Shattered wrist forces murder-rap soldier to quit Iraq

Apr 20 2008 By Grace Macaskill

Exclusive Shattered Wrist Leaves Murder-Rap Squaddie Unable To Fire His Weapon

A SCOTS Guard who gunned down a teenager will never hold a weapon again after being shot in Iraq.

Mark Wright was hit in the wrist in the friendly-fire incident in Basra.

Last night Wright's wife Louise told the Sunday Mail her husband has been discharged on medical grounds.

Wright, 35, and fellow Scots soldier James Fisher were sentenced to life in jail for the murder of 18-year-old Peter McBride in Belfast in 1992.

They claimed they suspected the teenager was carrying a coffee jar bomb.

But the pair were freed after six years following a huge campaign.

Wright has now started a part-time civilian job.

Louise, 30, said: "Mark wanted to stay in the Army but the physician said he would never be able to turn his wrist properly to enable him to shoot a weapon again. He was devastated.

"The Army was all he had known. He found it really hard to get a job. Not only did he have a terrible injury but he was on life licence after being released so he has a permanent criminal record.

"Mark regrets what happened in Ireland but he does not regret his Army life. All he ever wanted to do was serve his country.

"It's not always been an easy life but it has made us stronger. I'm proud of him."

Wright's Irish Guards regiment was posted on a six-month tour of Basra in February 2003. But two months later he was shot in a friendly fire incident.

One bullet went through his wrist, one grazed his head and another his left shoulder. He was flown home and rejoined the Scots Guards.

But after several years of physiotherapy, doctors told him he would never be able to fire a gun again.

Wright, of Arbroath, was in the first year of his army career, aged 19, the night he shot Peter in the back. At their trial in 1995 the soldiers claimed they chased him after he ripped an ear-piece from a sergeant and leapt over a fence.

They said they feared he may have been carrying a bomb and, when he ignored their pleas to stop, assumed he was leading them into a trap and shot him twice in the back.

Lord Justice Kelly said he did not believe the soldiers, claiming Fisher had "deliberately lied", and they were jailed for life.

But they were freed in 1998 in the wake of the Good Friday peace agreement.

Wright and Fisher, of Ayr, were reinstated to the Army, to the fury of their victim's family.

While Wright was on leave four weeks later, he met Louise and they married in 2000.

She said: "What happened in Ireland will affect Mark for the rest of his life. It's always in the back of his mind.

"Mark says even if he had been more experienced, he would have made the same decision."

Fisher, still a serving soldier, finished a tour of Basra in 2003.

He lives with wife Julie in Wales.

MAILFILE

1992: Peter McBride is shot in Belfast - soldiers Wright and Fisher are charged with murder.

1995: Pair are jailed for life.

1997: Campaign calls for their release but is unsuccessful.

1998: Soldiers are released five months after the Good Friday peace agreement.

SUNDAY EMAIL

g.macaskill@sundaymail.co.uk