TOFO
For a very long time I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. I sat in the High Court of Appeal in 1972 and listened to Lords Stott and Robertson give MoD (and a Sheriff) the most God awful earful. Lord Murray, the Lord Advocate when the FAI rules DV mentions were laid down, would in his heyday have taken the Crown Office and Procurators Fiscal to the cleaners over this current misinterpretation. (And may still do).
But there has recently been a noticeable shift. Lord Philip didn't speak up when both Houses disgracefully misrepresented his Mull of Kintyre report; although Malcolm Bruce came close when acknowledging that all politicians lied! It must be very clear to the CO and PF that the Paisley Sheriff was serially lied to by MoD in 1996 but they said nothing; yet they have a duty to try to prevent recurrence. (Shared by Coroners).
I think you always have to ask who benefits from decisions or rulings; in this case it is MoD. You also have to study what MoD is prepared to lie about. It is ludicrous to claim there is no public interest. JSP553 clearly says there is. It was a lie to claim CWS could not have been in the Moray Firth Tornados. DV uncovered evidence from the early 90s that CWS was good to go, but was delayed for many years. The same lie was told on C130 XV179, when MoD claimed not to have known about ESF until after the crash. The Coroner was not amused when presented with MoD's own ESF specs dated 25 years earlier. I'd say that Wiltshire Coroner was far more robust than the current crop in Edinburgh.
MoD's influence may be subtle. Perhaps just an establishment notion they must always be given the benefit of considerable doubt. MoD is self healing. You'd like to think they'd learn lessons after being caught out committing very serious offences on Nimrod, Chinook, Hercules, Tornado and, especially, Sea King ASaC (which is perhaps the daddy of them all). But they don't. So DV, keep digging.