Peter Sutcliffe, convicted in 1981 of murder of 13 women, asks high court to set tariff which could lead to parole

• Matthew Taylor
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 March 2010 14.10 GMT
• Article history

Portrait of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, on his wedding day, 11 months before his campaign of terror. Photograph: Express Newspapers/Getty Images

 

The serial killer Peter Sutcliffe is seeking a high court ruling to determine how much longer he must serve in jail. Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, got 20 life terms in 1981 for murdering 13 women and attacking seven others.

The 63-year-old is now asking the court to grant him a finite sentence.

Sutcliffe, who is held in Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital, will have to persuade the mental health review tribunal that he no longer poises a risk before he can be eligible to apply for parole.

He first lodged his request in 2008 and reporting restrictions on the case ensured he was only referred to as P. However Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in the high court in London, ruled that Sutcliffe, now known as Peter Coonan, could be identified. "It is now common ground this is part of the criminal process and must therefore proceed in the defendant's own name. The press are at liberty to report the fact that these proceedings concern Peter Sutcliffe/Peter Coonan."

A judge recommended, at the time of the 1981 trial, that Sutcliffe serve a minimum of 30 years behind bars, which expires next year. However Sutcliffe's name was not on a Home Office list, published in 2006, of 35 murderers serving "whole life" sentences, and he was given no formal minimum sentence. Today's preliminary hearing at the high court in London set out what form the tariff-setting hearing should take, and what evidence should be admitted.

Mitting was told there was new expert evidence on Sutcliffe's state of mind, which could help his case for release on licence. However the judge refused an application on Sutcliffe's behalf for fresh psychiatric evidence to be admitted as part of the tariff-setting exercise, although, he said, it would be considered in relation to his conduct post-sentence.

When Sutcliffe is reviewed later this year, the gravity of his crimes, whether or not he has made "exceptional" progress in custody, the state of his mental health and any representations from him, his victims or their families, will be taken into account.

The judge will have the power to impose a definite number of years that Sutcliffe must serve, and could rule that he spends the rest of his life in jail. Sutcliffe was convicted at the Old Bailey in London for the murder of 13 women, and on seven counts of attempted murder, in Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire. The former lorry driver said he was on a "mission from God" to kill prostitutes – although not all of his victims were sex workers – and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated their bodies using a hammer, a sharpened screw driver and a knife. In 1984 he was transferred to Broadmoor from prison.

His life sentence means that, whatever the outcome of the tariff decision, he will only be freed if the authorities consider he no longer poses a serious danger to the public.

• Doctors trying to see files consider legal challenge

• Doubt grows over suicide verdict on Iraq expert

• Afua Hirsch, Legal affairs correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 January 2010 19.57 GMT
• Article history

Dr David Kelly arrives to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee over allegations the government 'sexed up' the intelligence dossier leading to war in Iraq. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images Europe

 

Lord Hutton's decision to classify documents about the death of Dr David Kelly is likely to face a legal challenge amid claims by experts that there are increasing grounds to question the inquiry's verdict of suicide.

The Hutton inquiry, which reported in 2004 that Kelly's death was suicide after he cut an artery in his wrist, has come under scrutiny from doctors who claim the medical account is improbable.

Five doctors who made an application to the Oxford coroner to have the inquest reopened have been told Lord Hutton made a ruling in 2003 to keep medical reports and photographs closed for 70 years. "This is a revelation," said Michael Powers QC, a former assistant coroner and expert in coronial law. "I can't think of anything that would justify these documents being treated any differently."

The doctors are trauma surgeon David Halpin, epidemiologist Andrew Rouse, surgeon Martin Birnstingl, radiologist Stephen Frost and Chris Burns-Cox, who specialises in internal general medicine. They applied for the documents with a view to applying to the attorney general to have the inquest reopened.

"We hope to get more materials from the coroner, examine those, and in the light of those materials make submissions", said Powers, who is closely involved in the case, although not party to the legal proceedings.

But a response from the coroner's legal advisers rejected the doctors' request, and revealed that the documents had been classified. "It is truly remarkable that they should be kept secret for twice as long as the other documents. I'm sure that they will meet with their legal advisers and consider the most appropriate way to deal with this," Powers said.

