A senior lawyer who pursued serious claims against British soldiers in Iraq held a press conference outlining those allegations despite conflicting medical reports about what had happened, a disciplinary tribunal has heard.
In his second day of giving evidence to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Leigh Day’s senior partner Martyn Day was told he should have waited for evidence of two doctors before telling the world’s media that there was evidence to support claims that the army had killed, tortured and mistreated Iraqi civilians.
Representing the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Timothy Dutton QC referred to a report in The Guardian in 2004 which quoted an ‘unnamed doctor’ whose post mortem on bodies collected after the 2004 Battle of Danny Boy had concluded that injuries that formed the basis of the allegations might have been sustained as a result of combat wounds.
This, he said, was inconsistent with the conclusions of another doctor and at odds with the central allegations.
Dutton pointed to email correspondence between Day and Phil Shiner, then of Public Interest Lawyers, in which the significance of speaking to both doctors was noted.
‘You needed the account of both doctors to get to the bottom of what happened,’ Dutton told Day.
Among the doctor’s findings was that injuries to a casualty whose penis had allegedly been ‘chopped off’ could have in fact been caused by bullet wounds in the groin area. There were similar accounts for injuries to the arms and neck of another casualty.
Dutton added that further evidence was submitted after the press conference from a pathologist who said that the injuries could have been sustained in battle.
Day insisted that the firm had not misled anyone and was merely putting forward the position of clients. He added that his firm had not ignored claims that some clients might have been members of the insurgent Mahdi army, though he conceded they may not have directly been asked about any links.
‘Their case made it clear to us that they told us they were innocent bystanders and we can take it from that they were not Mahdi army members. It’s our job to understand our clients, though we probably never put that question directly to them,’ he said.
Also today, Day blamed a ‘system failure’ in explaining why a document known as the OMS list, which showed that the prisoners detained by British troops after the battle were members of the Mahdi army, had not been consulted earlier.
‘As a senior partner I do not check through every piece of paper on each file,’ Day said. Asked who was to blame for the omission, Day said the document was probably considered not that relevant at the time.
Leigh Day and three of its solicitors – Day, Sapna Malik and Anna Crowther – all deny wrongdoing. The hearing continues.
Iraq press conference went ahead despite ‘conflicting evidence’
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