Oral evidence: MoD Support for Former and Serving Personnel Subject to Judicial Process, HC 109
Oral evidence, 15 November 2016.
Witnesses
Commander Jack Hawkins and Mark Warwick.
Chair
Thank you very much for coming in today, Commander Hawkins and Mr Warwick. We will start off by asking you, Mr Warwick, if you can tell us about the make-up of the IHAT, the backgrounds of your staff and the numbers you have.
Mark Warwick
The team is a mixture of Royal Navy police officers, hence why Commander Hawkins sits here as my deputy. He has a statutory function in relation to the Armed Forces Act. I am not a police officer, but he is, so he fulfils those responsibilities, and that follows all the way through in terms of the complement of staff in the IHAT. The IHAT is a mixture of Royal Navy police, contractors recruited from Red Snapper—I emphasise that Red Snapper has no operational role in any decision making or investigative activity—and a civil servant contingent. The numbers vary, but there are approximately 147. There are 127 Red Snapper contractors, 12 Royal Navy personnel and the remainder are civil servants.
Chair
These guys are clearly investigating incidents that have gone on in the aftermath of conflicts. Is there any experience on the team of dealing in the sort of environment that would have come about immediately after the initial operations in Iraq?
Mark Warwick
Red Snapper generally recruits from a civil police background, but we do have people who have previously been in the military. Commander Hawkins can probably update you more on the specialisms of his Royal Navy police officers.
Commander Hawkins
The majority of my staff of Royal Navy police have served on ships.
Chair
Sorry?
Commander Hawkins
They have served on ships.
Chair
Right. Have any of them served in counter-insurgency operations?
Commander Hawkins
Yes, I have two who have served in Afghanistan.
Chair
Okay, but have any experienced the sort of conditions that were present following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the ground?
Commander Hawkins
No. One of our restrictions is to ensure that we do not employ anybody who either served in Iraq or has a direct relationship with Iraq. That is all to ensure that we satisfy our independence as we go forward with our investigations. That came out in the Ali Zaki Mousa case, where we needed to justify to the court that the Royal Navy police were independent for the purpose of investigations. We are very careful. If anyone does know someone who served in Iraq, we recuse them from those particular investigations. There is a particular reason why—
Chair
How do you blend the expectation that individuals who work for you have experience of the precise atmospherics and situation on the ground after Iraq with ensuring that none of them has had anything to do with it?
Mark Warwick
We spend a lot of time recruiting the right people—people who have experience of working on complex investigations. I do not think we can ever truly mirror the picture you paint of the situation on the ground. The best we can do is get investigators who understand the nature of the work that military personnel can be involved in—the most horrendous situations they were working in—and apply that in the professional context of being some of the best investigators available in this country to do the investigation work. Always in the back of their mind is an understanding of the complex nature of the investigation they are dealing with, which is unique and different from anything they would have dealt with before.
Chair
Have you ever been to Iraq?
Mark Warwick
I haven’t.
Chair
Have you, Commander Hawkins?
Commander Hawkins
Yes, I have.
Chair
Were you serving there during the time of the conflict?
Commander Hawkins
No. Otherwise I would not be able to do the job I am doing.
Mr Gray
What were you doing there?
Commander Hawkins
I went more recently to scope doing some interviews in the north of Iraq. I just went up into Erbil for a week or so.
Chair
Essentially, no one working on the team has any experience of that sort of environment, post-conflict?
Commander Hawkins
In Iraq, no.
Mrs Moon
May I ask about the specific training, given the lack of expertise in the post-conflict, counter-insurgency situation? Can you tell me what specific training you have given, particularly to your civilian personnel, to help them understand that? I don’t mind either of you answering.
Mark Warwick
We recruit people, and we hold Red Snapper to account to target the most professional and the most efficient investigators. As part of that, we are looking for a background. Some of our investigators from Red Snapper come from a counter-terrorism background; they have worked in counter-terrorism operations in the UK, and some of them have worked in counter-terrorism operations in the middle east. We seek to blend that with the core investigative skill as much as possible. In addition, we use the knowledge of the military and of other people to come in as part of our induction programme. We ensure that everyone who joins IHAT has at least a three-day induction process. Part of that is about understanding the complexities and the unique situation and environment that we are now being asked to investigate, because, as Commander Hawkins says, the court ruling is very specific: we cannot use people in our investigations who have had involvement in that Iraq conflict. We do the best we can, using the subject experts, to enhance our training programme, and we use other people who can bring in specialist knowledge on regular training programmes or half training days that we may well use.
Mrs Moon
What sort of issues do you cover in that specific training?
Mark Warwick
The complexity of the operations, the way the military was structured, the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict, and we use the Service Prosecuting Authority to provide information and assistance. Although the Armed Forces Act very nearly mirrors the traditional Home Office police force Act, there are some nuances. Commander Hawkins has some very particular responsibilities that we can touch on in relation to the Armed Forces Act. We identify as best we can the uniqueness of the situation.
Commander Hawkins
May I make one small correction? Forgive me, Mark. The court order wasn’t specific about not using personnel who have served in Iraq. It was very specific about the independence of the Royal Navy police, and our justification of being independent for the purpose of the investigations. That’s just a subtle difference.
Mrs Moon
Thank you. How do you build in an understanding of the level of tension, the level of risk, and the constant threat that personnel were facing in Iraq? Nothing you have talked about so far gives that picture. Who is providing that?
Commander Hawkins
I can assist with that. Before we do anything, we take allegations. You may have heard that we have sifted out a lot of allegations that either don’t identify any criminal activity or are duplicates of allegations that we are already using. We have sifted out a lot of allegations. Once we decide that it may seem, to a reasonable person, that something untoward has occurred, we then do some more work. Of the numbers we are currently dealing with, there are 700 complaints that we’ve discontinued or I’ve disposed of. To make that decision we have gone back to all of the records—the shooting incident reports, the serious incident reports, radio logs and any other reports that were generated at the time—to look at those incidents and make an assessment of what was happening on the ground at the time. Please remember that we are looking at criminal allegations here. If we look at that documentation and, for whatever circumstances, there doesn’t seem to be any prospect of obtaining sufficient evidence to charge an identifiable person with an offence, we turn it off. I dispose of it. I write it up and I put it away. That takes into account all the circumstances that occurred on the ground at the time as well. Let’s fast forward a little. If we then decide to send some of those cases for investigation, the Service Prosecuting Authority is involved. Let’s fast forward even further. If it is referred and a court gets involved, there are officers who sit on the court who understand exactly what goes on in the operational environment. There are checks and controls all the way through in terms of what goes forward, why it goes forward and who has access to it—we make these assessments as we go through—but, from our perspective, we are looking at allegations of criminality.
Chair
Who is making those decisions? Is it you personally?
Commander Hawkins
I make those decisions, but—I will just clarify that. We have a panel called the joint case review panel, which comprises the DSP and his staff—the Service Prosecuting Authority—and those who gather all this information together and provide a report on what we think the circumstances were at the time. I then get advice from the SPA and I make the ultimate statutory decision as to the disposal of the case. As I have just mentioned, I have disposed of 700 cases. We interviewed soldiers in only 15 of those 700 cases that have been disposed of. That is a very small percentage of cases. Of those cases that I have dealt with, in only 15 did we need to speak to soldiers. I hope you can get an impression of how that information is assessed and some early decisions can be made. Once we have decided to take them on, early decisions can be made. We gather that information and, I hope, take into consideration what was going on on the ground at the time, what sort of situation these soldiers were in—was it a crossfire incident? Was it an air-delivered munitions incident? There are so many different types of allegations. That is the direction of travel: we are able to make some big early assessments.
