HC Deb 02 June 1997 vol 295 cc156-64

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]

12.59 am
Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke)

I first pay tribute to the former hon. Member for Ayr, Mr. Philip Gallie, who campaigned strenuously on behalf of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright. Conservatives Members miss him greatly.

I also place on the record the involvement and support of the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), one of whose constituents is the mother of Guardsman Fisher. He has met her and seeks to help in every way possible. I also acknowledge the involvement of the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Welsh): Guardsman Wright is his constituent. Both hon. Members substantially agree with the points that I shall make.

I also acknowledge the interest and concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis).

On 4 September 1992, Guardsmen Fisher and Wright and others were patrolling in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the New Lodge area of Belfast. Fisher was then 24 years old; Wright was 18. Both were young men of excellent record and good character. It was their first tour of duty in Northern Ireland, but they had experienced intensive training with the Scots Guards. They were as well trained and as well prepared as is possible.

At that time, one of the IRA's favoured weapons was the Mk 15 grenade, or coffee jar bomb: a jar filled with shrapnel, Semtex and a detonator. Fisher and Wright knew from their training that the IRA tried to lure Army patrols into an ambush, and threw those grenades, often from behind parked vehicles. There had been more than a dozen such incidents in the weeks preceding September 1992.

On 4 September, the patrol of which the guardsmen were part stopped for routine questioning a young man, Mr. Peter McBride, who was carrying a bag. Before the bag could be searched, McBride tore the radio earpiece out of the patrol commander's ear and fled. He leaped one wall, ran through a garden and cleared another wall. Fisher and Wright pursued, repeatedly shouting warnings to stop, but McBride ignored those warnings. Three streets later, the guardsmen recognised that a situation was developing that was the mirror image of training scenarios.

McBride, still clutching a bag that he had not wanted to be searched, had succeeded in drawing them away from their unit and was running towards a parked car. Fisher and Wright gave a final warning, which McBride again ignored. He was shot and killed. There was no grenade in the bag, and McBride was not a member of the IRA or any other terrorist organisation. Reportedly, his mother still goes to the cemetery where his body lies and asks, "What did you run for?"

To argue for the early release of Fisher and Wright, as I and many people do, is most emphatically not to deny or belittle the grief of the McBride family. Fisher and Wright made a split-second decision in highly charged circumstances at a time of considerable tension, when, in accordance with their training and instruction, they believed that their own lives were in danger. Nevertheless, they were convicted of McBride's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Much about the case of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright is deeply disturbing. First, it is a scandal that the law should treat those guardsmen in exactly the same way as it treats those who conspire to bomb, murder and maim and commit acts of terrorism against the state. We acknowledge that under existing legislation Fisher and Wright were correctly charged and convicted. We do not challenge the legality of the verdict, but we challenge the validity of the legislation that demanded their conviction.

As a result of the mandatory life sentence for murder, as Mr. Andrew Roberts wrote in The Sunday Times on 30 March: Loyal, well-disciplined servants of the crown, serving in a regiment … acting under orders with no malice aforethought, … have been incarcerated by the British state for doing their duty at a time of anti-terrorist high alert. The law is wrong. It cannot be justified. It is revoltingly unfair. It is morally untenable. It must be changed. The cases of Fisher and Wright prove the point. By no stretch of the imagination can or should the two soldiers be treated in the same way as the IRA's calculating killers.

Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way during his eloquent testimony. Does he agree that this case and the parallel case of Private Clegg, as he was at that time, have entered the minds of thousands of our young men who are serving on our behalf and risking their lives in Northern Ireland? Some people whom I met while they were serving there and since have put to me, as I am sure my hon. Friend has had put to him, the fact that they do not know where they stand. Those people, the effective pursuit of whose duties is so important for peace in Northern Ireland, have had a doubt sown in their minds about whose side the law will be on when they act in good faith.

Mr. Hunter

I welcome my hon. Friend's intervention and entirely accept and endorse his point. If he will bear with me for a few seconds, I shall refer to the issue from my prepared text. My hon. Friend is right: there is no doubt whatever that, increasingly, people are saying, "Is it worth the risk?"

There is another issue. On one key point, judicial review disturbingly found against the Northern Ireland Office. Originally, the Northern Ireland life sentence unit ruled that the guardsmen's case should be not be reviewed until the end of 1998 at the six-year point in their sentences. The normal practice is for such cases to be reviewed at the 10-year stage. I understand that the Northern Ireland Office regarded the life sentence unit's ruling as a concession to Fisher and Wright, but it was not seen in that way universally. The decision caused concern in some quarters and it was felt that the review should take place even earlier.

