Campaign to clear Morant gathers pace

Edward Woodward as Harry Morant in the 1980 film Breaker Morant. Photo / Supplied

A campaign to clear the names of three Australian Boer War soldiers including the legendary bush poet Breaker Morant is gathering momentum, with his descendants appealing to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, to order a judicial inquiry into their conviction for shooting dead unarmed prisoners.

Morant and one of his comrades, Michael Handcock, were executed by the British military after being court-martialled in 1902. A third man, George Witton, received a life sentence but was released after three years, following a petition by 80,000 Australians to King Edward VII.

The three - convicted of war crimes after killing 12 Boers - claimed that they had been ordered by Lord Kitchener, the commander of British forces in South Africa, to take no prisoners. British officers denied this, and the British Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, rejected calls last year for the trio to be pardoned.

Now their families are pinning their hopes on a judicial review in Australia, the outcome of which could persuade Britain to re-examine the case.

"My family, as well as the families of Lieutenants Handcock and Witton, have endured many decades of shame and grief about the manner in which these men were unfairly tried and sentenced," Cathie Morant, a direct descendant of the soldier, wrote to McClelland.

James Unkles, a military lawyer who is spearheading the campaign, said yesterday that he had unearthed in British archives two documents that appeared to corroborate the soldiers' defence. One, a legal opinion from 1901 by a senior British military lawyer in South Africa, Colonel James St Clair, made reference to "the idea that no prisoners were to be taken" in the Spelonken, where the men were deployed.

The other, the transcript of a British parliamentary debate the same year, quoted one MP, John Dillon, calling for an inquiry into allegations that such orders had been given by Kitchener.

According to Unkles, Morant - an Australian folk hero immortalised in the 1980 movie Breaker Morant, starring Edward Woodward - had been reprimanded by senior officers previously for taking prisoners. If McClelland ruled out an inquiry, Unkles said, he would seek leave to appeal in the British High Court against the court-martial decision.

"This case is an embarrassment to the British, because it brings into question the reputation of Lord Kitchener," he said. "For political reasons these three Australians were scapegoated to protect the reputations of senior British officers."