Chair
But as you said at the beginning, those decisions are fundamentally being taken by people who have not experienced those scenarios.
Commander Hawkins
Mr Mercer, I think I mentioned that I am looking at the criminality. I am looking at whether there is a realistic prospect of charging an identifiable person with a service offence. That is what I am looking at. I am not the MoD. I am not the court, which is looking at litigation. I am only looking at whether there is someone who is likely to be charged in the future for an offence. If not, I discontinue it very early.
Mark Warwick
Commander Hawkins is working under the Armed Forces Act, which places unique obligations on him that would not occur in a civil police code. He applies his evidential sufficiency test. The checks and balances in the Armed Forces Act were uniquely designed and put into law for the purposes of dealing with military conflict. The Service Prosecuting Authority is not the Crown Prosecution Service; it has that focus and it has the experience of the military personnel who work in it to draw from as well.
Mrs Moon
May I ask you how you deal with vulnerable witnesses, particularly those who may have post-traumatic stress disorder? What experience and training do you give to your civilian staff to ensure that they understand?
Mark Warwick
We recruit investigators who have come from a serious crime background and have dealt with homicides, serious sexual offences and so on. By implication, and because of the checks and balances we put in, they will have had that training. They are experienced interviewers. There is a process called achieving best evidence, where certain provisions are applied, such as video recording of witnesses, and certain procedures are made available for witnesses if they have to give evidence in court. Commander Hawkins’s officers—the Royal Navy police officers—and the Red Snapper staff are equally trained in that. They are trained to use those processes, where appropriate, or consider those processes at a later stage should it be necessary to ask a member of service personnel or a veteran to be a witness for us in court.
Mrs Moon
You still have not dealt with the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Commander Hawkins
Maybe I can help you with that—I think Mr Warwick was about to allow me to do that. In 2014, once we really got into the investigations of the unlawful death allegations, we realised quite quickly that there were some people who were suffering. One of my Red Snapper staff—we do not tend to call them Red Snapper; we call them civilian investigators. One of our contractors took it upon himself—he asked our authority—to go to the different NHS organisations. He went to see NHS England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland separately, and he also went to the trust in the Isle of Man. He was then able to build up what we call a technical instruction, which is a map of the UK—I think you have had access to it—so that whenever we went to see a soldier who said, “Look, I’ve been suffering”, we could put him in touch with the relevant organisation in his area. We would give him a phone number or an email address. That was done through those organisations. That technical instruction is now available—it has been for some time—to all our investigators, to ensure that they know who to point people to when they are obviously demonstrating some of these symptoms.
Mrs Moon
I am pleased that you are doing that; it is an excellent step forward. But there are different ways of interviewing when you are talking to somebody suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. What do you do when somebody does not come forward? As you know, Commander, lots of people in the military do not like to admit that they are suffering from PTSD, because the whole ethos is that you man up and you don’t say that you are suffering at all. What training do you give, particularly to your civilian personnel, to understand what post-traumatic stress disorder is and how it may impact on someone’s memory and interpretation of their actions and of events at the time and their capacity to provide accurate information or to defend themselves?
Mark Warwick
We ran a training day 18 months or two years ago, and as part of that we called in a clinical psychologist. She very much focused on what you are talking about—PTSD, the effect on recall and the impact. She dealt with it in more of a sexual offences context because that was her specialism, but the point she brought across, which she adapted to the military context that we were looking into, was that witnesses could suffer the same things that a rape victim could suffer, because of the trauma. Someone could do something that you would not expect them to do because of the PTSD. So we have had a training day at which we used a recognised expert in the field to look at the wider context of PTSD and related issues.
Mrs Moon
A number of organisations, individuals and charities deal specifically with post-traumatic stress disorder as it manifests itself in the military. Why did you go outside that level of expertise?
Mark Warwick
Because at the time we were very careful and very wary of the courts’ interpretation of independence. The context was one of investigations and we felt that that person offered the best information we needed at the time. In addition to that, Commander Hawkins has spoken to the regimental secretaries and many of the charitable support organisations that are particularly military-focused, to identify for them what we do and how we do it. He has sought advice and support from them, so that if we refer or identify people or if we take advice on how to deal with people, we have made that contact.
Mrs Moon
It seems a little bit biased away from understanding the nature of service and the effect of service. Is there not a risk that we have gone too far to neutralise what is really quite a unique experience, and the unique consequences of coming out of that experience for those who have been involved in theatre and in dealing with the day-to-day tensions and threats that theatre implies? Are you not concerned that we have moved too far away from recognising the uniqueness of that environment?
Mark Warwick
We absolutely recognise the uniqueness. If something comes out of this process that identifies where we can do something better, we will absolutely consider it; we are happy to do that. What I am charged with is conducting effective and efficient organisations. I need to ensure that I do that with the utmost care and consideration for the brave people who have worked in horrendous situations, but I have obligations to the court as well and I am trying to meet them while ensuring that we give care and support to serving personnel and veterans or identify where that care and support is available.
Mrs Moon
Just very briefly: you have said that there is a three-day induction. You bring people from a disparate set of backgrounds. How do you ensure that they are all following the same rules? How do you ensure that they have the same understanding of the tasks that they are undertaking? Within that training in three days, which is quite a short time to pull a team together, how do you ensure that happens?
Mark Warwick
As I say, the training is an overview for very experienced people who are used to conducting investigations. What we are adding on top of that is the uniqueness of the situation of working in a military environment, with some of the military processes and procedures and unique procedures that apply to the Armed Forces Act, which Commander Hawkins takes a lot of time to ensure he and his staff instil. In addition, we ensure that in each investigation team, or “pod” as we call them, there is a Royal Navy police officer there to look at the investigations and provide advice and support. In addition we have our own internal review process to make sure investigations follow the track that we expect them to. In addition to that, we have technical instructions that clearly define the way we should speak to people, the way we should approach people and the uniqueness of the situation in relation to the commanding officers involved.
Commander Hawkins
The final point to add is that we have got some staff there; they have been there for some time. That experience really comes through and any new person coming in draws on their experience, so there is an ongoing training programme. While three days does not sound an awful lot, they bring a lot of the skill sets with them already. We then militarise them, if you like, and say, “These are our methods of approach. This is what we want you to look for.” So I think there is quite a robust process in place to try and make sure we can square off as many things as possible.
Mrs Moon
I have to say that that is not the impression we have always been given.
Chair
You will have seen the evidence that this Committee has heard. Clearly, what you are saying sounds fantastic: the investigators go along; they are given a leaflet and told who they can go and talk to; and the Royal Navy Police are there and PACE instructions are followed. But you must have seen some of the stuff that has come out of this inquiry. Have you or have you not?
Mark Warwick
No—
Chair
You have not?
Mark Warwick
We have seen the transcripts.
Chair
You have seen transcripts. Have you seen anything in the newspapers?
Mark Warwick
Yes, and the programme you did with Victoria Derbyshire on two particular cases. I have seen them. Obviously, the difficult thing for us is that it is anonymous at this moment in time.
Chair
Some of the cases aren’t. Rachel Webster is not anonymous. You know about that case.
Mark Warwick
Yes, we do, but it is not appropriate for me to talk about an individual in a public forum, as I am sure you will appreciate.
Chair
You’re absolutely right, but we are trying to give you a flavour of the evidence that we have had presented to us. You say it is difficult because it is anonymous. All I am saying is that it is not anonymous, so it cannot be that difficult to understand what has gone on.
