Lord Hermer told human rights lawyers who pursued a decade-long false war crimes case against British soldiers that they had made a greater contribution to society than the decorated troops they had wrongly accused, emails obtained by The Telegraph reveal.
The Attorney General sent the message to a junior solicitor at Leigh Day following the emergence of evidence at a public inquiry that fatally undermined claims that British troops had tortured and executed civilians after the 2004 Battle of Danny Boy in southern Iraq. In the correspondence, Lord Hermer wrote that the falsely accused soldiers could never claim to have “made a real difference to people’s lives” — unlike the lawyers who had spent years pursuing what a subsequent inquiry found to be fabricated allegations.
The £31 million public inquiry, chaired by Sir Thayne Forbes, ultimately concluded that the Iraqi allegations were “deliberate lies” driven by “ingrained hostility” towards the British Army. Despite that finding, the emails — part of 25,000 pages of court documents analysed by The Telegraph — suggest Lord Hermer continued to view the human rights lawyers’ work favourably even as the case unravelled around them.
In an email dated 20 April 2014, Lord Hermer wrote to Anna Crowther, a solicitor at Leigh Day, reassuring her after she failed to recognise the significance of a key document that had emerged during the inquiry. That document — a personnel list identifying nine of the firm’s clients as members of the Mahdi Army, an Iran-backed militia — directly contradicted the Iraqis’ claims to be innocent farmers caught in crossfire. Lord Hermer told Ms Crowther: “You are making an extraordinary contribution to securing redress for torture victims in Iraq… something that Forbes, Neil Garnham or his clients can never say.” Sir Neil Garnham, now a High Court judge, had been lead counsel for the British soldiers at the inquiry. His “clients” were the very troops Lord Hermer’s clients had falsely accused.
Separate emails seen by The Telegraph show the Attorney General acknowledging it was “inevitable that some of the Iraqi cases were going to collapse”, and dismissing criticism from the military as “venting” from those who had faced “years of crap for Iraq generally.” When Leigh Day founder Martyn Day described the failure to identify the key document as “a real f— up”, Lord Hermer’s response focused largely on the implications for more than 200 other Iraqi claims on which he was also advising the firm, warning that the Ministry of Defence would “fight as hard as they can on the remaining civil claims.”
The disclosures have intensified calls for Sir Keir Starmer to dismiss his closest Cabinet ally. General Sir Peter Wall, former head of the Army, said the revelations confirmed “the mismatch between the Attorney General’s role in overseeing the legality of military operations and his apparent disdain for soldiers on the front line.” Lance Corporal Brian Wood, who was awarded the Military Cross at the Battle of Danny Boy before being falsely accused of war crimes, said Lord Hermer was “clearly not fit to be Attorney General and must resign.”
The Telegraph previously revealed that Lord Hermer had continued to pursue the Danny Boy case as lead counsel on a no-win, no-fee basis despite repeated warnings that his Iraqi clients could be “on the make” and that their claims were “implausible.” He has since been reported to the Bar Standards Board over allegations of professional misconduct.
A spokesman for the Attorney General said the emails showed Lord Hermer “offering support to a junior lawyer — who was exonerated of any wrongdoing — and who was going through a difficult time”, adding that Lord Hermer “always acted with the highest professional standards.” A Leigh Day spokesman said the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal had “completely exonerated the firm and its solicitors of any wrongdoing.”
The Government is already facing pressure over its treatment of armed forces veterans, with MPs due to vote on Monday on whether to carry over Labour’s Troubles Bill, which critics say leaves former British soldiers exposed to prosecution.
