Phil Goff MP Phil Goff has asked the Chief Ombudsman and the Chief Coroner to have the suppressed reports into a gay soldier's suicide and the Defence Force shortcomings he says they reveal made public. Corporal Dougie Hughes took his life whilst on active duty in Afghanistan, just hours after a meeting convened by his sergeant in which he confessed his attraction to another soldier, in the presence of that soldier. Inquiries into the affair have been suppressed by a Coroner "in the interests of justice and on the basis of personal privacy.” But, echoing the wishes of Hughes' family to have the suppressed Coroner's and Court of Inquiry findings opened up, Labour MP and former Minister of both Defence and Justice Goff says the suppression order, ostensibly made in the interests of the family, is "ridiculous" and is also hampering his ability to effectively raise the matter in Parliament. "It is excessive and not in the public interest for the reports and specifically the Court of Inquiry Report to be withheld in their entirety," Goff tells the Chief Coroner, Judge Neil MacLean. "Does the Coroner indeed have the power to suppress a Court of Inquiry Report which he is not responsible for? "[Corporal Hughes'] family have said to me that they want the report out in the open and the Defence Force to be held to account for the shortcomings it exposes," Goff states in his letter to Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem which was also sent this this week. In March of this year Goff and fellow MP Andrew Little formally asked the Solicitor General to consider re-opening the case but have yet to have a "substantive reply," according to Goff.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 17th May 2013 - 4:03pm