Mark Warwick
With respect, that’s a unique situation. Most of the others are anonymous. If the facts as portrayed were to be true, that would give me great cause for concern, as it would Commander Hawkins. If that were found to be true, we would take steps to deal with it. My request to yourselves is please provide us with more information in relation to that scenario, or scenarios, so that we can search for it and find it. We have possibly identified two of those scenarios: the two in the Victoria Derbyshire programme. In the one particular case of the veteran who had been subject to a court martial, we can absolutely and categorically say, assuming I have the right case—I think we have—that I did not speak to them at all during that part of the investigation. We conducted an overview of the papers. We didn’t do it ourselves. We were asked, on behalf of the Provost Marshal (Army) or the Ministry of Defence, to look at that particular case. It had been to a court martial. We looked at that case. We identified from the papers some options and lines of inquiry. We looked at those lines of inquiry without making any contact with any military personnel involved at that moment in time, and we identified that there was not anything that needed to go forward. We concluded that case. We are obliged to update the website. It is very limited information, but we are obliged by the court to put information on all the cases we are investigating on the website. I think a reporter had linked that case and had made contact with that gentleman. Then he rang us after we had finished the investigation, to which we said, “Sorry you’ve been troubled by another route. We have never had any intention of talking to you. The matter is concluded and that is the end of it.” Obviously, Sir George Newman then took the matter further as part of his responsibilities after a decision was made by the MoD to pass that case to him. But in that particular scenario, we did not speak to that gentleman.
Dr Lewis
Just to be absolutely clear on the number of your staff, is it 147 civilians? Is that right?
Mark Warwick
No, it’s a total of 147, but it is a circa number—it goes up, but that is the approximate number.
Dr Lewis
So we’re talking about 150 people approximately altogether, including about a dozen RN. Did I hear something said about civil servants as well?
Mark Warwick
There’s a support mechanism of about 16 civil servants, to run effectively the organisation and provide support and advice from their background working for the Ministry of Defence.
Dr Lewis
Is that included in the 150 total?
Mark Warwick
Yes.
Commander Hawkins
We have had two Ministry of Defence police persons working for us for about three years as well.
Dr Lewis
I get the impression that you have these teams going out, and they are all operating in parallel. Roughly how many people are there in each investigatory team?
Commander Hawkins
We have about 90 investigators.
Dr Lewis
Yes, but how many—you have teams going out.
Mark Warwick
Approximately 10 or 11. Some of the functions are slightly larger.
Dr Lewis
So you are working your way through this large number of investigations, and you would have teams of about 10 or 11 on each investigation. Is that right?
Mark Warwick
No, each team—we call them pods—would have approximately 11 people on it, including an RN officer, and they would have a number of investigations.
Dr Lewis
Okay, but in each team, you have someone from the RN background—
Commander Hawkins
No, it is not possible.
Mark Warwick
In most of our investigation teams—the pods—we do.
Dr Lewis
So when the teams make their approach to the people, some of them long-since retired from the services, there is no necessity that it would be anybody other than these civilians who might be doing the interviewing. There is no RN policeman necessarily overlooking them, so there is the possibility that something could go wrong, isn’t there?
Mark Warwick
Just to be crystal clear on the structure, a pod manages a set of investigations. It is about 11 people. It has a senior investigating officer, a deputy, an RN and then teams of two investigators. Commander Hawkins quite rightly said in relation to teams that two people go out and do actions and inquiries. Generally, you are quite correct; that would not contain an RN officer.
Dr Lewis
Okay. In response to Madeleine, you have expressed considerable confidence in the calibre of your teams. Given that the training they get is fairly limited, you are relying quite heavily on their previous experience and their personal qualities. Is that right?
Mark Warwick
Absolutely.
Dr Lewis
Out of the civilian staff, which is something like 120 people, have you had to fire, let go or discipline any of them for any form of misconduct in the way they have conducted their investigations?
Mark Warwick
Over the period of my tenure in IHAT, which is approximately four years, I believe we have not renewed the contract of approximately five people. That would be for a variety of reasons.
Dr Lewis
Yes, could you give us some examples?
Mark Warwick
It could be that we don’t require that particular skill any more, we don’t feel the person is performing at the level we expect them to perform at or we just don’t think they are the right fit for IHAT.
Dr Lewis
These numbers are very small, so there is no harm in you being completely candid, as I am sure you would be anyway. Out of this very small number of about five people, were there one, two, three, four or even five of them who you said were basically doing the wrong things and approaching this in a way that was unsuitable, given the concerns that Madeleine and Johnny have expressed?
Commander Hawkins
Maybe I can help. We have had examples of people not coming up to the right standard. I let someone go or I instigated the letting go of someone. We said to the contract provider at the time, “I’m not happy with that,” and he was let go quite quickly. It was straightforward—he was asleep in a chair when I walked in the office, and I wasn’t comfortable with that, so he went the next day. Another person was not wholly accurate on a CV; I wasn’t comfortable with that, so she went very soon after. Another person was involved in a civilian incident that was not related to IHAT business and we were not comfortable with that so we said we could not take it forward. Another individual did not come up to standard in taking the right route in how we wanted a witness to be spoken to in a third country. There could have been a better and more cost-effective way of speaking to that person. I was not comfortable about that so he was also let go. There have been others with whom we did not renew contracts.
Dr Lewis
You said you fired five.
Mark Warwick
We have to be careful with use of the word “fired”.
Dr Lewis
Well, asked to leave. You are now talking about people whose contracts were not renewed. I am just trying to get to the global figure.
Commander Hawkins
I think Mr Warwick is probably going to give you the wording.
Mark Warwick
The important thing is that we are not their employer. A decision was made a long time ago that we would use a competitive tender process to employ a company, so the MoD does not have responsibilities as an employer. We do not assume, for many legal reasons—
Dr Lewis
So their employer fires them, but they take it from you don’t they?
Mark Warwick
No, they may do something if they are not happy with that person’s conduct in performing their role.
Dr Lewis
Let’s narrow it down. The answer would seem to be a very small figure. You are saying we are looking at, at most, one or two people whose services were dispensed with because you were dissatisfied with the way they dealt with those people who were going to be accused of things or approached to be witnesses. Is that right?
Mark Warwick
It is, but we need to put it into context. We spend a lot of time and effort and we hold Red Snapper accountable to make sure we get the right people. We don’t just accept Red Snapper saying, “Here are 10 CVs; these 10 people can come and work for you.” We don’t accept that.
Dr Lewis
So what you are saying—I know you want to be as full as you can in your answers—is that there are virtually no instances of people having been dismissed as a result of dealing badly with the ex-service personnel who are being investigated or approached to be witnesses. Is that right?
Mark Warwick
In relation to the instance we were aware of, we have had, as you say, a small number.
Dr Lewis
It sounds like a very small number.
Mark Warwick
I come back to the quality and previous experience of the people we recruit. But if we were to identify people who had not dealt with people in the appropriate manner—in the way that is expected and on which they were briefed and trained, and should know from their previous experience—then those people would not be working for IHAT any longer. But I go back to the fact they are professional people who are used to working in this environment. We would expect that because we are not just taking 10 CVs from Red Snapper. We are going through a process.
Dr Lewis
Commander Hawkins, would you say that, looking at the cohort of people you have out there doing this business on the ground, however unpleasant or controversial it may be, you are satisfied that there is not more than an infinitesimally small number of occasions when these people behave inappropriately towards potential witnesses or people who will be put on trial?
