Hooding Guidance
Baha Mousa Inquiry · The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · Issued 8 September 2011 · Addressed to: Ministry of Defence
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
The essence of guidance on hooding should be that it is prohibited at any time for whatever purpose to place a sandbag or other cover over a CPErS' head.
Baha Mousa Inquiry, The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · 8 Sep 2011 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- Joint Doctrine Publication 1-10 (Captured Persons) was first published on 1 October 2011, shortly after the Baha Mousa Inquiry report (8 September 2011), and has since been updated to a Fourth Edition published 28 September 2020, incorporating lessons from the Baha Mousa and Al-Sweady inquiries as well as Supreme Court judgments (JDP 1-10, Fourth Edition, Ministry of Defence, September 2020).
- The absolute prohibition on hooding has been UK military policy since 1972 and was reinforced by the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Ireland v United Kingdom (1978) and reaffirmed in JDP 1-10 (JDP 1-10, Ministry of Defence).
Response — verbatim from government
●Ministry of Defence
Accepted. Guidance updated to make clear that placing any cover over a CPErS' head is prohibited at any time.
Ministry of Defence · 8 Sep 2011 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
No published activity has been recorded against this recommendation yet.
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.