On a patrol in Helmand province one day, a young British soldier was pointed out to me – he had done something that I could not bring myself to ask him about. He had killed a man, a woman and a baby in a car with a single bullet. Their vehicle had inexplicably jumped the queue at a British checkpoint. The soldier’s commander, fearing the car was a suicide attack, shouted: “Stop it.”

The soldier fired once. The bullet went straight through the driver’s head and into the skull of his wife seated behind him, killing both instantly. The car veered off the road and crashed into a rock. The couple’s baby was thrown from its dead mother’s lap through the window by the impact, and also died. There were no explosives or weapons in the car. The driver had simply misunderstood what he was supposed to do at a checkpoint.

The soldiers who pointed out their comrade did so during a conversation that we were having about killing Afghan civilians. It transpired that quite a few of them had done “it”. One man recalled being shot at from a compound, which he raked with return fire. He led his men in storming the objective and found a room full of elderly Afghans, women and children, screaming in pain and fear, all riddled with British bullets.

“I can never forget it,” he told me. “Some of the lads were like, ‘Don’t worry about it – it happens, f*** ’em.’ But I’ll never forget it.”

Bruce Houlder, QC, will soon grow familiar with accounts of British personnel killing civilians. The first civilian barrister to be placed in charge of military prosecutions, Mr Houlder is to conduct a thorough overhaul of a system regarded previously as too soft and inefficient in dealing with members of the Armed Forces accused of serious crimes.

Most often, as in the case of the instances mentioned above, civilians are killed by soldiers during the confusion of action or imminent action, when they are mistakenly judged to be hostile forces: not a crime.

Occasionally, as in the case of Baha Musa, the receptionist from Basra beaten to death by British soldiers in September 2003, civilians are killed in cold blood, out of combat, by Service personnel conducting criminal actions. Indeed, Mr Houlder’s reforms come in response to the acquittal of six soldiers and officers charged in connection with the killing.

While critics of Mr Houlder’s reforms will doubtless be angered by a civilian’s appointment to oversee the toughening of the Armed Forces’ prosecution system, such reforms are long overdue. Indeed, the aftermath of Mr Musa’s killing, in which Service personnel closed ranks and withheld vital evidence, proved that a civilian’s role in future military prosecutions may be crucial if real integrity is to be established in the military’s justice system.

Mr Musa’s killing was revolting enough. As disturbing was the failure by military witnesses to give a full disclosure of evidence. As a result of this misplaced sense of unit loyalty, the Army’s failure to convict any of the men responsible for Mr Musa’s death was even more damaging to its reputation than the killing itself. The institution, which for so long had prided itself on honesty and fair play, found itself accused of murder and lies.

Mr Houlder will, however, have to tread a careful path. The era of today’s warfare is characterised by an enemy who lives and fights among the civilian populace. Under close media scrutiny, British soldiers have never before had to operate with such judicious reflexive action in deciding whom to let live and who should die.

Moreover, civilians are acutely aware of the payout that they may receive if they can prove that family members were mistakenly killed by British troops. There have been numerous cases where relatives of insurgents killed in action while attacking British soldiers have later forged or removed evidence in order to receive compensation.

Too severe, and Mr Houlder’s reforms will erode the confidence of young troops required to make snap decisions during counter-insurgency operations – with potentially fatal consequences. Too soft, and the damage to the British Army’s reputation may never be repaired.

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