to see the Parliamentary Secretary here, but he will appreciate that, in this case, the Minister and I, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Holmes), who cannot be here this morning, have had many consultations about this case over many months. He will not doubt that had the Minister been here I should have been pretty blunt about this to his head, and therefore, if the bluntness loses anything in the transmission, I hope that he will do his best about it.

I am sure that the Minister would have liked to have been present. In his note to me he says, I am very sorry about this, as I wanted to deal with the matter, particularly because we have been in such close personal contact about this case. This case has gone on a long time. It illustrates the processes which take place when a single act of injustice, as I consider this to have been, is meted out to one in one of the lowest ranks in the Army—the procedures which go on until the matter is brought, if it must be, to Parliament.

I am referring to an alleged mutiny which took place on 5th October last year, as a result of which four men, Lance Corporal William George Lonergan, Driver Newall Turner, Driver Ronald Gibbon, the man of whom I am speaking today, and Lance Corporal Vincent Mulley were all sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The incident took place against the background of Suez. It was one of the minor tragedies of that abortive operation, a consequence of the frustration and cynicism and general "fed-uppishness" of the troops held in reserve at that time, a mood which cannot be dismissed from any consideration of the matter, because it was the atmosphere of the time and scene I am going to describe.

Leading counsel, a Queen's Counsel, defending these men, pleaded in mitigation that they were at first extremely keen. I shall read a statement from Driver Gibbon which makes this perfectly clear. It was reported in the Yorkshire Post of 24th November that Counsel said that they had expected to go to the Middle East, and they were keen, but, instead, their vehicles were shipped away, leaving only one lorry for every thirty drivers. They had time on their hands, and that caused a great deal of discontent. One or two of the men had to leave their wives at moments of crisis in their family lives and were suffering financial hardship.

The young man I am speaking of, who is only 21 years of age, left his wife in an advanced state of pregnancy, and he actually lost his house as a result of being called up. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will take into account this background. Things would have been different, I suggest, if these had been happy men, if they had been men convinced of the end they were being used for. What happened flowed from their mood of frustration.

The Yorkshire Post on Saturday the 24th November, stated: Gibbon, whose wife was expecting a baby shortly, had been called up a few days after he and his wife moved into a house they were intending to buy". They had to give that up. The paper stated: His whole object in staying on in that crowd was to get news of possible leave. These are homely incidents, but they are facts in the lives of these people whom the War Office calls up and moves about from one place to another, and we must not lose sight of them in considering the scene.

Here I will state my interest in the case. Although it is a fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth said, that Driver Gibbon is a constituent of his, the parents on whom the care of the wife fell are constituents of mine. That is my interest in the matter. When my attention was drawn to the case, I wrote immediately to the man, who got in touch with me, I said: I hope to see the Secretary of State for War next week and to talk about the whole of the circumstances of this case. He is a humane man, with great experience in these matters, and I feel sure that no irrevocable step will be taken until after I have seen him. I am afraid that that letter was very optimistic. However humane the Secretary of State for War may be, nobody can suggest that he has shown any inclination throughout this business to break red tape at any stage at all. He even declared up to 11th March that there was no useful purpose in seeing me or my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth because the case was sub judice. It seems there were more procedures to be gone through.

I must make one point clear to put the thing in perspective for the record. Lance Corporal Lonergan got two years' imprisonment; Driver Turner 18 months' imprisonment; Driver Gibbon got 18 months' imprisonment; and Lance Corporal Mulley was sentenced to six months' detention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth and I talked to the Secretary of State for War for about three quarters of an hour. In effect, the Secretary of State promised us that he would hear our representations before he took the final decision. The Under-Secretary of State must understand that I am not a military man, but I understand that there was a moment in these proceedings of which I am talking at which it was for the Secretary of State to act after the legal proceedings had been gone through. I have that in mind when I speak of the Secretary of State's irrevocable step. He made that promise to us on or about 11th March and the end of the legal proceedings. He promised to see us and hear our representations.

