Appeal court blow for families of plantation workers gunned down by British troops

Three judges in London rejected an appeal by campaigners who are fighting for an inquiry into the shootings at Batang Kali, Malaya, in December 1948.

Yesterday’s Court of Appeal ruling follows a defeat for relatives at the High Court in September 2012 when they unsuccessfully challenged a Government decision not to hold an inquiry.

British troops were conducting operations against communist insurgents during the Malayan Emergency when the 24 plantation workers were killed.

The appeal was dismissed by Lord Justice Maurice Kay, Lord Justice Rimer and Lord Justice Fulford, but the families involved in the case vowed to carry on their fight. At a hearing last November, Michael Fordham QC, representing four appellants – two of whom were at Batang Kali as children – said that despite the passage of time it was still important and worthwhile for the “truth” of “historic wrongs” to be investigated.

He said at least three of the soldiers who were on patrol and at least five villagers who were at Batang Kali were still alive.

Foreign Secretary William Hague and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond opposed the relatives’ application at the High Court, arguing that the decision not to hold any inquiry was reached lawfully. The two judges who heard the case in 2012 concluded that decisions not to set up an inquiry were “not unreasonable”.

The cost of an inquiry would be “materially greater” than £1m and the judges said: “It would appear to be very difficult at this point in time to establish definitively whether the men were shot trying to escape or whether these were deliberate executions.”

Mr Fordham told the appeal judges there had been “confessions from six of the soldiers involved that the killings were murder”.