The doctors are also thought to be considering a challenge to the coroner's decision not to allow them to be "interested parties". Freedom of information experts say there appear to be strong grounds for the legal challenges. "If Lord Hutton was not carrying out a statutory inquiry, I can't immediately see what power he had to order that these records be closed," said Maurice Frankel, Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

News of the decision to keep the documents classified has come as a surprise to lawyers. There is no mention of the decision on the Hutton inquiry website.

"If a matter as sensitive as this was not made public … it raises questions as to what else was withheld," said Powers. "You can't help but suspect that the legal advisers to the Oxfordshire coroner disclosed it inadvertently, thinking that it was already known that this material was being kept secret for such a long period."

Questions have remained around the death of Dr Kelly after an initial inquest into his death was never resumed. Instead, the Hutton findings were said to be sufficient. But the inquiry applied a less stringent test than would have used in an inquest, where a coroner has to be sure "beyond reasonable doubt" that a person intended to kill themselves.

"There should be a full inquiry. We need a proper answer," said Powers. "The medical evidence doesn't add up. I have yet to meet a doctor that will say it was even possible, let alone likely."

This is absolutely disgraceful...

Regime of education, pyschotherapy and discipline could help brothers in Edlington case turn their lives around

• Peter Walker and Alan Travis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 15.05 GMT
• Article history

A vehicle carrying one of the boys charged with the murder of James Bulger is stoned as it leaves court in Liverpool in 1993. Photograph: John GilesPA

If there is a precedent for the reform and rehabilitation of child criminals publicly assumed to be intrinsically evil and beyond help, then it comes in the form of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson.

In 1993, after their abduction and murder of James Bulger, the 10-year-olds were not just deprived of their liberty but put through a comprehensive programme of psychotherapy, education and consistent, strict discipline.

By 2001 the then-teenagers – equipped with A-levels and an ability to speak fluently about emotions and remorse – convinced parole boards that they were ready to be freed.

The brothers behind the Edlington torture case are the most notorious British child criminals since Venables and Thompson. Hard as it might be for their victims' families to accept, it is possible that they, too, could turn their lives around.

Five years after the Bulger killers were jailed, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) was set up to supervise the placement of young criminals into children's homes, training centres and young offender institutions.

Peter Minchin, head of placements at the YJB, cannot discuss individual cases but is clear about the wider issues.

"We recognise that the issue of protecting the public from young people that commit horrific crimes is equally as important as trying to address the behaviour of the young people that have committed them," he said.

"It has to be done in parallel, but you can't wash your hands of people who are still so young. You can't throw away the key. They deserve another opportunity."

The brothers in the Edlington case, aged 11 and 12, will be kept in a secure children's home. The usual progression would be to a secure training centre at about 15, and then to a young offender institution, but their many personal problems and notoriety could see them stay in a home.

Such a regime, Minchin says, typically involves six hours of formal education a day, along with activities such as psychotherapy and art therapy.

"Each young child that comes into a secure children's home has a detailed plan put together specially designed to meet their individual needs," he said.

"Obviously, there is the punishment of taking away their liberty. But once this has been done you've then got an opportunity to do complex work and make a lot of progress."

While Venables and Thompson had their anonymity removed, the brothers' names remain unknown outside a few streets in Doncaster.

However, Minchin notes, it is hard for things to stay secret in a children's home.

"Children being children, they will talk. You often can't avoid them finding out what other people have done. We try and minimise the problem by keeping similar offenders in the same place."

Sentencing outcry

When Jon Thompson and Robert Venables, two 10-year-old boys, were sentenced to be detained for the murder of two-year-old James Bulger in 1993, they were the youngest people convicted of murder in English criminal history.

The trial judge recommended a minimum tariff or term of eight years, saying the two should be kept in custody for "very, very many years to come".

Shortly after their trial, the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, raised the minimum tariff to 10 years, but this did little to assuage a populist tabloid campaign – including a 300,000-signature Sun newspaper petition – claiming the case highlighted moral decay in Britain.

In 1994 John Major, as prime minister, declared it was time for "society to condemn a little more and understand a little less". His home secretary, Michael Howard, raised the minimum tariff to 15 years.

In 1997 this was overturned by the House of Lords. Peers condemned the higher tariff as "institutionalised vengeance ... by a politician playing to the gallery". In the process, the law lords ruled that it was unlawful for home secretaries to decide on the minimum tariffs to be served by offenders under 18.

In 2000 the lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, restored the original trial judge's recommendation of eight years in recognition of the good behaviour of Thompson and Venables.

