Children have no place in the British Army.

[Tinribs]

That statement contains the factual accuracy normally only seen in the Daily Mail.

Genstabler may find it simpler to label as lies events he finds hard to accept but the facts are;

a flying officer (I S) navigator radar on V Force squadron at RAF Marham was before a court martial in 1968 having failed to attend a mess dinner night, no other accusation was made beyond failing to obey an order.

He spent the evening before the court in my quarter and I was an officer under instruction at the trial. He was dismissed the service. I suppose the facts may be checked.

I have not touched the Daily Mail since they published a photograph of my good friend Laurie Davis's body on fire in a gutter, Genstabler can check that too.

It seems likely there was an issue with the admin senior officer pushing the case I cannot say, I think the accused had some characteristics, shared by many others including me, enabling some to object to him; he was a thinker but never disloyal and certainly not a coward.
There had been unseemly disquiet at an earlier 1 gp dinner at Bawtry, perhaps adding fuel.

This process was one of several odd legal issues that surfaced over the years. We had a SNCO aircrew court martial at RAE Bedford because the accused had claimed boarding school allowance improperly. I never understood it and nobody could explain the issues but it seemed command accountant officers were allowed to take different views about the same DCI.

My only brush with the system was dispute about what "direct" meant in home to duty travel, when I sent a 50 thou marked with each mile they gave up.