I am going to read to the House from a document forwarded to me by Driver Gibbon. This document was the subject of our discussion with the Secretary of State. We understood that he would not take the final step until afterwards, either to confirm or abrogate the sentence, as the case might be. The responsibility rests squarely upon the Secretary of State. These convictions were quashed in very derogatory terms by the Lord Chief Justice, and the Secretary of State, having himself examined all the sentences at the time, must himself share in the castigation by the Lord Chief Justice of the whole proceedings. A share of the castigation falls on him as on anybody else. When a Minister is under pressure from two Members of Parliament for as long as the Secretary of State was under pressure from my hon. Friend and me on this matter he cannot escape the consequences of his act.

We come to Gibbon's statement, dated 9th December, 1956. It says: At approximately 21.00 hours, I visited the N.A.A.F.I. canteen along with a few of my closer friends. (None are in any way connected with the case.)Our intention was for a quiet drink together, a chat, and the usual sing-song. At 22.00 hours, which is normal closing time, we finished our drinks, and left the wet bar, with the intention of going back to our billets and bed. Leaving the N.A.A.F.I. I noticed a group of 50 or so soldiers, immediately outside the N.A.A.F.I., and engaged in a sing-song. As I approached the crowd, they started moving. They were chanting for the C.S.M., and moved in the general direction of the W.O.'s and Sergeants' Mess. Be it noted that he joined a throng. It was there already. He was not the instigator of it or the ringleader of it, although it was stated he was during the proceedings. The statement goes on: Thinking they wanted to state a few grievances and beefs, I followed them round. I was myself, at the time, going to put forward for leave, through the Welfare Office, as I had lost the house I was buying through being called back in the recent emergency, and my wife was expecting a child, her first, the following month. Actually she gave birth to a baby boy "a fortnight ago" from the date of this statement, which is 9th December, 1956. The statement continues: On arriving at the Sergeants' Mess we were met by a sergeant and the officer who later identified me as being present. That has not ever been denied. The statement goes on: I won't deny hearing the officer order us back to our beds, he did, but only once, and the order was directed at the crowd and no one person in particular. The men did not move but approached the officer and stated their different grievances. I myself talked with him about leave and my wife's welfare, but at no time was I abusive, or as he later said in court, in complete contrast to his authority. I may have shouted and given him the idea I was abusive, but I had a complaint and there was the noise of 50 to 60 soldiers. If a man has had a few drinks in the N.A.A.F.I. his conduct would not have been very much different from that of the Under-Secretary of State if he had been in similar circumstances. The statement goes on: I also deny ever shouting out, 'Don't worry about the MPs chaps, we have the ammunition.' That was definitely a lie and the officer was very badly mistaken to my identify. At no time during the evening did I see or hear of Military Policemen being near, and I had no idea whatsoever as to where the ammunition was, nor was their violence of any kind through the complete evening of the 5th October. Then the OC of our Company arrived. Here is the important point, because this is said to have been a kind of mutiny. I spoke to him at the time and he listened to my case. I was not abusive to him, and my platoon officer, who was with him at the time, told the Court I was civil,"— This is an incident of mutiny. called him 'Sir' and throughout the time I spoke to him I showed every respect to my Commanding Officer. He told me we were to have leave within the next seven days, which put me very much in a brighter light, as I could look after my own and my wife's worries. Earlier, before our O.C. arrived, we were told by the officer who later identified me as being present, that we were to get leave. I did ask him to prove this to me, as I could write to my wife, tell her I would be home, and therefore look after everything myself, but I did not ask for it in writing as he later said, and in a demanding manner. Our O.C. ordered us back to our billets and we did go. I was identified as being present by two officers, one who prosecuted me and my platoon officer who said I was present but never, while in his or the O.C.'s presence, abusive or in any way disrespectful to my superior officers. We pleaded guilty of being present at the disturbance but not guilty of mutiny. As a matter of fact these men afterwards, because they probably took a realistic view of being soldiers, expected to get 28 to 56 days' detention for creating a disturbance.

The Minister will know that such disturbances took place all over the British Army at that time. Some officers were sufficiently sensible to understand their men. The Minister will probably remember the occasion, which was widely reported on television and in the newspapers, when from one draft one-third of the men had not returned. That was an indication that this degree of unrest was endemic in the British Army at that time.

