As The Northern Echo continues its campaign to persuade Tony Blair to pardon more than 300 soldiers executed for cowardice during the First World War, Gavin Engelbrecht looks at the case of Private George Hunter.

EVEN by the standards of the time, Army officers felt that Private George Hunter had mental problems.

Shellshock had still to be acknowledged as a condition, yet court martial proceedings noted that the alleged deserter being sentenced to death was of unsound mind.

That did not stop officers from tying him to a post and shooting him.

Shot at Dawn campaigner John Hipkin said: "This was yet another example of the injustice of the military system that prevailed and another compelling example of why those shot for military offences during the First World War should be pardoned."

Pte Hunter, from Stockton, was an early volunteer who was drafted to France on August 24, 1915, and was serving in the Durham Light Infantry, a regiment that until then had never had a man executed.

During May 1916, 2 DLI were in the trenches near a canal to the north of Ypres when Pte Hunter absented himself.

At his trial on June 22, it was revealed that he had previously been punished for being absent on ten occasions. And he had also been convicted of carelessly wounding himself.

Mr Hipkin said: "It takes a deal of courage to shoot yourself. Anyone who shot themselves to get away from the front line must have been really desperate to have done so.

"It was not an easy thing to do. Only second to suicide. If you make it too good a job, you die."

In his defence, Pte Hunter told the hearing that for the past 18 months he had suffered from a "wandering mind". Such a claim, however, was a poor attempt to justify the actions of the soldier.

In fact, Hunter had been very successful in his absences, being one of the very few soldiers who crossed the channel and escaped to England.

After sentence of death had been passed, his commanding officer noted on the proceedings that he thought Pte Hunter was suffering a "mental abnormality".

He recommended Pte Hunter should be examined by a doctor specialising in mental diseases. However no notice was taken of the recommendation and Pte Hunter was duly executed in the Ypres Salient on July 2, 1916, the second day of the Battle of the Somme.

Mr Hipkin said: "He should not have been shot. It was quite obvious that after the sentence of death, the officer noted he was suffering from a mental abnormality.

"At a national conference at the Ypres Museum, I spoke to a German historian who noted that their army shot 25 soldiers for military capital offences during their First World War. And their army was twice the size of the British Army.

"This compared to our 306. He said to me: 'You tell me which was the more brutal army of the two armies?"