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BAHA-10

Sight Deprivation Principles

Baha Mousa Inquiry · The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · Issued 8 September 2011 · Addressed to: Ministry of Defence

Government responseMinistry of Defence: Accepted in part (Sep 2011)

DeliveryMinistry of Defence says completed (Mar 2014)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

Five principles on permitted sight deprivation should be consistently emphasised in JDP 1-10 and subordinate doctrine and instructions:

(1) where practicable the need to deprive CPERS of their sight should be avoided in the first place by common sense steps such as appropriate design and layout of facilities, the planning of operations, choice of routes, and covering up equipment;
(2) even if it is impracticable to avoid CPERS seeing facilities or equipment in the first place, there must be a genuine sensitivity about the facilities or equipment before sight deprivation can be justified;
(3) when sight deprivation does take place it must only be for as long as is strictly necessary;
(4) sight deprivation should not become routine; it must always be capable of being justified by the operational circumstances on the ground; and
(5) when sight deprivation is used, the fact that it has been used should as soon as practicable be noted in a simple brief record giving the date/time/duration/circumstances/justification for its use.

Baha Mousa Inquiry, The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · 8 Sep 2011 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

The Inquiry asked the Ministry of Defence to embed five sight deprivation principles into doctrine. In March 2014, Mark Francois, Minister for the Armed Forces, announced in a written statement to the House of Commons that the department had taken action to "consider and address all the accepted recommendations" (Mr Mark Francois, Mar 2014). Earlier, in September 2011, Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, stated that he was accepting all inquiry recommendations in principle with one reservation (Dr Liam Fox response, Sep 2011).

Sources

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 12 Oct 2026.

About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record above reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.

Report-level response context

The Secretary of State for Defence accepted all of the report's 73 recommendations in principle together, in one sentence of his statement to the House of Commons on 8 September 2011, with one reservation: the recommendation on tactical questioning (BAHA-23), which he said he could not accept. That sentence is not a response to any one recommendation alone, and the Ministry of Defence published no response to each recommendation. A written ministerial statement of 27 March 2014 said the Ministry of Defence had taken action to consider and address all the accepted recommendations, and said of recommendation 44 that the existing inspection regime did not require further amendment.

Government response

●Ministry of Defence · Accepted in part · 8 Sep 2011

Words of: Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, statement to the House of Commons, 8 September 2011 (HC Deb vol 532 col 571), as published by the Ministry of Defence

I can inform this House that I am accepting in principle all of his recommendations with one reservation.

Extract from: Statement on the report into the death of Mr Baha Mousa in Iraq in 2003

Site note: The words are the Secretary of State for Defence's statement to the House of Commons of 8 September 2011 as the Ministry of Defence published it on GOV.UK, which is the page the site cites. The Official Report of the statement as delivered (HC Deb vol 532, col 571) differs slightly in wording: it reads "I can inform the House that I am accepting in principle all his recommendations with one reservation."

Delivery

●Ministry of Defence says completed · 27 Mar 2014

I am pleased to announce that the Ministry of Defence has now taken action to consider and address all the accepted recommendations in the report.

From: Baha Mousa Report, Mr Mark Francois, Minister for the Armed Forces

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.