I will not read all the matter, but I would refer to something which happened afterwards, because generally I shall advance the case that this thing ought to have been condoned and that these men had reasonable ground for believing that it would be condoned. Gibbon's letter goes on: On the day after the disturbance I was put in close arrest with two more reservists also identified as being present. We were in arrest five days, let out on to open arrest, and allowed to go on leave. We did do and returned dutifully on time. On returning, I did normal duties and thought the whole thing had been forgotten, A month later we were put on a charge of Mutiny, although I had previously been charged with creating a disturbance. That seems to me to outrage natural justice. The two reservists who were in close arrest with me were not re-arrested, and have now been demobbed with the rest of the Company, although the first charge still stands. The other three men, Lonergan, Mulley and Turner, were as wise as me as to why we were being charged again. He probably gets nearer the truth, this ordinary soldier, when he sums it all up by saying: Our belief is some bodies had to be found to take the consequences, and we are the scapegoats, a usual army procedure. I have known victimisation as a shop steward in industrial life, and I can well imagine it.

On the question of the men's attitude, this statement was written probably under stress, but at any rate, it rings true to me. Gibbon indicates some of his moods. He said: We were proud to wear our Queen's uniform again. We were picked men, who were proud to be the ones to help our country in the crisis. Even though it meant leaving behind our wives and families, it was inevitable I would lose my house and the start I had made. I would have a family when I got back, another job to find, and another house to put together, but I was needed or so we thought. He had three years' previous service in the Army, two in Egypt, but all that sort of thing was brushed aside in the sheer soullessness of the War Office.

I shall take the Minister up on two points—one, the injustice meted out to Driver Gibbon, and the other the procrastination of procedures, which was criticised by the Lord Chief Justice, that occurred on this occasion and should not occur again. The date of the offence was 5th October. The trial was on 23rd November. On 14th December I wrote to the Minister, who put off an interview because he wanted the machine to roll on until he was in a position to act. On 11th January, before I saw the Minister, sentence was reduced from 18 months' imprisonment to 12 months' detention. The other sentences were similarly reduced.

On 8th February, Gibbon started serving his sentence in this country. The 11th March was the end of the sub judice period, following which I saw the Minister. On 9th April all the appeals had been rejected, but on 22nd June the Lord Chief Justice quashed the sentence on Lonergan, who had the longest sentence. The court had thought that he was the most guilty. On 10th July Gibbon was released. I make no point of his being released that day—his good conduct probably tallied up—except to say that assuming that he had made a successful appeal against the original sentence he would have served the full sentence before the Lord Chief Justice quashed it. The Lord Chief Justice made much of that when he was dealing with the matter.

Let us consider the question of this appeal. I must deal with this matter, because it is a matter which I personally warned the Minister I would raise and on which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will make a withdrawal. In answer to a supplementary question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey), the Secretary of State for War said on 17th July: These four men were advised by the same counsel. As I understand it, the two who appealed were advised by counsel to do so and the other two were not advised by counsel to do so.'—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th July, 1957: Vol. 574, c. 1120.] That statement is not true. I do not know by what gross impertinence the War Office seeks to put up its spokesman to say to the House what a defending counsel is presumed to have advised his clients. The War Office could not have been privy to that knowledge.

I have a letter from counsel making it clear that he advised Gibbon to appeal. The Minister can see it. Counsel refers to correspondence, and he says: The upshot of the correspondence between us was that Gibbon and Turner decided not to go on, although advised to do so, because they said they did not want to take any chances. They had been frightened enough already by military procedure. Nor did they change their minds, although I further pointed out to them that their sentence could not be increased and that there was no likelihood of their being made to start their sentences again from the date of any dismissal of the application for leave to appeal and that this had never been done in the history of the Courts Martial Appeal Court My instruction to appeal on behalf of Gibbon and Turner was, therefore, withdrawn by them.… He adds: In the circumstances, I thought that Gibbon had nothing to lose and everything to gain by appealing.… That is what counsel says and surely the Minister must withdraw his statement. I hope that the people who brief the Minister will not chance their arm again on matters of this sort. I will come to that point later.

I come now to the question of the Lord Chief Justice and the appeal, and I will quote from the Daily Herald, which I hope the Minister will not consider suspect. One of the strange things about this appeal, which has made legal history, is that there was no transcript of it. I inquired in the Library, I inquired of the Minister, who agrees with me on that point. One would have thought that there would have been a transcript of an appeal which made case law. I have had to rely principally on the Manchester Guardian, which the Minister agrees has the most complete statement of the case, together with the observations of counsel. The Daily Herald featured the story on the front page. I am sorry if I am taking up a lot of time, but the case must be dealt with fully in view of its wider implications.

