A slur on the pilots!
The following from The Spectator article appears to raise some new and valid points.
"The legality of its verdict could be challenged on several different grounds. The first, Lord Ackner has told the Lords, is ex debito justitiae, in the interests of justice. A second is the total failure of the reviewing officers to substantiate the required level of proof (‘absolutely no doubt whatsoever’). A third is the possibility that the reviewing officers acted ultra vires, beyond their powers. Queen’s Regulation QR 1271 provides that ‘each transmitting authority is to examine the proceedings and record thereon an opinion upon the matters investigated’ (QR 1271(6), AL3/Jun 01, emphasis added). The RAF Directorate of Legal Services has been unable to cite the express authority of the reviewing officers to alter or interfere with the findings. Evidently none exists. This raises the interesting possibility that decades of RAF boards of inquiry have been improperly conducted."
Where does this statement now leave Messrs Bill Wrotten and Peep O' Day?
It must also make it considerably more difficult for Tony Blair to ignore the injustice of their findings.