The Northern Ireland Office has sometimes been accused of rejecting policy options on the ground that they might offend nationalist sensibilities. On this occasion, some people wondered whether political expediency had won the day at the cost of natural justice for two British soldiers. Unfortunately, the course of events gave credence to that cynical perception.

Fisher and Wright successfully applied for a judicial review of the Northern Ireland Office decision. On 20 December last year, Mr. Justice Girvan quashed the unit's decision and ordered that the two soldiers' cases should be freshly considered according to the precedents set by the cases of Privates Clegg and Thain who, having been found guilty of murder in comparable circumstances, had been released after serving three years and three and a half years respectively. In December 1996, Fisher and Wright had already served more than four years. For unspecified reasons, it appeared that the Northern Ireland Office wished them to be treated more harshly than Clegg and Thain.

My third point is that, in the light of all these onsiderations, no further delay in reviewing the cases of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright can be justified. With the Northern Ireland Office's original wish to delay the review overruled, in December last year, Crown counsel undertook that the Secretary of State would be personally involved with the review ordered by Mr. Justice Girvan. Shortly before he left office, Sir Patrick Mayhew instructed that the Life Sentence Review Board should consider the cases in October this year, rather than wait until December 1998, as had previously been decided.

That decision was greatly welcomed, but in one respect it also bewildered. If there are good reasons for reviewing the cases earlier than was previously deemed appropriate, why delay until the five-year point in the sentences? What is the justification? Why the arbitrary time scale? No material facts or circumstances relevant to the case will change between now and October.

The precedents set by the cases of Privates Thain and Clegg, Mr. Justice Girvan's robust comments when he gave his decision in December, and, not least, the comments in the Northern Ireland Prison Service letter, dated 17 April, to the guardsmen's solicitor all seem to argue for a review now and not in five months' time. The letter states unequivocally: There are exceptional mitigating circumstances in which the soldiers were operating in the course of their duty and the fact that there was no premeditation. If there are exceptional mitigating circumstances, and the Northern Ireland Prison Service rightly acknowledges that there are, surely the guardsmen's cases should be reviewed without any further delay. I welcome the fact that Fisher and Wright's Belfast solicitor has been given leave to challenge the delay in reviewing the cases until October. It is now time for the Government to respond positively.

Feelings run high when people perceive that an injustice has been perpetrated and continues to be perpetrated. The British state trained and armed Guardsmen Fisher and Wright and then sent them to a hostile environment to implement Government policy. Like all other British soldiers, they were terrorist targets from the moment they landed in Northern Ireland.

Government surely have a duty to safeguard Fisher and Wright and all the other men and women of our armed services who are ordered to serve in Northern Ireland or elsewhere. I hope that the Minister understands the strength and intensity of feeling within the military community on this point. When tragedy occurs and dreadful mistakes happen, our soldiers should not be treated in the same way as people who knowingly and deliberately go out to murder and maim the innocent.

If Government do not provide that protection, can we blame young men and young women if they decide not to volunteer? It just is not worth the risk.

The cases of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright and those of Privates Clegg and Thain before them go to the core of political morality and natural justice. I deeply regret that the Government whom I supported left this business unfinished. I hope that the present Government will not also disappoint.

1.14 am
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram)

The House knows that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) has maintained a long-term interest on behalf of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright. I genuinely congratulate him on his success in securing this Adjournment debate, albeit in the early hours of the morning. Beside me on the Bench is my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), whose constituent Mrs. Fisher is the mother of James Fisher.

For a number of different reasons, these cases are of great concern to people inside and outside this House. I welcome this opportunity to explain to the House the role of Ministers and the Northern Ireland Office in relation to them.

Notwithstanding what the hon. Gentleman said, I think that it is appropriate that I set out in some detail the circumstances pertaining to the issue. I shall, of course, deal with the points made by the hon. Gentleman in my response.

Guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright of the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards were each sentenced to life imprisonment at Belfast Crown court on 10 February 1995 for the murder of an unarmed civilian youth, Peter Paul McBride. Their appeals to the Court of Appeal against conviction and sentence were dismissed on 21 December 1995, and they were refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords on 8 March 1996.