It should be remembered that when the Lord Chief Justice was commenting on the case, he was commenting not only on the case in which these men were exonerated but on the case in the same court which tried Driver Gibbon. The Lord Chief Justice said: In a great number of cases a man will have served his sentence before his case can possibly hope to reach this court. That is what so often happens. I pointed out that it would when the 1951 Courts Martial Appeals Bill was passing through the House of Lords. He went on to say: Generally speaking these courts martial are extremely well held, but I think somebody has slipped up altogether here. All they could do for these men, including Lonergan, who had served his sentence, was to give them back pay, which I should have thought was only a tardy recognition. Surely these soldiers should be entitled to some compensation in a slip-up of that magnitude?

One or two other things came out in the report in the Manchester Guardian. Lord Goddard said Lonergan's conviction would be quashed "out of hand." In fact, the Lord Chief Justice was completely contemptuous. It should not be forgotten that the proceedings had been examined by the Minister himself as a result of the intervention of my hon. Friend and myself. On what kind of advice does he rely? Even the prosecuting counsel said there were things about the case which he could not defend. So what I am concerned about here is not only the case of Driver Gibbon but that there should be more humane and speedy proceedings to prevent a repetition.

Now I come to the last point about Driver Gibbon. He has served his sentence and the Minister has relied on the belief that there were elements in the case of Lonergan and Mulley which were not present in his case. With that I agree. There is, however, a background to Gibbon's case which has not yet come out. It is probable that he had had a drink or two too many at that time. Therefore he could not be cross-examined as exactly or in the same way as the other men, and his position may have been that much weaker.

However, nobody has suggested that substantially his statement was not a true one and if he had appealed, what would he have appealed on? The Minister himself admitted that this man had been advised to appeal. He will not doubt that a Q.C. writing to a Member of Parliament in reply to his questions would have done otherwise than state the truth or that this Q.C. must have more knowledge of what took place than the Department could have. We should be able to rely on the Civil Service to reply to Questions on a better basis than sheer speculation. I say that the offence of mutiny should have been condoned, and that if an appeal had been made it would have been made on that point.

I understand that condonation means the implied forgiveness of a military offence by a commanding officer arising out of the employment of a soldier on responsible duties with full knowledge that the offence has been committed. This was put forward at the actual court martial as a plea in bar of trial, but failed with regard to Gibbon, principally because his release from arrest and return to duties was made expressly without prejudice to re-arrest.

I could have understood a commanding officer sending him home on leave and saying that it was without prejudice, but to trump up a charge of mutiny after all this had happened, bearing in mind the background of what was happening up and down the country; about which every Member of Parliament had received letters, was to make this man a victim if ever there was one.

Of course this objection about Gibbons did not apply to the other accused. Then what is the summing up of this case? It is one of those minor tragedies set against the background of Suez. It is a story of frustrated Reservists and nervy officialdom. It is a tale of cynicism and disbelief that the ends which these men served were good ones. It is another thing, too. It is a demonstration of army techniques of victimisation which some of us have met in industrial life. It shows a degree of procrastinating procedures, and it shows a lack of compassion with the difficulties of these men.

Altogether it was a great injustice, and it shows the incapacity of the War Office mind to rise above Queen's Regulations. Finally, I must say that it shows the spinelessness of the Minister.

1.27 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey (Dundee, West)

I want to add a few words in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), both on the narrower issue of the conduct of the Minister and the wider issue of the merits of the case.

The question of the conduct of the Minister must be raised because, I am sure unintentionally—as everybody who knows him will be sure—the right hon. Gentleman misled the House. In answer to my supplementary question, he made what seemed to be the extremely effective point that this man's case was entirely different from the other two because his own counsel had recommended him not to appeal. The Minister's words were: As I understand it, the two who appealed were advised by counsel to do so and the other two were not advised by counsel to do so."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th July, 1957; Vol. 573, c. 1120.] I believe the whole House thought that an effective retort to us, and it would indeed have been so had it been true. We have now discovered from counsel himself, as the House has just heard, that the circumstances were the direct opposite of that. Counsel had advised Gibbon to appeal just as strongly as he had advised the other two. It is unfortunate when the House is given by a Minister, however unintentionally, a completely false piece of information like that, and it makes our debates very difficult. So I ask the Under-Secretary of State to clear up this matter fully and to agree that the Minister was unintentionally misinforming the House, because the only explanation can be that he was badly misinformed.

