End the hounding of our heroes in tribute to veteran

‘The whole saga brings disgrace on the British legal system’

- Leo Mckinstry

THOSE who risk their lives on behalf of our country should be honoured for their service and cherished for their selflessness. But, due to the warped values that now prevail in parts of our political culture, such heroes can now find themselves in the dock, where their courage is portrayed as a form of criminality.

No case highlights this pattern more shamefully than the persecution of the late Dennis Hutchings, a military veteran who died at the age of 80 while standing trial for attempted murder during the Northern Irish Troubles.

The tragic circumstances of his death this week matched the despicable nature of the long legal witch-hunt against him. A member of the Life Guards regiment for 26 years, described by one of his commanders as “the epitome of the best class of senior British non-commissioned officer”, Hutchings had been charged over the killing of John Pat Cunningham in County Tyrone in 1974, after shots were fired at the victim in a chase by an army patrol.

Hutchings fiercely denied the accusation and had been cleared by two previous investigations. The authorities in Northern Ireland, determined to win favour with the Republican movement by besmirching the record of the British armed forces, would not give up, despite the recent decline in Hutchings’s health.