I come now to the way in which the law operates in cases of murder in Northern Ireland. The law in Northern Ireland does not permit a court to impose a discretionary sentence on someone convicted of murder. Instead, it requires the court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. It therefore falls to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to decide whether, and if so when, it is appropriate to release a life sentence prisoner on licence.

In taking that decision, the Secretary of State is obliged to consult the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland and the trial judge, if he is available. However, at the end of the day, the decision rests with the Secretary of State. The starting point for the decision is, of course, that the individual concerned has been properly convicted by the courts. It is not the role of the Secretary of State to determine questions of guilt or innocence.

The Secretary of State is, of course, supported in her function by formal mechanisms for the review of life sentence cases that have operated in Northern Ireland since 1983. The way in which that operates is that the Secretary of State is advised by the Life Sentence Review Board, which consists of senior officials of the Northern Ireland Office, with professional input from psychiatrists, psychologists and probation staff.

Normally, the board looks at cases for the first time at the 10-year point in the sentence and thereafter at intervals that it determines. When the board considers that a prisoner has served long enough to meet the requirements of retribution and deterrence and is no longer a threat to the public, it will recommend to the Secretary of State that the prisoner be released.

In order to ensure that the Life Sentence Review Board sees cases at a sufficiently early point so that its discretion and that of the Secretary of State is not fettered, there is also a process of regular internal review by the life sentence unit of the Northern Ireland Office. Those internal reviews normally take place upon committal or once normal appeal processes have been exhausted, and at the three-year and six-year points in sentence.

Cases will be looked at on other occasions, especially when there is a significant material change in circumstances. The purpose of those internal reviews is to determine whether cases should be seen by the Life Sentence Review Board at the normal 10-year point or whether earlier consideration by the review board would be appropriate.

I shall now deal with the specific cases of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright. Their first internal review was commenced in early 1996. At that time, it was decided that the cases should be referred to the Life Sentence Review Board in October 1998—that is to say, when the prisoners would have served six years in custody.

The decision, which was taken by the permanent under-secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, was conveyed to the then Secretary of State, who expressed his agreement with it. The prisoners were told of the decision on 13 June 1996.

The decision was challenged in the courts by means of an application for judicial review. On 20 December 1996, the decision was quashed by Mr. Justice Girvan, who held that the Northern Ireland Office had not addressed itself to the proper question when examining the cases. In the judge's view, the test that should have been applied was whether the cases raised issues worthy of consideration by the board, and if so, when.

Mr. Justice Girvan also held that the Northern Ireland Office should have taken into account the reasoning of the then Home Secretary in relation to the release of Private Thain, whose release on licence was decided in England, in 1987. Furthermore, he held that fixed sentences of imprisonment imposed for the most serious crimes other than murder should have been considered for purposes of comparison. Mr. Justice Girvan also said that the Northern Ireland Office would have to address the issue whether there was real justification for treating the cases of Fisher and Wright differently from those of Clegg and Thain.

Subsequently, and in accordance with Mr. Justice Girvan's judgment, a fresh internal review was conducted of the cases of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright. On that occasion, and on an exceptional basis, the then Secretary of State himself took the decision about the timing of referral to the Life Sentence Review Board following advice from his officials.

The Secretary of State concluded that—to ensure that the discretion of the Life Sentence Review Board and, ultimately, of the Secretary of State was not fettered by too late a referral—the cases should be reviewed by the board in October 1997, which was at the five-year point in sentence, which is five years earlier than the board normally makes a first review. The decision was, of course, without prejudice to the outcome of the review board's recommendations and the deliberations of a future Secretary of State.

On 17 April 1997, Guardsmen Fisher and Wright were advised of the outcome of the internal review. They have sought and been granted leave to seek judicial review of the fresh decision, and the review is currently listed for hearing on 13 June.

It might help if I were now, after explaining the process of internal review and its outcome, to set into its wider context the decision on the timing of the first review of the guardsmen's cases by the Life Sentence Review Board. In all life sentence cases, decisions on the timing of reviews and on release itself are taken individually and on their merits. The process involves gathering all available information about the offender and the offence, including the circumstances surrounding the murder, the role of the offender, his background and his propensity to reoffend.

Mr. Andrew Welsh (Angus)

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Ingram

No. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I should like to set the matter in its full context.

Mr. Welsh

My question is on the point that the Minister is dealing with.