Commander Hawkins
I have had six complaints come to me. From the hundreds of people we have spoken to, six complaints have come to me to deal with. I don’t know how many or the nature of the complaints that have come to you, but one that came to me was: “Somebody knocked on my door. I didn’t know they were coming and I wasn’t very happy about that and didn’t know what was going on?”. Another was: “The letter I received didn’t have a letterhead. I wasn’t sure what it was; I was uncomfortable with that letter, so I phoned in to ask whether you wanted to speak to me, or whether you wanted to speak to me as a witness or as a suspect.” I’ve had one complaint of that. I have had another complaint from a wife whose door had been knocked on because we were looking for her husband. The officers made a phone call at the bottom of the drive and loitered around a bit too long. We dealt with that and said, “Don’t loiter. If you knock on a door, extract yourself as quickly as possible.” We had another complaint of an individual saying: “Why do other people in my chain of command know I am being interviewed?” That is a difficult balance because we are trying to satisfy the needs of the service person and to give them the opportunity to decide who they want to know about their interview, but he was not happy because other people knew. We are tightening that up to ensure that the needs of the individual are met. From the small selection I have here—knocking on a door, loitering around a bit too long making a phone call, or an individual not being happy—I have no incidence of the activity that you are describing, so I am comfortable. I can assure you that if somebody behaved inappropriately, including by saying they were a police officer, they would be dealt with appropriately.
Dr Lewis
So apart from one person who you said—I think, in a third country—spoke inappropriately to somebody, nobody else has been sacked for the way in which they have dealt with witnesses?
Commander Hawkins
That wasn’t the way he dealt with the witness. The witness said that he was willing to come back to the UK. I think I mentioned that it was far more cost-effective to do it another way. Instead, the intention was to go to that country. The witness was very happy with the way he was spoken to. It is just that I was not content that the right measures were put in place to do it as cost-effectively as possible, so we dealt with that.
Dr Lewis
To conclude this then, there have not been any cases of anybody who has been sacked for the way they dealt with either a witness or somebody who might be going be prosecuted?
Commander Hawkins
No.
Dr Lewis
Finally from me, would most of the ex-police staff and investigators that you employ be in receipt of police pensions? Would they be drawing them now? Does that include you, Mr Warwick? Are you drawing a police pension alongside the current salary that you are getting for this work?
Mark Warwick
Obviously, the contractual arrangements between Red Snapper and its employees is something that I am not aware of. It is highly likely, given where people come from, that some of those people—not all—will be drawing a police pension. To answer the personal question that you asked, yes I am.
Chair
Gentlemen, I am beginning to come up against a few snags here. I understand that you have a very difficult job; I do not misunderstand that for a second. The problem that we are getting is that all aspects of the situation are coming in here and giving me different evidence. Martin Jerrold from Red Snapper has come in here and said that he was unaware of anybody being released by your teams. You have just mentioned complaints, Commander Hawkins. I have seen an email from a commanding officer complaining about one of your team members turning up and pretending to be a police officer. When we requested from IHAT information on the number of people who have been let go, they said five in the last year, not since 2010.
Mark Warwick
With respect, I didn’t say 2010. I said since I have been in post, which would be the end of 2012.
Chair
2011. But it was five in the last year—now it is five in your tenure. The distinct impression I am getting is that no one actually really knows.
Mark Warwick
Let me just deal with that last bit, and then I will let Commander Hawkins pick up on the initial bit. We are not the employer. We purposely do not adopt the principle or assume a position such that it could be implied at court at a later time that we are the employer of Red Snapper people. Therefore, we do not hold those records. We are saying that when people have not come up to the standards that we felt were appropriate over a period of time, we have said to Red Snapper, “We don’t want these people here.” Red Snapper may redeploy those people somewhere else. They may have another role; they may not. That is a matter for Red Snapper. In that context, we are not the employer. Therefore, there are different responsibilities and onuses on us. We need to be very careful, for many reasons, that we do not step into the arena of being seen to be the employer.
Commander Hawkins
On the RSG contract, a lot of the people I talked about were actually under the previous contract. It is fair to say that when you let people go for various misdemeanours, people tighten their game up. Since then, a number have been let go recently. That tightens everybody’s game up. In 2011, IHAT let an individual go for impersonating a police officer. That person tried to gain entry into an Army establishment and was picked up by the guards at the time. The MDP—the Ministry of Defence police—were called in. He was charged, punished and let go from the IHAT at that time. It is a criminal offence to impersonate a police officer, so if anyone does that, we would deal with it appropriately. I mentioned, as I think did you Mr Mercer, that somebody has turned up at an establishment pretending to be a police officer. There have been two police officers who have worked at the IHAT. One of the complaints talked about someone purporting to be a Ministry of Defence police officer. Well, he was. He is fully entitled to say, “I am sergeant such and such of the MDP.” If anybody is purporting to be a police officer and they are not, we will deal with that.
Chair
Have you investigated any of these incidents that have come to light?
Commander Hawkins
Of course, we respond to everybody. We have responded to everybody who has complained. The six who have complained to us, we have responded to and dealt with their complaints.
Mrs Moon
When you gave the list of reasons why people had rung in to you with complaints, one was that they had received a letter that was not on headed paper and, therefore, they rang to check. Do you normally use headed paper? If so, why on earth would someone send a letter on non-headed paper?
Commander Hawkins
Often, this is what happens. We are not in a constabulary or a particular county. We have got people all over the country and in some cases they go further afield. A line of inquiry presents itself, for example, and they have been to see an individual. That individual might say, “My friend was there and he lives only a few miles down the road.” It makes sense, is efficient and effective, to go to that address and try to make contact with that individual who may be able to assist the investigation. I would expect those individuals to utilise their time properly and go along to that address and knock and make contact with the individual. In this case, however, that did not happen. This was a letter that did not have headed paper and did not meet the standards that we expect, in terms of making contact with an individual. In fact, the individual who complained was not the one we were looking for anyway. It was the same name, initials and rank but, unfortunately, the investigator wrote to the wrong person. That was unfortunate but he was not spoken to any further. He was not seen face to face; it was a mistake. Mistakes happen. This is a huge series of investigations. We have processed 3,200 complainants. We have taken on board, taken on charge, 1,700 complainants. We have disposed of 700 of those, without speaking to soldiers, apart from 15. We are still processing more allegations. It is huge. I know we are talking about details, and that is probably right because it assists us.
Chair
All we can do is relate to you the evidence that we have been given. We are not being investigated. As Madeleine has just said, there is evidence there of the use of non-headed paper and whatever. I have seen emails that your staff have written from their personal email addresses: Bob Smith at Sky.com, message: Will you come in for an interview?
Commander Hawkins
Okay. That’s the first we’ve heard of that. I had no idea. I’m sorry. You are talking about allegations.
Chair
Do you not see that these incidents do not happen in isolation? They give an overall impression to us of, “What the hell is going on?” There are all these complaints. You have just said you had someone impersonating a police officer in 2011. I know for a fact that you also had that in 2014.
Commander Hawkins
For a fact?
Chair
We have had a complaint from a commanding officer about an individual impersonating a police officer. Are you saying that has not happened?
Commander Hawkins
If you bear with me for a second, there are proceedings in play at the moment that preclude us from talking about that particular incident. Forgive me for this but it is right that we do not comment any further because it may impinge on those proceedings, I’m sorry to say. That is not a cop-out. I hope you feel we have been open and honest with you but we cannot talk about some things.
Mrs Moon
We understand that.
Mr Gray
I understand that. I have two or three factual things that I have picked up from the evidence you have given so far. I would like to clarify one or two of them. You indicated that the induction training for investigators is three days. Red Snapper says it is seven days. Which is correct?
Mark Warwick
We do a three-day induction programme. They do additional work, sometimes with people beforehand. They have other processes and they offer other training.
Mr Gray
In answer to the question about PTSD, you said that you had had somebody in—you couldn’t remember, but you thought it was 18 months or two years ago—for one day. Presumably, since then quite a number of staff have left; there has been turnover of staff since then.
