'This is our Hillsborough': Family of North-East soldier murdered by mob furious after fresh evidence for new inquest is dismissed

The parents of Corporal Simon Miller, 21, of Washington, joined three other families, including that of Lance Corporal Benjamin Hyde, of Northallerton, in seeking a new inquest on the grounds that fresh evidence had come to light suggesting their deaths could have been prevented.

A dossier of new evidence from two former senior soldiers had been handed to the attorney general in support of a claim there was intelligence from GCHQ - the secret electronic "listening" agency - that an attack was imminent and could have been used to prevent the men's deaths.

Cpl Miller’s father, John, said: “I am angry and upset. This is our Hillsborough. Make no bones about it. I am having my solicitor look into it. I don’t accept the decision in any form."

The families' anger had been inflamed last year when the Chilcot Report concluded Tony Blair had justified the conflict using “flawed intelligence”.

At the time, Cpl Hyde's mother, Sandra said: "If Tony Blair was stood in front of me I would happily pull the trigger."

The soldiers and four of their comrades were ambushed when about 500 people descended on a police station in Majar al Kabir in Maysan province, 100 miles north of Basra in Iraq, in 2003.

The original inquest in March 2006 found the Red Caps, as military police officers are known, had been given antiquated radios and inadequate ammunition and that while they had been unlawfully killed their deaths could not have been avoided, in one of the most notorious incidents of the Iraq conflict.

However, in a statement yesterday, Attorney General Jeremy Wright said none of the grounds of challenge for a fresh inquest had a reasonable "prospect of success" and he could not approve a referral to the High Court.

He said: "I have given this matter considerable thought but, as disappointing as it will be for the families involved, it would not be right to pass this matter to the High Court when the tests for a new inquest are not met."

Mr Miller said: “They have overlooked many salient points. To be honest they didn’t investigate anything and just took at face value what the Ministry of Defence's board of inquiry stated.

“Even to the point that a colonel from the SAS said intelligence gathered from a listening post in the North-East of England found chatter coming down the line that there was going to be an ambush that day in that town.

“That was never passed down to my son and his section. But because of SAS disclosure rules they wouldn’t allow them to give evidence and the Attorney General just wouldn’t accept it.”

Lawyers representing the families said the information came from a former SAS lieutenant colonel, known as Colonel X, and another former officer identified as Captain T.

In addition, it has been claimed four of the Red Caps were captured by the mob and later executed by an insurgent called Rufeiq, a known target of the allied forces.

Mr Miller said: “What I want is for them to admit is that their deaths were preventable. I just feel, once again, sadly let down by a Government body that is probably been guided by the Ministry of Defence. The whole decision is unconscionable.”

Mr Miller was joined in his bid by the the parents of former Northallerton College student L Cpl Hyde, 23, and the families of Lance Corporal Tom Keys, 20 and Corporal Russell Aston, 30. They died alongside comrades Sergeant Simon Alexander Hamilton-Jewell and Corporal Graham Long, 24, of South Tyneside.

Mr Miller said: "They thank me for what my son has done for the country. But then they don’t reciprocate. It has taken two years' procrastination, of evidence lost and resubmitting evidence. Being asked to submit evidence in two weeks - and it has taken them more than two years to return this decision."

Reg Keys, father of Thomas, stood as an Independent in the Prime Minister's Sedgefield constituency in the General Election, in 2005, challenging the Government's decision to go to war.