Battler who wore down the ministry

Aug 17 2006 By Graeme Whitfield, The Journal

A Journal article in 1990 led one North veteran to campaign on behalf of soldiers shot for cowardice during the First World War. As he finally tastes success more than 15 years on, Shot at Dawn campaigner John Hipkin talks to Graeme Whitfield.

It was the announcement that John Hipkin has waited more than 15 years to hear - but when it came, nobody was more surprised than him.

"Although this is a historical matter," said Defence Secretary Des Browne, "I am conscious of how the families of these men feel today. They have had to endure a stigma for decades.

"That makes this a moral issue too, and having reviewed it, I believe it is appropriate to seek a statutory pardon."

The Government's announcement of mass pardons brought to an end a campaign that started in 1990, when Mr Hipkin and his wife Wynne read in The Journal about soldiers from the North-East who had been executed for cowardice in World War One.

Angered in particular that boy soldiers, who had lied about their age in order to fight for their country, were among those executed, the couple from Walkerville, in Newcastle, formed the Shot At Dawn campaign to fight for posthumous pardons.

That call was refused by the then Conservative Government, and though many Labour MPs voted in favour of the pardons when in opposition, the incoming Blair Government continued the official line.

Only a new Defence Secretary in the shape of Mr Browne and a concerted campaign by the Hipkins and the family of one of the soldiers shot, has led to a change of heart.

Yesterday's announcement that a group pardon will be sought in Parliament for more than 300 soldiers elated the Hipkins, though they still feel angry it has taken so long to clear the names of the men killed.

Mr Hipkin said: "It was December 1990 and there was an article in The Journal about the eight Northumberland Fusiliers and seven soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry who had been shot at dawn.

"What really got me angry when I looked down the list of names was that there was one boy who was 17 years old.

"It was quite obvious that he was an under-age, boy soldier and in fact he was one of four boy soldiers who were taken out and shot for what was deemed cowardice.

"This has forever angered me. That idealistic boys who lied about their age and go to the front were shot in the name of the British Army.

"I was captured myself in the Second World War when I was 14. I was a cabin boy in the Merchant Navy and I spent four years interred in various prison camps. To a limited extent I could relate to what they suffered."

Mr Hipkin's quest for belated justice has taken many forms.

In 2001, he turned up with a placard in Sedgefield as Tony Blair went to vote in the General Election.

He also oversaw the creation of a statue by sculptor Andy De Comyn of a blindfolded teenage soldier at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas in Staffordshire based on Northumberland Fusilier Herbert Burden - the executed 17-year-old.

And he managed to enlist a number of important supporters, including the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Dr Tom Wright, who remembered three executed DLI NCOs in prayers at Durham Cathedral last year.

The campaign gained impetus in 2000 when the New Zealand Government decided to pardon to its five executed soldiers.

A recent British court case by the daughter of one of the soldiers killed - Private Harry Farr - added more pressure, and with the case due to go back to the High Court in September, the Government yesterday came to a surprise change of heart. "None of us was expecting a turnaround like that," Mr Hipkin said.

"The upcoming court case has made the Ministry of Defence say that it can't take any more fall-out from the story of Harry Farr.

"The dedication of his daughter, Gertrude Harris, meant that Harry Farr has got more publicity than any other soldier who has ever been executed.

"There have been two court cases already and there was a third coming up and I think the civil servants at the Ministry of Defence couldn't take any more."

The Government is now intending to issue an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill when it comes before Parliament in the autumn granting pardons to more than 300 British, Irish and Commonwealth soldiers shot for "battlefield offences" where the men's actions may have been influenced by the stress of battle.

For Private Farr's daughter Gertrude Harris, now 93, the decision has vindicated a long campaign.

"I have always argued that my father's refusal to rejoin the frontline, described in the court martial as resulting from cowardice, was in fact the result of shellshock," she said. "I believe that many other soldiers suffered from this, not just my father.

"I hope that others now who had brave relatives who were shot by their own side will now get the pardons they equally deserve."

But Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay, who has helped the campaign over the years, has criticised the length of time to make the decision. "Full marks to Des Browne," he said, "but the point is that it has taken the British establishment 90 years."