This is important, because counsel said that Gibbon decided not to appeal although advised to do so. He amplified that by saying: …I thought that Gibbon had nothing to lose and everything to gain by appealing… He was thus making it perfectly clear that he advised Gibbon to appeal just as much as the other two. So much for the narrower issue.

I now want to say a few words on the broader issue of the case as a whole. What do we know about it? We know that the court-martial, unusually—it is fully agreed that it is an unusual thing to happen—made in the case of two of the accused a complete mess of the proceedings. We have the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of England on that, which is surely conclusive.

It is no good saying that this was just a legal issue. No one can read the proceedings in the Court of Appeal without seeing clearly that the case was dismissed because the prosecution had failed to prove, in the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, the guilt of the two men. That is not just a legal quibble. It is the essence of the matter that the prosecution had failed to prove that the men were guilty of the offence as charged. That we know in the case of the two men who appealed, Lonergan and Mulley.

Now we come to the question of the actual events, the disorder or mutiny which took place. My hon. Friend has carefully described what took place. All I want to say about that is that, while these men were no doubt acting wrongly and were being disorderly—I think it is a point that ought to appeal to the Under-Secretary—they were being disorderly not because they had sympathy with the point of view expressed on these Labour benches about Suez, but because they seem to have shared very much more the point of view of the Under-Secretary. They wanted to go to Suez. It was because they were being held up in this country and being frustrated, because they felt that they were being messed about, that these disorders arose.

Mr. C. Pannell

This occurred in Germany.

Mr. Strachey

It happened in Germany. These men wanted to go to Suez, and that was how the matter——

Mr. Pannell

All their gear was sent on in advance and they were left only with the resources of the canteen.

Mr. Strachey

Yes, that is so. I think this is germane to the issue. This was not some dangerous attempt to subvert the Army, to refuse to fight, and the rest of it. It was nothing of that sort. It was a matter of fed-up soldiers who felt that they were being messed about. To blow that up into an issue of grave mutiny seems to me, apart altogether from the legal issues, to have been an extraordinary thing to do.

No one, of course, can condone mutiny or disorder. No doubt some punishment had to be given to the soldiers. As my hon. Friend has frankly said, they expected it, but it was surely wrong to have this degree of punishment for an offence which, when it went to the highest available court, simply could not be sustained, and when it proved impossible to identify and pick out anything in the nature of ringleaders—which was really the issue and pick out anything in the nature of—so that the appeals succeeded.

Though mutiny cannot be condoned, there is the issue which my hon. Friend has raised, that in the case of Driver Gibbon there appears to have been something very near condonation of it in his own unit. Those in his unit do not appear to have regarded it as a dangerous and desperate mutiny with which they had to deal, because they promptly gave him leave, and when he returned from leave, he continued to serve and carried on with his duties for some time. Admittedly, he was told that this was without prejudice to re-arrest, but it seems to me to come very near to the fact of condonation.

This is the incident, and that is all we can know about it. We cannot re-try it. I freely and absolutely admit that if Driver Gibbon had appealed, it is possible that his appeal would have failed where the other two appeals succeeded. We cannot prove that that is not the case. The Lord Chief Justice might have found something different in his case compared with the two other cases. That is possible—it was never decided because Driver Gibbon did not appeal—but surely it is extremely unlikely. There is a strong presumption that his appeal would also have succeeded. I do not say for a moment that it is more than a strong presumption, but it is surely highly likely that the court-martial, which we now know made a thorough mess of the attempt to convict the two other men, also made a mess in the case of Gibbon and that it would not have secured this conviction. It is no more than a presumption, but surely it is a reasonable one.

