Knowingly and willingly taking part in the torture and mistreatment of prisoners is a criminal act. Someone who does this because they have been ordered to do so by a superior is still doing something which is criminal. Orders from a superior might be a mitigating factor, but woudl not in themelelves go to disdpriuve crimninal behaviour, except in an extreme cases where it meant that the accused had been coerced into complying against their will.

In this case the situation appears to be that Ms England had claimed that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong. In other words, she had claimed that she was not guilty of a crime. The judge appears to have ruled that in these circumstances it would be impossible to accept a plea of guilty from her, which had been obtained by offering the inducement of a lighter sentence.

Plea bargaining of that sort is a distortion of any system of justice. I have always been unable to understand how it seems to be openly practiced and openly accepted by courts.

If it is true that soldiers do not know that they have an duty to refuse to comply with illegal orders, this would reflect a serious failure on the part of their superiors, and those responsible for army training, which could in itself be criminal.