Mark Warwick
Actually, our turnover of staff is quite low in percentage terms, but I take the point. We look to use the knowledge that’s gained in the team. As Commander Hawkins said, there are people who have been there for a while; you have that knowledge in the team. But also we look to refresh that training, and if something comes out of the process that we are running—
Mr Gray
Hang on—“refresh”?
Mark Warwick
“Refresh” as in refresh our training process and refresh that—
Mr Gray
But do you or do you not do routine PTSD-type training?
Mark Warwick
Not routine in the sense of every year or every six months—no, we don’t—but the initial training that was done and the issues that I mentioned as part of our induction programme, and if people were lacking knowledge or experience, we would—
Mr Gray
Hang on. Let’s not get muddled here. The question was whether the investigators are trained to look after soldiers who may be suffering from PTSD. That was the question, and you said, perfectly correctly, “Oh yeah, I think about 18 months or two years ago we had an expert in to talk about that.” Okay?
Mark Warwick
Correct.
Mr Gray
My question then was, “Well, what about those people who have joined since then and did not benefit from that training? How do they know how to handle soldiers with PTSD?”
Mark Warwick
Because as part of the induction process, we include that.
Mr Gray
Oh, you do?
Mark Warwick
As part of the induction process, we will make awareness—but obviously that’s not the same as running a full day where—
Mr Gray
No. Okay, fine. For the first time, you are telling me that you do actually do PTSD-type training in the induction course.
Mark Warwick
Well, I think there’s a difference between training and knowledge. What I am saying is that on the induction programme, there would be knowledge imparted to people. What we recognised and is probably a fair point is that it’s probably worth a review and bringing forward again—
Mr Gray
It might have been easier to have told us that some time ago, rather than having to go through a cross-examination process in order for us to discover that soldiers are indeed—
Mark Warwick
Well, I’m just trying to speak to the questions you’re asking, sir, as best I can.
Mr Gray
Indeed so. A moment ago, my colleague, Madeleine Moon, inquired about the sort of training you were getting on PTSD and you didn’t tell us until I pressed you just now and you now tell me that actually there is routinely in the induction process PTSD training.
Mark Warwick
I’m sorry, sir; I’m not trying to make—there is a differentiation between training and awareness, and I am saying that in the induction process there is awareness. [Interruption.] I think it’s an important point. I am taking the point you are making, sir.
Mr Gray
May I move on to numbers? I got slightly muddled—I’m afraid it’s my fault. These figures are all in the public domain. You mentioned 700 cases that have been what you described as closed. Where do those figures appear from? Run me through the total number of cases so far, how many of them will not be pursued and all that. What are the numbers?
Commander Hawkins
The numbers—3,300 or thereabouts have come to IHAT for assessment. We have sifted out about 1,600, and what I mean by that is that they are either duplicates or they don’t outline any criminal offence, so straightaway we are saying, “We’re not going to deal with those.” Then there are the ones that we do decide to do some work on because to a reasonable person it appears that something has gone wrong. I mentioned that.
Mr Gray
Sorry, before you go on to that, did you say that you had sifted out 600?
Commander Hawkins
No, sorry, 1,600, I think.
Mr Gray
One thousand six hundred?
Commander Hawkins
Yes.
Mr Gray
I think 1,503 is the figure in your quarterly report. Does that ring any bells?
Mark Warwick
One thousand, six hundred and sixty-six is the precise number that have been sifted out.
Mr Gray
I see. That’s more up to date than the 30 June report. What are the 700, then?
Commander Hawkins
Once we allocate an IHAT number to a case—I think I mentioned earlier that we would do a lot of work without speaking to soldiers. We gather all the electronic and hard copies of information that was created at the time—shooting incident reports, radio logs and commanding officers’ letters—and we make an assessment of those allegations to see whether it is going to go any further. If there is not a realistic prospect of identifying a person, of an offence if you like, that will be disposed of. There is a higher number. [Interruption.] Forgive me, but if you bear with me, Mr Gray, there is a higher number that actually I don’t deem it proportionate to look at, and I have disposed of them without any further work. They may be low-level—
Mr Gray
So in simple terms, there were 3,500 complaints and 1,500 have been disposed of straightaway, leaving roughly the same number again—well, not 1,500 but 1,800 left over. How do they break down—the 1,800 that you are still—
Commander Hawkins
Sorry, I was just trying to get to those. The 700 that I have disposed of are in the process of being disposed of. What I mean is that I have made the decision to discontinue any further work. Two thirds of those I decided that it was not proportionate to investigate. They may be common assaults. They may be when a team goes into a house and secures that house—I am giving you an example; I’m not saying this is all of them. People may have been moved to positions and dealt with and secured very quickly, by way of example. If that complaint is, “I was assaulted,” we will deal with that appropriately. There are a number of allegations that it is not proportionate to deal with, and I have got rid of about 500 of those that I am just not going to deal with. That will leave the more serious allegations. If we took an allegation and kept going back to soldiers all the time—if we took one person’s allegation, their journey through British custody would keep going back to soldiers all the time. We can’t do that.
Mr Gray
Let’s focus on numbers, though, rather than—
Commander Hawkins
I’m trying to come to that, and I’m going to give you a number in a minute.
Mr Gray
Of the more serious cases that you have leftover, how many are there?
Commander Hawkins
We are left with about 900—about 1,000, actually.
Mr Gray
But the serious ones you are describing—
Commander Hawkins
No, I’m talking about the more serious ones. What we do—I will get into the detail for a second, if that’s okay. When all these allegations came in—the ones that we decided to do some further work on—we assessed them on the basis of what they were, and we would colour-code them red, amber and green. Green are the cases that I have looked at and don’t feel it is proportionate to deal with, so they have been disposed of. It doesn’t mean we won’t speak to them as potential witnesses.
Mr Gray
That’s the 1,500.
Commander Hawkins
No, that is 500 on top of the ones we have sifted out. These are the ones we have actually taken on charge, of the 1,700 we talked about. That then leaves the amber cases and the red cases. Red cases may be deaths in custody, allegations of rape and male rape and really serious injuries. Ambers may be slightly less serious but still actual bodily harm—
Mr Gray
Of the 1,000, how did they break down between the red and the amber?
Commander Hawkins
If you want me to pull a figure out, the red is about 100, but there are a significant number of allegations that, on paper, look really quite serious. They have gone through the sift.
Mr Gray
Your quarterly report says that 90 killings—
Mrs Moon
James, may I seek some clarification? When you say 1,000, are you talking about 1,000 allegations or 1,000 individuals under investigation?
Commander Hawkins
We are talking about 1,000 complainants that are currently left. I was just coming on—
Mr Gray
The serious ones, we are told, include 90 unlawful killings, 88 cases of criminal behaviour and so on. You have the numbers. I am not asking for the story behind what you are doing. I just want to be clear about the numbers of people you are investigating. That is my question.
Commander Hawkins
These aren’t people we are investigating, Mr Gray. These are still—I think you talked briefly to Sir David Calvert-Smith about victim-led to suspect-led. They were words that came from us. When you take 3,200 victims—complainants—we have to do some assessment around that. The point I’m coming to is, so that we don’t keep going back to soldiers and bothering them and dealing with an allegation in isolation, we group allegations. We group reds with ambers and green witnesses in order that when it comes to launching those investigations—
Mr Gray
What is a green witness?
Commander Hawkins
I have discontinued them as a complainant, so they may just be a witness to a potential allegation. We group a number of allegations around a particular facility or a particular company, so that when we then go to speak to the soldiers, we go to them once with a number of allegations. I think that’s reasonable, effective and efficient, and it only bothers soldiers once. The number we are trying to get to and hope to get to by the middle of the summer is 60 investigations that we will be left with.