"We ought not to forget that, although they committed those very serious crimes, they were first of all human beings and secondly they were children," he said.

"Children can do things when they are children that they would never do in their later life when they had matured and appreciated."

The fact that Thompson and Venables had served all their sentence outside the prison system in local authority secure homes was also a key factor for Woolf, who described the prison service's young offenders' institutions as "a corrosive atmosphere" for juveniles.

In 2001, after a six-month review, the parole board ruled that Venables and Thompson were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released on a life licence as their minimum tariff of eight years had expired that February.

The decision was approved by David Blunkett, as the home secretary, and the two were given new identities and moved to secret locations under a witness protection-style programme.

Their rehabilitation was regarded as a success for the criminal justice system.

• Kate and Gerry McCann in court for second day of hearing

• Portuguese police claim parents faked child's abduction

• John Stevens
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 January 2010 18.14 GMT
• Article history

Gerry McCann has dismissed Portuguese detectives' claims that his daughter Madeleine is dead. Photograph: PA

Gerry McCann lashed out at Portuguese police today, as a former senior detective dismissed the McCanns' challenge to claims that Madeleine was dead as "pathetic".

In a heated exchange with reporters outside the court in Lisbon, Gerry McCann insisted there was "absolutely no evidence" to support the claim that his daughter was dead, before the court heard more challenges to the McCanns' account of events.

As Madeleine's parents returned for a second day of the libel trial over claims about their daughter's disappearance, Gerry McCann appeared rattled as he argued with Portuguese journalists about the claims of officials involved in the investigation. "There is absolutely no evidence that Madeleine is dead and there is absolutely no evidence that we were involved in her disappearance," he said.

This morning the court heard fresh evidence questioning the disappearance of Madeleine. Former senior police officer and criminologist Francisco Moita Flores told the hearing that the McCanns' legal challenge to permanently ban a book by Gonçalo Amaral, the officer who initially led the Madeleine inquiry for Portugal's CID, the polícia judiciária (PJ), was "pathetic".

He dismissed the couple's claim that Madeleine was abducted from the apartment they were staying in at the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, telling the court it would be impossible to pass a child through the flat's window. Giving evidence via videolink, Flores defended the Portuguese investigation into the case, praising Amaral as a "good professional".

The McCanns' lawyer, Isabel Duarte, argued the police files reached no conclusion about the window and said there were other ways Madeleine could have been taken from the apartment.

Flores' evidence followed that of a series of senior officers who told the hearing yesterday that Madeleine had died in her family's holiday flat in May 2007 and that her parents faked her abduction.

The McCanns are challenging claims made in Amaral's book, Maddie: The Truth of the Lie that Madeleine was dead.

Amaral, who was taken off the case in October 2007 after criticising British police, is trying to overturn an injunction granted to the McCanns in September last year banning further sale or publication of the book.

At the end of the second day of the trial Gerry McCann defended taking legal action, saying the book had "damaged" the search for Madeleine.

"I'd like to remind everyone that it's the book that's on trial and not Kate and I," he said. "Over the last two days you've heard a lot about Mr Amaral's thesis that Madeleine is dead. There is absolutely no evidence to support that thesis. A thesis without evidence is meaningless."

He added: "There is a little girl missing who still needs to be found and we will keep going until Madeleine is found."

The McCanns, both 41, from Rothley, Leicestershire, say their main motive for fighting the appeal against the book ban is the fear that people will stop looking for Madeleine if they think she is dead. Gerry McCann said: "This is a legal process that we're going through to protect our daughter and our family." When asked whether it was worth the emotional cost for the couple to attend the court case, he added: "Do you have children? Anyone who has children would go through the same process."

Gerry McCann returned to Britain this afternoon because of work commitments, but Kate McCann will stay in Portugal for the rest of the hearing.

The trial is expected to last three days, but the judge could order further hearings before making her ruling.

The trial continues.

US Editor

Published: 23 Nov 2009

LIKE many adopted children, Matthew Roberts set about finding his biological parents with a mix of nerves and excitement.

In particular, he hoped that discovering his father's identity would help him to work out what made him the man he had become.

But nothing could have prepared him for being told his dad was... serial killer CHARLES MANSON.

 

Warped ... Charles Manson now

 

Over a five-week period in the summer of 1969, Manson and his Family of commune followers committed a series of nine gruesome murders. Victims included pregnant actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski.

