The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1967. The Deserter Who Was Not

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31307, 1 March 1967, Page 16

The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1967. The Deserter Who Was Not

One conclusion emerging from the case of Leslie Parkes is that British law on the arrest of military deserters is urgently in need of revision. Mr Parkes, a Stoke-on-Trent van driver, was arrested by the military on February 9 on a charge of desertion. Seven months before, a bench of magistrates had dismissed a desertion charge brought against him by the police and ruled that he was a civilian. That finding the Army chose to ignore. It maintained that Mr Parkes had six years of a nine-year term to serve, that he had no papers of discharge—Mr Parkes said he had never received them—and that consequently he must face trial for desertion by a military court. Mr Parkes’s retort was that he had never been a deserter and had signed on in 1962 for three years only. A brother had signed on in 1959 for nine years, and there was a third Parkes in the same unit. It appeared to be a case of mistaken Identity.

The public in Britain have been incensed by the story of the second arrest of Mr Parkes. Sharp questions have been asked in Parliament of the Secretary for Defence, Mr Healey, and the Undersecretary, Mr Boyden. The Army’s pursuit of Mr Parkes seven months after his acquittal by a civilian court was bad enough. It was much worse that a senior police officer should have assisted his arrest by the military by enticing him to a police station with a story which the Chief Constable of Stoke later acknowledged to be “ untrue, unrehearsed and “ unnecessary ”. Accepting responsibility, the Chief Constable added that he had ordered a full inquiry by a senior officer of another force, after which he would “ consider what disciplinary action was “ appropriate ”.

Other aspects of the Parkes affair have tarnished the Army’s public image. Mr Parkes was handcuffed and held under close arrest for three days. Yet it has been established that he is not a man of violent disposition. A photograph in “ The Times ” on February 14 showed him being taken under escort to appear before officers of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He was handcuffed to one military policeman; another followed close behind carrying a pick-handle. After a writ of habeas corpus had been sought by Mr Parkes’s counsel, the Army suddenly made a complete volte-face, ordering his immediate release and announcing that the desertion charge had been dropped.

Questioned in Parliament, Mr Healey denied that he had directed Mr Parkes’s commanding officer to withdraw. He had merely informed him of his own conclusion, and the commanding officer “ had decided “ to dismiss the charge It would, of course, have been improper for the Minister to give any such direction. When the question of offering compensation to Mr Parkes was raised in the House, the Minister replied abruptly that “ for damages it was “open to Parkes to sue”. It was, he said, not a case for an ex gratia payment. There will be other opinions on that. The “Guardian”, indeed, added the appropriate footnote. Commenting on Mr Healey’s “ churlish ” refusal of compensation, it said: “The Army admits it made a mistake; before “ it claims to have * wiped the slate clean ’ it should “make amends”.