Mr Gray
Six zero?
Commander Hawkins
Sixty investigations. I don’t want to mislead you; there will be a number of complainants contained within those 60 investigations, but that is where we’ll be in the middle of the summer next year. Taking potential investigations of 3,200, we are going to a more focused approach of focusing on particular facilities, and that number will be down to 60.
Mr Gray
So 3,200 down to 60 by next summer. How many successful prosecutions have there been so far?
Commander Hawkins
One.
Mr Gray
I see. Presumably there is a sort of strike rate, but of the 60, how many would you be confident will become successful prosecutions by next summer?
Commander Hawkins
That is very difficult to say.
Mr Gray
That’s why I asked it.
Commander Hawkins
It’s very difficult to say because clearly, a lot of that work needs to be done. We still need to do investigations. May I just flip the telescope around for a second? HMG is obliged to do these investigations, and we the IHAT are the vehicle for doing those investigations. Surely turning off and disposing of 700 and referring only three is a good news story for some people, and not necessarily a bad news story. Do you see where I am coming from?
Mr Gray
We will consider the interpretation of the figures when we write our report, rather than having a debate about it here. I am merely trying to ascertain the facts. The facts are that there are 3,500 and that by next summer you reckon it will be 60, and some of those may become successful prosecutions—so far there has been only one. Let me move on to something else.
Commander Hawkins
Forgive me, but may I just clarify a point? It is an ongoing process. Some of those 60 won’t go too far. We are not saying that there will be only 60 investigations left. Some investigations are ongoing, and we are saying now that we envisage that, by the summer, we will be down to 60 investigations, and they will be processed and discontinued as we move on.
Mr Gray
On your website you say that when you are going to go and see veterans, you write to them first. Do you guarantee that that has always occurred?
Mark Warwick
No. We will write to them where we can, but on some occasions we don’t have an address, and sometimes we have to make contact via phone or even through a third party. We would seek to write to them, and we would seek to give them advance notice, but there is not always an opportunity.
Mr Gray
Let us say write or phone. We have evidence, and we have read stuff, that people have turned up unannounced.
Mark Warwick
On occasions that may well occur. Commander Hawkins gave you an example. If an officer, Red Snapper people or Commander Hawkins’s RMP officers are deployed in the north and they speak to someone who says, “Well, actually, someone else knows something. They can tell you, and they live around the corner,” it would be a waste of public time and resource not to go and knock on that person’s door and at least make initial contact, but that is rare.
Mr Gray
Hang on a minute. A moment ago you said that one of the reasons you didn’t write to people is because you didn’t have their address.
Mark Warwick
What I am saying is that if you go to see a witness and that witness then gives details of another witness who is nearby, the officer or the Red Snapper employee may well go to that address at that point in time because it is in the locality and is part of the same inquiry.
Mr Gray
That strikes me as being a very sensible thing to do if you are on a police investigation, just to go and knock on people’s doors, but that is not what you say on your website. On your website you say that you think that writing to people before you go to see them is very important.
Mark Warwick
We do, where possible.
Mr Gray
But on this occasion, in your description, you have now been given someone’s address around the corner, but you say that you don’t write to them and that you just go round and knock on the door.
Mark Warwick
As you rightly said, it is a common-sense approach that if the person—
Chair
Sorry, Mr Warwick. You are repeating yourself. I absolutely understand the point you are making, but that negates the previous sentence that you are going to write to everyone. For some people, you do just turn up at their door.
Mark Warwick
I don’t think I did say that I would write to them. I said that, where possible, we would write to everyone.
Chair
But that is what it says on the website, isn’t it? It says, “We write to people before we come and see them.”
Mark Warwick
In general, we do.
Chair
In general you do, but you don’t do it all the time.
Commander Hawkins
Thank you for highlighting that.
Chair
Why don’t you write, “In general, we do this,” instead of saying, “We absolutely do this”? Otherwise, people think, “Okay, but you don’t.”
Commander Hawkins
Thank you.
Chair
In January, the Minister said that nobody hears from your team first. She said that they always hear from the military and that they are always contacted—they don’t get any surprise. You are telling me that, actually, that has happened before January of this year. You were aware of it, and you let the Minister come to this place and say something that wasn’t correct.
Mark Warwick
I am sorry—all I can say is that, where possible, we seek to make contact.
Chair
I am so sorry, Mr Warwick, but “Where possible, we try to do this” doesn’t really mean anything. There either is a policy or there is not a policy. If the Minister comes to the House of Commons and says, “Nobody hears from IHAT first” and you work in IHAT and know that is not the case, do you not think you have a responsibility to speak up?
Commander Hawkins
I am sorry if that is the case. We have to take the needs of the soldier first, as well as the investigation. If the Minister stood up and said that, I cannot comment on that.
Chair
Hang on.
Commander Hawkins
No, please let me explain. It might be useful for me to explain. I brought out the scenario earlier of the soldier who said, “Why do other people know about me being spoken to?” The needs of the individual are very important. Some soldiers do not want their chain of command knowing that they are giving evidence, they just don’t.
Chair
This isn’t the point though, is it? It is the fact that the Minister—. This is my problem with this entire investigation. People like me want you to weed out those who have committed war crimes and bang them up. They should be in prison. The problem is that this thing just seems to have got completely out of control when the Minister comes and says one thing that you, in charge of IHAT, know not to be the case. You claim that you did not know that she was saying that or giving that evidence in Westminster, but that is really important stuff. For us to be told that none of these soldiers gets approached by IHAT first, and you knowing that actually that is not the case. It gives the impression, does it not, that something is out of control here? Or is that a misinterpretation? What has gone wrong in that particular case?
Mark Warwick
Initially, Commander Hawkins, the Royal Navy Police and the RFA require operational independence in terms of investigation. So, if an investigation decides in a unique moment that it is necessary to speak to that person before, and the examples Commander Hawkins gives you about the military personnel, the military veteran, may not want the chain of command to know. If that is the route that is decided, then that is the route we should take. I take your point, Mr Mercer, and, absolutely, I will look into why the Minister said that and what was the communication to the Minister beforehand to ensure that she did not mislead the House of Commons. I do not know what she said; I have not seen a record of that, and I do not know what information or questions we were asked, but I will look into that.
Commander Hawkins
And it is possible that when we speak to a person under caution, we always speak to the chain of command to ensure that they are in the loop because the commanding officer, as you know, has certain responsibilities when somebody has been spoken to under caution. So, if it is a witness, it is a little trickier because we do not always know where they are, but if it is a person that needs to be spoken to after caution, then the commanding officer is made aware. The same applies for an individual who has left the service. We nominate a commanding officer for them, in order that that pastoral blanket can be thrown around them. In those circumstances, that’s when we go to the CO first. But for witnesses, given the amount of them—. Now there is some paperwork going around at the moment that we are of a mind to say to COs, “Look, we may well be speaking to a number of your people in the future, you may need to be aware of it,” but we won’t go beyond that at the moment because of the needs of the soldier need to be considered first.
Chair
Basically, you can just drive around asking people questions, assuming that they are witnesses—
Commander Hawkins
May I just be clear on that?
Chair
I am sorry but there is a vote right at this moment, so I am going to have to call order and pause the proceedings. Can we all come straight back here in seven minutes time? Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—
Chair
Thank you, and apologies for that. We are going to carry on in a moment, but I think it is worth while just to take a pause. I must be honest: I am finding it hard to understand some of the things you are saying. If there is any difficulty in understanding a question, or if you are not happy with the question, please ask me and I will get it repeated to you. I am genuinely finding it quite difficult to understand some of the information that is coming out. I know that you have an extremely difficult job, and the easiest thing in the world is to get nowhere by getting a bit frustrated by the process. I genuinely want your answers on the stuff that we are here today to discuss. I just ask you to tell us if you are not clear on some of the questions. We saw that particularly with Mr Gray and the numbers and so on. If you want to write to us afterwards, that is fine as well. We will ask you at the end of this session to write to us with the numbers, so that we are right up to date. Is that okay?
