Hodge Jones & Allen

Press release: Saturday 9th May 2011

Ministry of Defence applies to strike out Snatch Land Rover Claims

A 3 Day hearing from Monday 9 May 2011 - Wednesday 11 May 2011

Court 15 of the Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand

 

Jocelyn Cockburn, a partner in the civil liberties team at Hodge Jones & Allen LLP represents families of three soldiers killed in Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq.  On Monday the MoD will attempt to persuade the Court to strike out their claims for compensation. 

 

Susan Smith, Colin Redpath, Karla and Courtney Ellis are bringing claims against the MoD for causing their loved ones to carry out high risk activities, such as patrolling, in poorly armoured Snatch Land Rovers.  In each case they were killed when their vehicle was struck by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), also known as roadside bombs. These are the first claims to challenge the vulnerability of Snatch.  If the MoD succeeds the families’ claims will fail.

 

The MoD’s strike out application

 

The MoD is applying to the Court to strike out the Snatch claims (so the families will have no legal remedy).  It therefore has to persuade the Court that “the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing a claim”.  It is also inviting the Court to find that the Claimants have “no real prospects of succeeding” on the claim or an issue of it.  The points under challenge can be summarised as:

 

1.  Jurisidiction of the Human Rights Act (HRA)

The MoD is arguing that as the deaths of the Snatch victims occurred outside the UK and off base the HRA does not apply at all and therefore the MoD does not owe any human rights protections under the Act to soldiers on the battlefield.  Consequently the MoD says that there is no legally enforceable duty and accepts that there is no legal redress for soldiers sent out with faulty or inadequate equipment or deficient training.  The Snatch families are arguing that the relevant breach – the failure to provide adequately armoured vehicles to protect against IEDs – occurred in the UK and therefore within the jurisdiction of the HRA.

 

2.  Whether there is a duty under the HRA to protect soldiers on the battlefield

The MoD says that there is no duty to take reasonable steps to protect soldiers from foreseeable risks (irrespective of jurisdiction) because;

 

a.  it would be an unreasonable and disproportionate burden.  Effectively it is public policy not to provide such rights to soldiers.  The Snatch families will say that there is no logical or lawful reason why soldiers should be singled out as a peculiarly unlucky group as to be deemed unsuitable for possessing human rights.  On numerous occasions the courts have emphasised the universality of such rights, of which the right to life is one of the most important.  Prisoners do not lose human rights and even those found to pose a threat to national security must have their rights secured.  The Snatch families fully accept that their loved ones were put in danger, that is what they signed up for, but they do not accept that they would be left needlessly vulnerable by an avoidable failure to properly equip them.

 

b.  such matters are non-justiciable (not suitable for the courts) because they are within the political and security sphere.  The Snatch families will say that whilst some political / military decisions (such as the decision to go to war) are non-justiciable this does not cover the Snatch case.  This is not a case of scarce resources or difficult decisions about the allocation of funds.  Gordon Brown made it clear in evidence to the Iraq Inquiry that he would have met any urgent request for funding had it been made.  Funding for armoured vehicles was simply not requested by the Army Chiefs/ MoD until it was prompted to do so by politicians – as a result of public pressure – in July 2006.  This was despite the MoD being fully aware of the inadequacies of Snatch from well before the Iraq war.

 

3.  Combat immunity

The MoD argues that it owes no common law duty of care to soldiers in combat and therefore the claim for negligence must fail.  We say that the MoD’s negligence occurred well outside any battle conditions and therefore combat immunity does not apply.

 

Civil Liberties Solicitor, Jocelyn Cockburn of Hodge Jones & Allen LLP, representing the Snatch families, says: “The MoD’s approach throughout this long process has been to deny that Snatch Land Rovers were inadequate.  This was in the face of evidence from soldiers on the ground that they were unsafe.  This approach has served to spur the Snatch families on to seek justice and they have been assisted by wide public support."

 

"Latterly – in evidence to the Chilcott inquiry, senior military and political figures have recognised that better armoured vehicles were “clearly desperately needed” to avoid “unnecessary casualties”.  Despite this, the MoD continues to defend these claims on the basis that there was no real and immediate risk from IEDs and/or they did not know about it.  The MoD continues to assert that Snatch Land Rovers were the correct vehicles to use."

 

"This has been a sorry tale of incompetence and if ever there was a case to point to the need for a legal duty to protect soldiers this is it”."

 

"There is nothing unreasonable or disproportionate about a duty on the Government to take reasonable steps to protect soldiers from known risks.  The safety of soldiers should not be an afterthought.  It does no credit to the MoD that it seeks to avoid having the inconvenience of a burden which expects them to do no more than is reasonable to protect soldiers."

 

The Snatch families will be attending the hearing on Monday.

 

The Snatch Land Rover claims

 

Snatch land rovers are lightly armoured and were designed to provide no more than limited protection against ballistic threats mainly small arms bullets.  They provide little or no protection against IEDs, a fact of which the MoD was well aware. 

 

Susan Smith’s claim relates to the death of her son Private Phillip Hewett who was killed in Al Amarah, Iraq on 16 July 2005.

 

Colin Redpath’s claim relates to the death of his son Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath who was killed near Basra City in Iraq on 9 August 2007.

 

The Ellis family claim relates to the death of Private Lee Ellis (Courtney’s father and Karla’s sister) who was killed in Al Amarah on 26 February 2006.