Therefore, it seems to me that my hon. Friend is doing a service—not only to Driver Gibbon but also to the Army—in raising this matter. Surely the interest of the Army is to put the matter right insofar as it can be put right. The ordinary man looking at this case and seeing these men apparently all charged with very much the same offence arising out of the same incident and two of them being found not guilty on the reconsideration of their case by the highest court available, would say that it is 10 to 1 that Driver Gibbon would have been treated in the same way.

This having happened, surely it would be enormously in the interest of the Army to say, "We made a mess of the two other cases. The issue was never tried and finally decided in the case of Gibbon, but we will follow the precedent of the two other cases and do at any rate"—though it is very inadequate restitution if Driver Gibbon is, in fact, innocent—"what was done in the case of Lonergan and Mulley, who received their back pay and had the entries removed from their records."

From all I know of the case, that is the sort of thing which will mean a great deal to a man like Driver Gibbon, because he is, from all I hear of him, from letters which my hon. Friend has shown me, obviously a steady and responsible young man. It is a very grave thing to have this charge on his records. Therefore, I should have thought that it would have been enormously beneficial to the reputation of the Army and to the whole interest of military justice and the like if the War Office would follow in Gibbon's case the precedent set in the case of the two other men. The War Office is, of course, under no legal obligation to follow that precedent, but I think it would enormously increase its reputation for justice and generosity if it did so.

1.38 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Julian Amery)

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has taken a particular interest in this case and would have wished to reply to this debate today. It is only that he has been called away to a very important meeting which makes that impossible.

I think we are in fairly complete agreement about the facts of the case, though perhaps I had better briefly run over them to make sure that the basis on which I shall argue is the same as that on which the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell)has spoken.

On 5th October, at about 10 p.m., some sixty reservists of 54 Company, R.A.S.C., at Minden marched in a body from the N.A.A.F.I. to the sergeants' mess. There they demonstrated and shouted "We want the C.S.M.", and various other things of that kind. They were presently ordered away, first by a non-commissioned officer, and later by three different officers. These orders were defied, and, according to the court-martial proceedings, defied with some vigour. Being unable to disperse the demonstration, one of the officers telephoned to a superior headquarters where he learnt that authority had come through for reservists to take seven days' leave in the United Kingdom. This news was conveyed to the gathering, and, after that, the men dispersed, though not at once.

On 22nd and 23rd November, there was a general court-martial at Herford. Five soldiers were indicted, Lance-Corporal Mulley, Lance-Corporal Lonergan, Driver Gibbon, Driver Turner and Driver Walker. They were charged with mutiny, which was the graver charge, and with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. Walker was found not guilty on both counts, so we may leave him from this point. Lonergan, Gibbon and Turner were found guilty of the charge of mutiny, and Mulley was found guilty of the lesser offence. The sentences were as follows: two years' imprisonment for Lonergan, reduced by the confirming officer to one year; 18 months' imprisonment for Gibbon, reduced by the confirming officer by six months; eighteen months' imprisonment for Turner, reduced by six months; and six months' detention for Mulley reduced to 84 days.

The finding and sentences were promulgated on 10th January, 1957. An appeal petition was then presented, under the procedure of the Courts Martial (Appeals)Act, 1951. The Army Council decided on 9th April not to grant the petition but to reduce the sentences from imprisonment to detention. On 21st June, Lonergan and Mulley appealed to the Courts-Martial (Appeals)Court before the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Devlin. The convictions were quashed and back pay was subsequently paid.

This was only the third occasion since the Courts-Martial (Appeals)Act was introduced on which any court-martial decision supported by the Army Council has been quashed. That is a fairly good record and shows that generally the system has worked well.

Mr. C. Pannell

That is part of our case. It was extraordinary, and what the Lord Chief Justice said about it was extraordinary. The very fact that there was a departure from the high standard is half of our case.

Mr. Amery

It is very important that we should make it clear to the public that, by and large, the system has worked well and that there has been very little criticism of it.

To be clear about the issues which the hon. Member has raised about Driver Gibbon, it is necessary to compare his case and Driver Turner's on the one side, with that of Lance-Corporals Lonergan and Mulley on the other. The essence of Lance-Corporal Lonergan's defence and of Lance-Corporal Mulley's was that they denied that they took part in the proceedings. They said that they did not march to the sergeants' mess. They said that they appeared on the scene later, purely to watch. They challenged the evidence produced by the prosecution both as to what they did and what they said, and the prosecution witnesses' identification of them. They also produced witnesses to support their own arguments.