Commander Hawkins
That is fine.
Mark Warwick
May I just clarify the witness issue that we were talking about just before you went off to vote?
Chair
Of course.
Mark Warwick
I genuinely think that the issue between witness and suspect is getting confused here, so may I separate this? I accept that if our website says or implies something different or can be read a different way, we will absolutely go away and look at it and change it. Our policy in relation to witnesses is: we will first write, phone or, in exceptional circumstances—and other circumstances, but it is not the general policy—make contact with witnesses, and we ask them whether they wish the chain of command to be informed that we are speaking to them. The moment they say yes, all contact then will be through the chain of command. In the few circumstances—and I think it is a few, but there are some—in which they do not want the chain of command to be informed, for whatever reason, and that is their right as an individual witness, the chain of command would not be informed. In relation to suspects, with all the interviews that we have done after caution—we have done only 27 interviews after caution—all the suspects will be approached via the chain of command. There is an option, if we wanted and if we felt there was interference with the investigation, to follow procedures where we could do that simultaneously, but in all the examples where we have arrested someone—generally by appointment, or of a serving person—we have done it through the chain of command.
Commander Hawkins
Sorry, I think you may have just made a slip there—
Mark Warwick
My colleague will update you on one point.
Commander Hawkins
On the final point there, we will tell the chain of command what we are doing; we will not necessarily do it via the chain of command. Clearly, sometimes, we have to go direct to the individual. That is just the way it is.
Mr Gray
So to clarify, in the 27 discussions under caution—out of all 3,500, but 27 so far—all 27 have been advised in advance.
Commander Hawkins
Mr Gray, sorry, of the 3,200 complainants—let us not get complainants mixed up with the amount of people we have spoken to. Sorry, that is how the question came over—I am just clarifying the question.
Mr Gray
Let me clarify the question. You indicated that 27 people have been examined under caution. Of those 27, are you content that all 27 were notified in advance that they were going to be interviewed under caution?
Mark Warwick
To clarify, 27 people have been interviewed after caution. Of those, seven were arrested, and of those, four were by appointment with solicitors. So, if you break it down: 27, four, three. Does that help?
Mr Gray
They were all advised in advance?
Mark Warwick
For three persons who were arrested there was not advance information, in the sense of requesting the person to be there at a certain point and it being actually advised that we were going to arrest these people at the time.
Mr Gray
So when you said a moment ago that if you cannot get hold of them, you might meet someone else who would tell you that they are just around the corner, and all that stuff you told us, that did not occur with any of the 27?
Mark Warwick
Sorry, again I am going to differentiate. That was referring to witnesses. I was talking about suspects.
Mr Gray
That was witnesses, I see. Okay. It is witnesses that I want to come on to next. You mentioned something called “green witnesses” a moment ago—
Commander Hawkins
Green allegations.
Mr Gray
No, the expression you used was “green witnesses”—it is all in Hansard, it is no good changing now, it is all written down. You talked about “green witnesses”, so what are green witnesses?
Commander Hawkins
Once I have decided to discontinue the allegations they have made—that I am not going to pursue those, because it is not proportionate to do so—they may still feature as a witness to something more serious. So they become witnesses. I have called them green witnesses to try to explain that they were complainants who have alleged some wrongdoing that I do not believe to be proportionate to investigate. So I have called them green witnesses to aid your understanding, but actually they are just potential witnesses. It does not necessarily mean that we will speak to them, but they may have been at the place where something more serious happened.
Mr Gray
My final question is on prior notice. Give me a feeling for the percentages in the course of the very many interviews that you have done in the past four years. What percentage of them had prior notice that you were going to interview them as witnesses, and what percentage did not? Roughly.
Mark Warwick
When I talk about the 700 cases—
Chair
Sorry, Mr Warwick, would you mind just answering that directly in percentage terms, so it is really clear for me to understand what the answer is?
Mark Warwick
I am trying to, but I cannot answer it in that way. I am trying to give you the best figure, and the best figure is the sense that I am giving you now. In relation to the 700 cases that Commander Hawkins has concluded on the grounds of proportionality—not the 1,600 that weren’t even crimes—of those 700 cases there were 15 cases where we spoke to witnesses. In those cases, there were approximately 300 witnesses, of which 85 were medics.
Mr Gray
What?
Mark Warwick
Eighty-five were medics. The reason we differentiate that point is because—
Mr Gray
Sorry, you are going down all sorts of useful, interesting side tracks about whether they are medics or not, but the question is, how many witnesses were advised before you interviewed them? All this about how many medics there were—that was not the question. The question is, what percentage of people had a person turning up on their doorstep or at their barracks asking them questions? What percentage? Was it 1%, 10% or 35%? What was it?
Mark Warwick
We do not collect statistics in that way.
Mr Gray
So you don’t know.
Mark Warwick
I can’t answer that question.
Mr Gray
Quite interesting. So you don’t know what percentage of witnesses were not advised in advance.
Commander Hawkins
May I just—
Mr Gray
No, just answer the question. Do you know the answer to my question? What percentage of witnesses were not advised in advance that an IHAT person or a Red Snapper person was going to turn up at their door? Do you know the answer to that question?
Mark Warwick
I cannot answer that question here. I may be able to go away and run a search through our system to answer that question, but I cannot answer it now.
Mr Gray
Okay, great. So with all the discussion we have had so far as to whether or not people were being properly treated on the doorstep, you are now telling me that you don’t know whether those people were properly treated on the doorstep. You are saying that you have not got the figures. You said a moment ago, “It’s all fine, don’t worry, it’s all under control.” But now, under cross-examination, as it were—I don’t mean to be too much like the Old Bailey— you are telling me that actually you do not know what percentage of the people were not warned in advance.
Mark Warwick
You asked me two different questions, Sir. Those are two different questions that you are putting across.
Mr Gray
Well try answering both then.
Mark Warwick
You are saying, first, “Were people dealt with correctly on the doorstep?” You say that I don’t know if these people—
Mr Gray
No, that was not the question. The question was about being given advanced notice that they were going to be.
Mark Warwick
But you linked it into asking if they were dealt with correctly; I am sorry, but that is what I heard. I am saying that the complaints that we have had, as Commander Hawkins has talked about, in relation to our activities and the investigation we conducted, are what they are. In relation to whether I can tell you—this is the question you asked me—the percentage of people that we did not inform initially by letter or phone call and just turned up on their doorsteps, I cannot answer that question here and now. I will seek to go through our systems and processes, and the systems, numbers and data we hold, to see if I can answer that question for you.
Mr Gray
That would be helpful.
Dr Lewis
Sorry to return, for the third time, to this question of green witnesses. I thought that perhaps these were people who had been accused of something, and that you had— Commander Hawkins indicated dissent.
Dr Lewis
Yes, I now know that they are not, but to set the context—these were people who had been accused of something, and you had decided that they were not guilty but might still give valuable testimony as witnesses. But in your response to James a moment ago you said, “No, on the contrary. These were people who had made allegations.” So, these are people who had made allegations, which you have decided do not warrant further investigation. Is that right?
Commander Hawkins
It is not proportionate for us. We could be here for years and years and years if we dealt with absolutely every allegation, so it is not proportionate to deal with them.
