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Veterans plot Cenotaph boycott in protest at soldier charged with Bloody Sunday murders

Army veterans are plotting a boycott of the Cenotaph remembrance parade in protest at the prosecution for murder of a former paratrooper over Bloody Sunday.

The decision to bring charges against the soldier, now in his 70s, has stirred up huge resentment among comrades who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Former members of the Parachute Regiment have said they will refuse to attend the official Remembrance Sunday service and parade as a result. They are in talks with other units to join their boycott. Applications to take part in the National Service of Remembrance, held in Whitehall, open next month.

Belfast protest: Army veteran threatens to bring UK to STANDSTILL at soldier prosecutions



A FORMER soldier facing prosecution in Northern Ireland has warned that veterans could bring the UK to a standstill over Troubles-related legal action.

Dennis Hutching is a former member of the Life Guards Regiment and is due to be tried for attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting in 1974. Mr Hutchings addressed a rally in support of another former serviceman known only as Soldier F outside Belfast City Hall. Mr Hutchings told the crowd of supporters: "We need this to continue and it will continue." He said: "Eventually our politicians are going to have to listen because if they won't we will bring this country to a standstill." Mr Hutchings addressed the crowd via a phone call relayed on loudspeakers.

Several hundred supporters of Soldier F listened while holding Union flags and banners with the crest of the Parachute Regiment.

A former Parachute Regiment lance-corporal, identified only so far as Soldier F, is due to stand trial for the murder of two people after troops opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry in January 1972.

Relatives of the 13 killed, on what became know as Bloody Sunday, have campaigned for people to be prosecuted over the deaths.

But others believe soldier F should not face trial.

The protesters claim a form of immunity given to paramilitaries during the Northern Ireland peace process should be extended to British soldiers who served in the country.

However, it is understood that between 150 and 200 former soldiers and police are under investigation for alleged actions taken during the Troubles.

The figure, which is an estimate from the Ministry of Defence, surfaced after the British government came under intense pressure from Tory backbenchers.

One MP told a veteran the prosecution of British soldiers were being driven by a “cultural Marxist hatred of our national history” on the part of the “liberal establishment”.

However, any new measures would not apply to cases arising in Northern Ireland.

Revealed: How Theresa May 'betrayed' Northern Ireland veterans facing prosecution



Theresa May personally blocked ministers from proposing a new law that could have protected Northern Ireland veterans from facing murder charges, an explosive memo reveals.

A private letter sent on the Prime Minister’s behalf orders that a government consultation on addressing unsolved murders during the Troubles “should not contain” proposals for a statute of limitations on historic prosecutions of military personnel.

The official memo, drawn up by Mrs May’s assistant private secretary and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, also warns that veterans should be offered “equal, rather than preferential, treatment” relative to other groups affected by the consultation, which include terrorists.