This defence the court-martial did not accept. But it was the view of the Court of Appeal that the Judge Advocate, in summing up the case, did not do sufficient justice to the arguments put forward by Lance-Corporals Lonergan and Mulley that they did not take part in the proceedings, that they did not march, and that what the prosecution alleged about them was untrue. It was the view of the Court of Appeal that because the Judge Advocate had not said enough about those arguments in his summing up, the verdict was prejudiced. It was their view, that the question of fact on which the court-martial had to decide—whether the two lance-corporals had or had not taken part in the proceedings—was not made sufficiently clear to the court-martial, and that there was therefore a possibility that the court-martial's verdict was wrong. It was on that ground that the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions in the case of the two lance-corporals and accepted the appeal.

I want to emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey)that it was not so much on a question of failure to identify the ring leaders that the sentence was quashed. The Court of Appeal held that the Judge Advocate did not sum up clearly or fully enough the arguments which had been put forward by the defence that the two lance-corporals did not take part.

Mr. C. Pannell

A most substantial ground of appeal in the case of Lonergan—I mention him because he was presumed by the original court-martial to be the most guilty of the lot, if we can judge by the sentences, partly because of his rank—was mistaken identity.

Mr. Amery

It was a question of fact as to whether they took part.

Mr. Pannell

Ever at all.

Mr. Amery

Ever at all. The hon. Member is absolutely on the ball. That is the point. The Court of Appeal held that in summing up the Judge Advocate did not present to the court clearly or fully enough the argument put forward by the defence denying that the two lance-corporals had taken part. Mistaken identity was one of the strongest arguments. It was therefore on a question of fact that there was a doubt whether they had taken part.

The defence of Driver Gibbon and Driver Turner was very different. The hon. Gentleman read Driver Gibbon's statement, and the right hon. Gentleman suggested that there was a very strong presumption that their appeal might have suceeded where the appeal of the other two had succeeded. However, I want to stress the tremendous difference in the line of defence which they took. Driver Gibbon and Driver Turner agreed that they took part in the proceedings. At one point I got the impression from the hon. Member that he was suggesting that they had not taken part in the full proceedings. But in the extract from Driver Gibbon's statement which the hon. Member read Driver Gibbon said that he saw a body moving towards the sergeants' mess and followed it.

Mr. Pannell

He joined them before they moved and then moved with them.

Mr. Amery

So they agreed that they took part in the proceedings, whatever they were. In their defence they called no witnesses to support their arguments, and Driver Turner did not give evidence on oath. The essence of their defence was not that there was any doubt about the facts. It was that what had been done did not amount to mutiny.

I am aware of the background of frustration—we all are at the War Office—and the personal difficulties with which Reservists were inevitably burdened. All that we have had in mind. The fact remains that one of the questions which has to be answered is whether this was mutiny. It is very difficult in the House to do more than express a personal opinion. The court-martial held that it was, and in reviewing the petition the Army Council also held that it was. I understand that the question of whether it was mutiny was never considered by the Court of Appeal. There was no challenge to that aspect of the court-martial's findings.

Now we come to why Driver Gibbon and Driver Turner did not appeal. This is an issue on which statements of my right hon. Friend have been called into question. On 17th July, the Secretary of State said that Driver Gibbon and Driver Turner in not appealing had acted on the advice of counsel. The hon. Member said that that was sheer speculation. He called it gross impertinence on the part of the War Office and produced a letter from the Queen's Counsel for the defence denying this and saying that the contrary was the position. I certainly do not want for one moment to throw any doubt upon what the learned counsel has written to the hon. Member. What I do want to say—and I think that both the hon. Member and the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me—is that what my right hon. Friend said was not unreasonable in the circumstances.

When the hon. Member went to see him—I believe that it was on 11th July—my right hon. Friend was particularly anxious to satisfy himself that every facility had been given to Driver Gibbon and to Driver Turner to appeal and that they had been told their full rights in the case. In confirmation of his inquiries on this point he was informed that they had been given all facilities, that their rights had been made clear to them and that, on 23rd April, Driver Gibbon had told his company commander at Shepton Mallet Prison that "on the advice of Counsel" he would not continue his appeal.