Dr Lewis
Right. We are not disagreeing. So these are people who have made allegations against present or former British service personnel and you have decided that those do not reach the appropriate standard to go further. With them having made what can only be described as a failed allegation, you are then saying that they are still relevant to have as witnesses in other allegations, perhaps made by other people against service personnel. I would have thought that if they had made allegations that were not good enough to proceed with, they would be very unreliable witnesses, if only because they would be rather disappointed that their own allegations had not made the grade to be used in cases against other personnel. Isn’t that right?
Commander Hawkins
I would like to be very clear and take my time to answer this. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that allegations come in and we assess them and look at their severity. The most serious allegations—I talked about death in custody, I talked about rape, male rape, and others—attract a red sort of score, a very high score, if you will. They get prioritised and we deal with those as quickly as possible because it is right to do that. There are other allegations that come in that I haven’t done any work on. We look at what the allegation is, for example, “I was pushed by a soldier” or “I was shoved out of the way by a soldier and I banged my shoulder”. We are not saying they are vexatious. We accept that; we accept the complaint—we are just not going to deal with it. But if you consider that that individual may have then gone to the same detention facility as the person who was raped perhaps, they may feature in that investigation because they may have been there when that allegation—that very serious offence—took place. So they may be spoken to as a witness. Their case was not discontinued because we found them to be lying; we just haven’t dealt with it. We haven’t treated them as a complainant because it is not proportionate to do so. Is that clear?
Dr Lewis
It is a clear answer but I will push it a tiny bit further. Would you accept in return that there is a smidgen of danger that if someone has brought a complaint and the complaint has not been proceeded with—even though they haven’t been branded as a liar—that might somehow influence any evidence that they would then give as a witness in a complaint against somebody else, if they were a disappointed complainant themselves?
Commander Hawkins
Not at all. It is purely based on proportionality.
Chair
Proportionality, not credibility.
Commander Hawkins
Absolutely. Let me give an example. You have your car damaged outside on the street. You phone the police. They will give you a crime number. They won’t necessarily come out and do forensics on the car, because it is not proportionate to do so—they have got more serious things to deal with. I am just saying that there is a huge number of allegations. We are talking about 3,200 complainants. We are talking about many, many, many more actual allegations and the journey of an individual from being arrested all the way to being released. They could make many, many allegations.
Dr Lewis
I’ve got the point, but the only difference in the parallel that you draw is that if something happens and there is a bit of damage to my car, it is not that I have made the complaint because a bunch of ambulance-chasing lawyers have put me up to doing it and then I have been disappointed because it wasn’t proceeded with. That is why the evidence of such a complainant might be tainted in a way that—
Commander Hawkins
I hope I have made it clear that that is not the reason why it is discontinued. It is discontinued because it is just one of those that it is not proportionate to deal with.
Mark Warwick
I believe that the Attorney General made that point, that we can’t just turn those allegations off, for that reason. Just to reassure you, just because Commander Hawkins keeps that investigation in sight, in terms of even though he is not going to investigate them anymore, there could be a witness, in most probability that person will never, ever be spoken to as a witness because they won’t be required. The focus of the investigation will be on the most serious.
Chair
Thank you very much. Have individuals that you have interviewed in this country as witnesses during inquiries later been interviewed as suspects? Has that ever happened?
Commander Hawkins
Yes.
Chair
Is that allowed? Is that legal?
Commander Hawkins
Yes, if you have spoken to them at a time when you thought they witnessed something, but you later discover that they may have done something wrong.
Chair
Through something they may inadvertently say.
Commander Hawkins
It’s possible. It could be one of two things. One, you are always a witness. It is always possible that you self-incriminate and once you are being spoken to you, you say something that really is quite serious. The investigator should caution you and say, “Ah. Can’t talk to you anymore.” and extract themselves. Or you may provide a statement and later, as the investigation matures, it may seem that other people have said that actually you were culpable. That then, I’m afraid, causes us to re-look at you to see if you are worth interviewing after caution. That is normal police procedure.
Chair
Do you make it clear to individuals whether they are a witness or a suspect?
Commander Hawkins
When we come to speak to them, we say, “We are coming to speak to you as a witness.”
Chair
You make that clear on every occasion?
Commander Hawkins
Absolutely. If an individual is being contacted, it should be made absolutely clear that they are being spoken to as a witness. I am not saying that there haven’t been errors in the past, because it may have been lost in translation or whatever, but a good detective of many years’ experience will let that person know why they are coming to see them.
Mrs Moon
You are carrying out surveillance on our personnel and veterans. Can you tell us why?
Mark Warwick
First, I would not confirm or deny that we are using surveillance methods because that is an appropriate police tactic to use if it is necessary in serious criminal investigations. What I will say is that with the nature of our investigative caseload, it would be rare that we would use those tactics, if we did use those tactics.
Mrs Moon
So you may or you may not use surveillance is what you are saying.
Mark Warwick
Correct.
Mrs Moon
You are not willing to clarify that.
Mark Warwick
Correct.
Mrs Moon
Okay; well, we have been told very clearly that you are.
Chair
It is the public domain, actually, in Sir David Calvert-Smith’s report, that you used RIPA powers to investigate individuals.
Mark Warwick
Again, RIPA powers crosses a wide range of activities, from obtaining a piece of information from a public company about something that is held by someone—
Chair
It is generally understood as surveillance, though, isn’t it?
Mark Warwick
As I say, I am not willing to confirm beyond that.
Mrs Moon
Are you willing to confirm, or are you going to deny, that you are monitoring people’s social media accounts—for those who are under investigation?
Mark Warwick
I will come back to my original statement; I will not confirm or deny any surveillance activity that is or is not taking place.
Chair
Okay. If we can move on to the practice of interviewing witnesses: your last quarterly review said that the Operation MENSA process has been suspended; for everybody here, can you just explain what Operation MENSA is, very briefly?
Mark Warwick
Operation MENSA is the ability of the operation to speak to, generally, Iraqi witnesses in a third country, to obtain their account of what happened.
Chair
So that has been suspended; why was that?
Mark Warwick
It is now running again, but only recently—only in the past month. The reason it was suspended was through difficulties in relation to visas—permission to enter a third country.
Chair
Sir David Calvert-Smith made a pretty fair point—that your average individual would suggest using video conferencing to get these things. We are talking about public expenditure on this inquiry of £57 million since 2010. He has said why don’t you use video conferencing to do this? Why are you flying individuals out there and putting them up? I would put my hand up to go and do that in a heartbeat. Why weren’t you using video conferencing earlier on?
Mark Warwick
We were using video conferencing.
Chair
So he is wrong.
Mark Warwick
No, I think he was aware we were using video conferencing. I think he suggested we should use it more.
Dr Lewis
Why weren’t you using it more? Why did he feel it necessary to point out that you were doing these visits the hard way, as it were, when you knew how to do it the simpler way?
Mark Warwick
He was concerned: the point Public Interest Lawyers have continually made at court through the years of legal representation in Ali Zaki Mousa No. 1 and No. 2 and Al-Saadoon was they, and I emphasise it was they, expected that all of their 3,000 witnesses, or about 2,500, would be interviewed in person. We never agreed to that. All we ever agreed to was that we would interview the most serious offences, where it was necessary to get that evidence, by virtue of achieving best evidence. So we never acknowledged that.
Dr Lewis
Surely it is for the court to decide how you go about this, not for the defendants or the potential defendants’ lawyers to determine that you have to go.
Mark Warwick
We are subject to a court order from His Honour Justice Leggatt that directs us in many ways on how we need to do interviews. We have challenged some of those court orders and we have sought to vary those, but we are subject to his direction and oversight of how we conduct our interviews, to ensure—