Abusive British soldiers are handed light sentences and anonymity in light of Woolwich

ellio · Jun 4, 2013

One British soldier has been fined and another has had his rank reduced at a court martial after admitting abusing civilians in Afghanistan.

One soldier admitted pulling an Afghan boy's hand towards his crotch at the hearing in Germany; the other admitted racially abusing an Afghan man.

The court was shown video footage of the incident, which took place near a checkpoint, showing the former serviceman with a child surrounded by other soldiers and laughing as he repeated "touch my special place" several times.

Judge Advocate Alan Large said it would be wrong to name the soldiers in light of the murder in Woolwich of Drummer Lee Rigby and concerns about the threat posed by "lone wolves".

One part of me is unimpressed at how light the punishments they received are - in any career based inside the UK where similar behaviour was performed towards the child in front of colleagues, the punishment would be a helluva lot worse than a demotion and a fine.

Another part of me is unimpressed that the Judge felt to specify that they should receive anonymity in light of Woolwich, and the fact that the BBC are also reporting this. It's adding more fuel to the hysteria that the Woolwich incident is something other than a very sad but very rare occurrence.

Should they even be entitled to anonymity? Is this sentence fair or is it just another case of Western soldiers getting away with being horrible because it's happening over seas?

Fran · Jun 4, 2013

Ugh. Revolting. I'm sick of the "It's a war!" excuses. Thousands of soldier manage to act like reasonable human beings every day. Sweeping things like this under the carpet just fuels tension. I fail to see what sexually assaulting a wee boy has got to do with Woolwich. Since it's coming to trial now, it probably occured long before Mr Rigby was murdered.

What justice has that little boy seen? None. Maybe he can dismiss it and carry on with his life. Maybe in ten years time he'll be blowing stuff up. I sincerely hope it's the former, but this can hardly be good for local relations. Sometimes in cases like this there can be no justice for the survivor. That doesn't mean nobody should try.

I think counselling and other mental health support should be made much more widely available to serving soldiers. It might prevent things like this happening again.

Abusive British soldiers are handed light sentences and anonymity in light of Woolwich

ellio

a hardback life on an ebook budget

Fran

Slate grey mole person