Therefore, as far as we know, and on the evidence that we had, not only was the appeal not continuing but the ground upon which it was not continuing, as told by Driver Gibbon to his company commander, was that it was upon the advice of his counsel. I do not think that it is necessarily impossible that there should have been a misunderstanding between Driver Gibbon and his counsel, or between Driver Gibbon and the company commander. Both those hypotheses are possible. All I am concerned to say is that while I do not for a moment dispute what the learned counsel has written to the hon. Member, the advice that we received was directly contrary to that and that in the circumstances, seeing that this was the only advice that we had received, my right hon. Friend's statement was perfectly reasonable.

Mr. Pannell

It is unreasonable for the Secretary of State for War to use that as evidence. It is one thing to be found guilty in a court, and for the prosecution to believe in a certain course of conduct, but it is rather damaging to say that a man's defending counsel has advised him not to appeal if in fact that is not the case. I think I know how this conflict has arisen. I do not want to make a speech, in view of the shortness of time available, but there were two grounds upon which the man could have appealed. In the case of one, he was probably advised that his argument would be untenable, but on the question of condonation he may have succeeded. It is dangerous to make use of hearsay evidence from a company commander, and such evidence should not be used in the House.

I have had very long conversations with the Secretary of State for War on the subject, and I do not think that I have broken any confidence this morning by attempting to quote off the-record conversation—and it is wrong for the Secretary of State for War to mention what a man has said to his company commander and to use it as evidence on the Floor of this House. In view of the fact that the man's counsel is a Q.C., I take it that we will have a complete withdrawal this morning of the allegation that the man's counsel advised him not to appeal. I must insist upon that because it is important to Driver Gibbon. He should not be deserted by his friends. Further, it is very damaging to counsel.

Mr. Amery

I have said that I do not dispute what counsel said. But I say also that, on the evidence given to us of what Driver Gibbon is said to have told his company commander, the company commander went to Gibbon and said, "Are you satisfied that you have had every facility about appealing?", explained what the position was and asked if the man wanted to do anything more; and that if he did certain other steps would have to be taken. Gibbon is reported as having said that he did not wish to continue with the appeal, on counsel's advice—my right hon. Friend's statement was not unreasonable.

Mr. Strachey

Whether it was reasonable or not, will the hon. Gentleman now admit that it was mistaken in fact? We must get that clear.

Mr. Amery

It would be impossible for me to say whether the facts are contrary or not.

Mr. Pannell

Come, come!

Mr. Amery

All I can say is that while I do not dispute what counsel said I have equally no ground for disputing what the company commander reported to us.

Mr. Strachey

That may well be so, but surely the hon. Gentleman now agrees that through the company commander, or whoever it was, the Secretary of State was misinformed when he alleged that counsel had advised Gibbon not to appeal. Otherwise he is directly throwing doubt upon counsel's present statement—which he has said that he accepts.

Mr. Amery

I cannot take the matter further than this. I do not dispute any statement of counsel. But I say also that my right hon. Friend, having been informed by the company commander that Gibbon had said that he did not wish to pursue the appeal, on counsel's advice, was not unjustified in saying what he did say in the House.

The question of the moment is whether it was possible to condone—in the terms that the hon. Member used the word—the whole affair. I think that there was a slight inconsistency in some of the words used by the hon. Member. On one hand he said that something had gone wrong and no doubt some punishment was deserved, but that the action could have been condoned. On the other hand, he said that a great injustice had been done. I do not think that he can sustain the latter argument. We should all naturally view with a great deal of respect the argument that this could have been condoned, and that the matter should be put right in the interests of the Army.

What, in fact, happened? Driver Gibbon's and Driver Turner's sentences have already been reduced, in time and in status. They were reduced by six months, and from imprisonment to detention. The sentences have already been served and both men have been released. I find it very difficult to see how we should be justified in going further especially as—and this I have tried to stress—the case is not in any way on all fours with the case advanced by the two lance-corporals. I do not think that we should be justified in going further, but it is open to the two drivers, if they still wish for a reversal of the decision, to apply for an extension of the period in which application for leave to appeal must be lodged.