Singularly on topic:

Original Post
"The Ministry of Defence has revealed that over 1,346 soldiers have been convicted of crimes during the last 6 years in N. Ireland. The crimes committed range from traffic offences to killings but do not include other offences dealt with by the Army's own internal procedures, such as some robbers and sex offenders convicted by courts martial. The convictions hit a recent high in 2003, when serving soldiers were found guilty almost every day, 300 convictions. Considering these stats were gathered during a period of relative peace in the Province it would be interesting to see the figures for the years between 1970 and 1989. I won't hold my breath on that one. I am amazed however to see at least these figures released."

Aspects that have emerged that remain unackowledged and unchallenged:

The rate of conviction for crimes in the civil population of Northern Ireland excluding motoring offences is 1.9%

The rate of conviction for crimes amongst soldiers serving in Northern Ireland INCLUDING motoring offences is 1.5%

That would tend to demonstrate that in general the servicemen serving in Northern Ireland are more law abidding than the general population.

Convictions did reach a high in 2003. Servicemen convicted 300, or 0.8 servicemen per day, compared to civilian convictions of 96 per day, which seems to bear out what was stated in the paragraph above, particularly noting that the 0.8 per day rate includes motoring offences and the 96 per day rate does not.

In the period stipulated there have been no murder convictions or no rape convictions for any member of HM Forces serving in Northern Ireland.

With regard to figures for deaths and responsibility for those deaths between 14th July 1969 and 31st December 2001 we have the following:

British Security Forces - 362
Irish Security Forces - 5
Loyalist Paramilitaries - 1020
Republican Paramilitaries - 2056
Unknown/Unattributed - 80

Anyone "astonished", utterly, or otherwise about any of that???