Given responsibility for Iraq's second city, Basra, it gained much praise for its efforts to restore security and civil order.

[5] Some months after returning from Iraq the battalion was at the centre of the first serious accusations of abuse against Iraqi prisoners levelled at British soldiers.

These accusations were illustrated on the front pages of the Daily Mirror by photographs which the regiment immediately denounced as staged fakes.

The regiment then ran a successful campaign, believed to be unique for an active unit of the British Armed Forces, to prove that the pictures were false.

The presiding judge, Mr Justice McKinnon, stated that "none of those soldiers has been charged with any offence, simply because there is no evidence against them as a result of a more or less obvious closing of ranks.

[9] On 19 July 2005, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith announced that Payne was being charged with manslaughter, perverting the course of justice and inhumane treatment of persons under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

[12] After earlier pleading guilty to the offence of inhuman treatment of persons protected under the Geneva Conventions, Corporal Donald Payne was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, reduced to the ranks, and dismissed from Her Majesty's Armed Forces, on 30 April 2007.