Matthew, 41 - who bears a haunting resemblance to his father - sank into depression after discovering his identity.

He has since been in contact with his dad in a series of letters to his California prison and Manson has replied - each time chillingly signing off with a swastika.

Now Matthew, who was given up for adoption as a baby, has told of his horror at finding out he was the son of a monster.

 

Poison pen ... letter from Manson to Matthew

 

He says: "I didn't want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father.

"I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster."

Matthew grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and didn't know he was adopted until his sister told him when he was ten.

He loved his adoptive parents but always knew he was different. He says: "My parents were great people, but very conservative.

"They were products of the Fifties and I didn't relate to them. My biological parents were products of the Sixties and I take on a lot more of those characteristics."

He also reveals his adoptive father tried to discourage him from getting in contact with Manson, telling him: "Nothing good will come from this."

Letters

Matthew, who now lives in Los Angeles, began investigating his family history 12 years ago when he contacted a social services agency who located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin.

He wrote to her straight away and their early exchanges will be familiar to adopted children everywhere.

 

Map ... Los Angeles

 

She confirmed she was his mum and told him she had named him Lawrence Alexander - and that she would tell him his last name in time.

The jigsaw of his life was beginning to take shape but it was still missing a crucial piece - his father.

Terry remained tight-lipped about his identity but after Matthew pressed her for details in a string of letters, she eventually revealed the awful truth.

She said she met commune leader Manson in 1967 - two years before the infamous "Manson Family" murders in Los Angeles for which he is still in jail at the age of 75.

But back in 1967, Terry had been one of many who were transfixed by Manson's charms.

Her father had tried to chase him away when he met Terry, calling him a "white-trash biker bandit" but she found him charismatic and hypnotizing.

 

So she hopped on a bus with his Family and ended up in San Francisco. There she claims she was raped by Manson in a drug-fuelled orgy, after which she returned home and Matthew was born on March 22, 1968.

 

Cult HQ ... ranch near Death Valley where Manson Family gathered

 

Terry always believed Manson was the father of the baby she gave up for adoption. And after seeing a picture of Matthew, her worst nightmare was confirmed.

For he is the spitting image of Manson, with the same nose, mouth, eyes and large forehead. They even have the same thick, arched eyebrows and long, thick, dark hair.

Like his father, Matthew is a songwriter and poet. He is even worried that he may have inherited his father's schizophrenia.

Matthew, now working as a DJ, recalls hearing mum Terry's bombshell: "She even said, 'You look just like him'.

"I'm not nuts but I've got a little bit of it. It's scary and upsetting. If I get worked up, my eyes get really big and that's really freaked some people out before.

 

Bad sign ... another note from the killer

Splash News

 

"I've tried to tone that down quite a bit. I don't like having that effect on people.

"I don't even like the fact that I'm big. It makes me even scarier. My hero is Gandhi. I'm an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian.

"I don't even kill bugs. I've had long hair all my life. I could make it go away, but I can't let the world and their fears change me." After discovering the truth, it took Matthew five years to pluck up the courage to write to his father at Corcoran State Prison in California.

Manson replied to Matthew's letter straight away and has since sent him a string of ten handwritten notes and postcards signed with the wartime Nazi symbol.

Hobo

Matthew says: "He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika. At first I was stunned and depressed. I wasn't able to speak for a day. I remember not being able to eat."

 

According to Matthew, the letters mainly rambled and said "crazy things" but Manson did confirm he could be his father.

In one twisted letter he wrote: "The truth is the truth. The truth hurts."

In another note Manson talked about meeting Matthew's mother. He wrote: "I remember her. We came back to LA on the super-cheap train."

And Manson - who grew up without a father figure - even compared his childhood to Matthew's.

He said: "You got the same father I got. A hobo just left on the midnight train and died, lost at sea." Then in a postcard two years ago, addressed to Matthew's birth name Lawrence Alexander, Manson sent his son his prison phone number.

But Matthew has never made the call to his dad.

He says: "There's always a subconscious block.

"What I'm worried about is that you think you're going to meet your birth mother or father and they're going to love you and welcome you with open arms. But he's not that kind of person."

Despite Manson's evil actions, Matthew confesses he now battles confused emotions towards his biological father.

He says: "If I did talk to Charlie on the phone, I would say, 'I truly understand what it's like to be you, more than anyone could ever imagine on so many levels'.

