14.1 | Military equipment (post-conflict)

829. Mr Hutton repeated the reasons he had provided to Ms Smith as to why he had

decided not to hold a public inquiry into the matter. He said it was “also important to

be clear” that it could not be assumed that the 37 servicemen and women would have

survived if they had been in more heavily armoured vehicles. Any vehicle could be

overmatched and armour was only one part of the tactics, techniques and procedures

that were used to protect troops.

830. On 10 July 2009, Ms Smith won a right to a judicial review, on limited grounds,

of the Government’s decision not to hold a Snatch Inquiry.443

831. A letter from the Treasury Solicitors to Ms Smith’s solicitors on 15 September

stated that that had prompted a “fresh decision” by Mr Bob Ainsworth, who became the

Defence Secretary in June 2009. He had again considered the question of whether an

inquiry should be held and decided that an inquiry would be an inappropriate use of

public resources given the extent to which the subject had already been examined.

On 19 June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that relatives of three soldiers killed in Iraq,

and two others seriously injured, had a right to sue the Government for negligence and

pursue damages under human rights legislation.444 In doing so, the Court rejected the

MOD’s arguments that the principle of combat immunity applied; the MOD had a duty of

care over soldiers regardless of whether they had left the British base in the line of duty.

The proceedings concerned three sets of claims, one of which was brought by Ms Smith

(the mother of Private Phillip Hewett) and the relatives of Private Lee Ellis over the

MOD’s alleged breach of Article 2, the Human Right to Life, in the preventative measures

available to protect the lives of troops travelling in Snatch vehicles. Private Ellis’s relatives

also brought a claim of negligence against the MOD.

The case against the Government for damages and negligence was still continuing at the

time of the Iraq Inquiry’s publication.

The Iraq Inquiry has considered material provided by Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors and

has taken account of that when putting questions to witnesses during the public hearings

and when drafting its Report.

443 Letter Kennedy [Treasury Solicitors] to Cockburn [Hodge Jones & Allen], 15 September 2009, ‘Snatch

Land Rovers, R (oao Susan Smith) v. Secretary of State for Defence’. Mr Justice Mitting in the High Court

ruled that the right was limited in that the past use of Snatch could be investigated, but its present and

future deployment was unimpeachable.

444 Smith and Others (Appellants) v. The Ministry of Defence (Respondent); Ellis and another

(FC) (Respondents) v. The Ministry of Defence (Appellant); Allbutt and Others (FC) (Respondents)

v. The Ministry of Defence (Appellant) [2013] UKSC 41.

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