General Sir Peter Wall made the comments following a supreme court ruling which stated that military commanders may be liable for prosecution, reports the Guardian. The court found that, during military operations abroad, British troops could be protected by human rights law, and therefore able to sue the Ministry of Defence for negligence.

Friendly fire

The MoD is now expected to be sued by families of soldiers who were killed in Iraq because of lightly armoured vehicles and friendly fire.
The General conceded that that public aversion to risk had increased as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continued, but he added: ‘On contingency operations, for example a rapid intervention operation, the licence of the operational commander to take operational risk to seize and maintain the initiative will often be decisive in determining the outcome of a campaign.’