Mr. Ingram

I should like to make progress. If there is sufficient time at the end of the debate, the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to intervene.

Material in the process is drawn from a wide range of sources, including court judgments and prison reports. As I have already explained, the aim is to ensure that individual life sentence prisoners serve long enough to reflect the gravity of their offences and that, upon release, they will not be a danger to the public.

In Northern Ireland, the period served by life sentence prisoners is typically in a range between 10 and 20 years, and the average time served by released life sentence prisoners is currently about 15 years. At the higher end of the range are prisoners who have committed multiple offences or those involved in cases with aggravating circumstances or in which risk was considered to be a problem. Sentences at the lower end of the range reflect mitigating circumstances—for example, peripheral involvement and relative youth at the time of the offence. In a small number of cases, the mitigating circumstances are such as to result in periods served of less than 10 years.

The fact that Guardsmen Fisher and Wright will be seen by the review board for the first time at the five-year point instead of the 10-year point is an indication that, in their case, there are mitigating circumstances, which include the difficult circumstances in which the guardsmen were operating in Belfast and the fact that there was no premeditation.

Those mitigating circumstances, however, must be considered against other factors. Like any other citizen, members of the security forces may use only such force as is reasonable in the circumstances for the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected terrorists. They have no immunity from the law, and they must always remain responsible for their actions under the law. That is a set of criteria that all decent-thinking persons in Northern Ireland and elsewhere want to see rigorously, but fairly, applied.

The fact is that the guardsmen committed a very serious offence, which resulted in a young life being lost. Moreover, at first instance and at appeal, the courts were very clear that the soldiers were in no appreciable danger and did not think that they were in danger when they fired. As the Lord Chief Justice pointed out in the Court of Appeal: No bomb or firearm of any type was found in the course of the search and it was not in dispute that at no time had the deceased been carrying a gun or a coffee jar bomb or any type of bomb. Therefore, as the deceased was shot when he was unarmed, the appellants, on the objective facts, had no lawful justification for firing at the deceased. Comparisons have been drawn with the cases of other soldiers convicted of offences committed while on duty in Northern Ireland, notably those of Private Clegg and Private Thain. Clearly, there are parallels in terms of the lack of premeditation and the stresses on soldiers operating in Northern Ireland. However, it is not helpful to take the parallels too far or to ignore significant differences in the circumstances.

In the case of Private Thain, for example, the circumstances surrounding the offence were more confused and are too detailed to go into now. In the case of Private Clegg, the offence involved an oncoming car at night and split-second decisions—only Private Clegg's fourth shot was found to be unlawful.

Another case that was not mentioned but which has parallels is that of Trooper Clarke, who was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for attempted murder committed while on duty as an unpremeditated act and on the spur of the moment. At the time he was sentenced, he had the expectation of serving, with remission, a period of just under seven years.

Mr. Welsh

Does the Minister accept that it is a tragedy for all the families involved—for the Irish family whose loss is irreparable and for the Scots families who find that their sons' lives are ruined? Does he understand the feelings of my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Wright, who want an early review of their son Mark's sentence so that some hope might be restored to a situation that is otherwise without hope? I hope that the Minister will look for such an early review, to restore at least some hope to this general tragedy.

Mr. Ingram

I think that my comments showed an appreciation of the situation facing Guardsmen Fisher and Wright and, of course, that facing the family of the deceased. I was dealing with those very points.

In conclusion—this may deal with the hon. Gentleman's point—I have set out the background to the case and the legal context in which it sits. It is against that background and after careful consideration that I take the view that the guardsmen are being dealt with properly and fairly within the Northern Ireland life sentence review system. I would strongly refute any allegation that those involved in the process of review have shown bias against the guardsmen. However, as an additional safeguard, I can confirm that, as an exceptional measure, when the cases have been considered by the Life Sentence Review Board in October, its recommendation will be put to the Secretary of State, regardless of whether that recommendation is for release or for further detention.

Finally, let me assure the House that I listened with great interest to the comments of the hon. Member for Basingstoke. I wish to assure him that the views that he expressed will be kept firmly in mind when the cases are being considered. I hope that he and others who have contributed to this debate and those who are campaigning outside the House on behalf of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright are prepared to accept that the proper processes should now be allowed to proceed, conditioned as they are by the ultimate discretion invested in the Secretary of State.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past One o'clock.