"He's my biological father - I can't help but have some kind of emotional connection. That's the hardest thing of all - feeling love for a monster who raped my mother.

"I don't want to love him, but I don't want to hate him either."

Peruvian police arrest suspects who allegedly drained their victims and sold liquid as an anti-wrinkle treatment

• Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
• The Guardian, Friday 20 November 2009
• Article history

The remains of victims that were allegedly kidnapped and killed by a criminal gang in the jungle of Peru for human fat trafficking. Photograph: National Police Of Peru/EPA

A Peruvian gang that allegedly killed people and drained fat from their corpses for use in cosmetics may have been inspired by a grisly Andean legend.

Hilarió Cudeña Simon, the alleged ringleader, linked the crimes to tales of demonic assassins, known as Pishtacos, who purportedly waylaid victims in pre-Columbian times, police said.

Peru reacted with revulsion and horror to reports that scores of peasants may have been butchered by the gang, which was said to have operated in Huánuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples between the jungle and Andean peaks.

Colonel Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police, said Cudeña and three other suspects were in custody and that another seven gang members were being hunted.

The jailed men have confessed to killing five people, but police suspect the number of victims is far higher, with 60 people reported missing in Huánuco this year alone. Two of the suspects were arrested at a bus station in the capital, Lima, carrying bottles of liquid fat which they claimed were worth up to £36,000 a gallon.

At a news conference police displayed two bottles of fat, which laboratory tests confirmed were human. "The fat was extracted from the thorax and thighs," said Eusebio Felix Murga, chief of police of Dirincri district. Police also showed a photo of the rotting head of a 27-year-old male victim discovered last month in a coca-growing valley.

Police said they received a tip four months ago about a trade in human fat, which exported the amber liquid to Europe as anti-wrinkle cream. In addition to the alleged ringleader the suspects were named as Segundo Castillejos Agüero, Marcos Veramendi Princípe and Enadina Estela Claudio. They have been charged with homicide, criminal conspiracy, illegal firearms possession and drug trafficking.

The alleged plot has evoked comparisons to Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume in which a killer distills the essence of his victims into a jar. Others compare it to the film Fight Club in which a character played by Brad Pitt steals bags of human fat from a liposuction clinic to make soap.

The gang have been nicknamed the Pishtacos after the ruthless assassins of indigenous Quechua legend who ambushed solitary victims and drained their fat as an offering to gods to make the land fertile. Another version depicts them as cannibal bandits who ate the skin and sold the fat. The stories date back to before the European conquest.

The suspects allegedly would sever victims' heads, arms and legs, remove organs and suspend torsos from hooks above candles, which warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below. Members claimed other gangs were engaged in similar killings.

Medical experts said human fat had cosmetic applications to keep skin supple, but were sceptical about an international black market. "It doesn't make any sense, because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing to donate," Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, told the Associated Press.

Peruvians expressed shock that grisly Andean legends they heard from their grandparents could turn out to have a modern twist. "It's really incredible that killers like this could exist today," said one contributor to the newspaper Peru21.

Three Russians also suspected of killing man, eating parts themselves

MOSCOW - Russian police have arrested three homeless people suspected of eating a 25-year-old man they had butchered and selling other bits of the corpse to a local kebab house.

Sean Mercer narrowly misses Jake Fahri's spine in attack with makeshift knife at young offenders institution

• Helen Carter
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 November 2009 16.49 GMT
• Article history

Sean Mercer, 18, had already spent time in isolation wing of Moorlands before the attack on Jake Fahri, 19. Photograph:Reuters

A gang member who murdered Rhys Jones plunged a makeshift knife into a fellow inmate when a fight broke out in a young offenders institution.

Sean Mercer, 18, stabbed Jake Fahri, 19, four times in the back with a sharpened pair of tweezers during the attack in a prison exercise yard, causing a deep wound that was said to have narrowly missed his spine.

Fahri is serving 14 years for murdering Jimmy Mizen, 16, in an unprovoked attack in a bakery in south-east London.

He was sentenced in March after the court heard he viciously threw a glass bowl at Jimmy, who subsequently bled to death from a neck injury.

Fahri was taken to hospital following the attack in the exercise yard at Moorland young offenders institution in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, on Monday. Mercer has been moved to an isolation wing at the institution.

It is understood that he was assisted by a fellow inmate who apparently held Fahri down as Mercer stabbed him with the tweezers, which had been modified into a shank, prison slang for a makeshift knife.

Mercer, who was a former member of the Crocky Young Guns gang, has already spent a number of weeks in the segregation unit after previous clashes with prison officers and governors at Moorland.

He was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison after the murder of Rhys in Croxteth Park, Liverpool, in August 2007. The innocent 11-year-old was shot dead as he walked across a pub car park on his way home from football practice. Mercer denied murder, and claimed he was at a friend's home watching a DVD when the boy was killed.

Fahri was said to be moaning in pain and covered in blood as he was taken to hospital, where his wounds were stitched.

In a statement, the Prison Service said: "A fight broke out between three prisoners. Staff acted quickly to control the situation. One prisoner was taken to a hospital for treatment. Police have been notified and are investigating."

The incident is being regarded by the authorities as an attempt by Mercer to boost his so-called "hardman" reputation among other inmates at the young offenders institution.

South Yorkshire police confirmed it was investigating the attack and said inquiries were continuing.

Last week, a member of the gang who provided Mercer with the gun used to shoot Rhys had his sentence increased. James Yates, 21, provided the Smith & Wesson firearm that used in the murder of the schoolboy – and helped with its disposal.

Jake Fahri

He was jailed for seven years, but his sentence was referred to the court of appeal by the solicitor general, Vera Baird, as being "unduly lenient". The judges agreed and extended Yates' jail tariff to 12 years.

The Ministry of Defence was accused today by three high court judges of "lamentable" behaviour and "serious breaches" of its duty of candour over the failure to disclose crucial information about allegations of murder and ill-treatment by British soldiers in Iraq in 2004.

In a withering attack, they damned the ministry's chief witness – the deputy head of the military police – as lacking all credibility. They described his evidence to the court as "seriously flawed".

The MoD's failure to conduct a proper investigation of its own into the allegations has forced Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, to hold an independent public inquiry, the high court heard.

The MoD has already been forced into a public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa while in the custody of British soldiers in Basra in 2003. Yesterday's case relates to allegations that an Iraqi named al-Sweady was murdered and others ill-treated after they were taken prisoner at a British base near Majar al-Kabir, north of Basra, in May 2004.

The Iraqis' lawyers demanded a public inquiry under the Human Rights Act, saying the original military police investigation into the claims was inadequate. The police, officials and ministers resisted the demand and withheld vital information in attempting to do so, the court heard.

"We are forced to the conclusion that the approach of the secretary of state to disclosure in this case was lamentable," Lord Justice Scott Baker, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Sweeney ruled today.

They said that when he was armed forces minister earlier this year Ainsworth signed a demand for a gagging order even though the information he sought to suppress had already been published. The matter caused the judges "very considerable concern", they said.

Over more than eight months, "the secretary of state's agents had simply failed for no good reason during that lengthy period to carry out these critically important and obviously highly relevant searches [for documents]", the judges added.

They singled out Colonel Dudley Giles, deputy provost marshal – deputy head of the military police – for "lamentable disclosure failures". Asked why he had not referred in his witness statement to a document stating that the soldiers had detained between 10 and 12 Iraqi detainees, Giles replied that he did so to avoid prejudicing any future prosecution.

"When this assertion was examined, it became obvious that it was wholly without foundation," said the judges.

Wrong, too, they said, was the colonel's assertion that there was a six-day delay before the initial investigation into the claims got under way.

The evidence showed that the investigation was blocked for a month "thereby resulting in a crucial loss of vital time and investigative opportunity".

That was something Giles either did know or should have known to be the case, said the judges, adding that any court hearing evidence from him in future should do so "with the greatest caution".The MoD has already had to pay out £1m in costs in hearings estimated to have cost more than £2m.

In court the judges made it clear they shared the concerns of Rabinder Singh QC, for the Iraqis, that the MoD would "blackslide" on a commitment to hold an independent public inquiry into the incident, which happened after a fierce gunfight nearby between British troops and insurgents.

James Eadie QC, for the MoD, assured the court that Ainsworth agreed to an inquiry, though he said that did not mean the defence secretary accepted that "there may have been murder or ill-treatment in the manner alleged".

The court will reconvene in two weeks' time to discuss the inquiry's terms of reference and which judicial figure will chair it.

The court heard earlier that the Met declined to investigate the allegations, saying it was "not feasible".

Scott Baker replied: "That puts the cart before the horse." The Met's conclusion was "frankly not good enough", he added.