There are aspects of our national life and law which suggest a very serious state of disrepair.

Yesterday’s announcement from the High Court that four Iraqis were to be paid tens of thousands of pounds in compensation for alleged ill treatment by British soldiers during the Iraq war is one such example.

Appealing to the Human Rights Act, these four Iraqi men sought damages from the Ministry of Defence in London.

The claims were based on accusations that British troops hooded and unlawfully imprisoned them.

One of the men, Abd Al-Waheed, claimed that he suffered “inhuman treatment” during 33 days of imprisonment.

Yesterday he received £33,000 in compensation.

The other men also claimed to have been captured from their homes and a boat.

They received sums ranging from £13,000 to £28,000. 

There is so much that is wrong with this situation.

The first wrong done is the smear against the soldiers of the British Army.

No soldier has been charged over any of these incidents.

For lawyers, the issuing of payouts may seem like a move that gets rid of the problem.

That may or may not be the case.

But what it does do is suggest that all the accusations made against serving British soldiers are true.

Without even needing to investigate to a level at which proceedings could be brought against them, our soldiers are simply smeared, stained and moved along.

It is a shocking way for a justice system to treat the men and women who keep us safe.

The second wrong done is the wrong always done by trying to litigate aspects of war in a courtroom.

Whether you agreed with the Iraq war or not, this country’s Parliament voted to send our young men and women into a dangerous conflict and then to secure the city of Basra.

They did this under considerable strain.

Those who returned from that demoralising mission have many stories to tell such as the times when they invited local religious and military leaders to their bases.

Only then would the regular mortar fire against the British Army base stop.

Once they waved the local leaders off the barrages of rockets would start again.

Basra was a viper’s nest for the British Army with our soldiers forced to try to make sense of a city with long memories of the past and bitter divides over the future.

Telling friend from foe is not easy.

And there are obviously going to be mistakes made as well as successes achieved.

To decide the rights or wrongs of this situation in a room in London more than a decade after these events is exceptionally hard.

Using the Human Rights Act to try to make legal judgments on war in a totally different place and time and in the midst of considerable peace leads to easy judgments, including easy moral judgments which we should not be eager to make.

The third wrong done is that against the members of the British Armed Forces.

Those brave young people who choose to serve do so for a range of good and patriotic reasons.

They want to defend this country and her citizens.

Nobody goes into the Army to get rich.

Indeed the pay that members of the Armed Forces receive – given the jobs they do – is appalling.

The starting salary for a private in the British Army is under £15,000 a year.

For an officer it is almost £26,000.

This is what this country pays people ready to put their lives on the line in conflicts our Government sends them to.

For that they have to not only risk their own lives and the lives of their comrades.

They have to make split-second judgment calls about the lives of others – both when to save them and when to end them.

There could be no greater weight for a person – particularly a young person – to carry.

And yet Mr Al-Waheed, who claims that he was detained for 33 days, has now been paid £1,000 a day for that alleged captivity.

For a single month in captivity in Iraq he has now been awarded a payment which is more than a soldier starting off in the British Army would get in two years.

That is a scandal. No sane society would reward its accusers so fulsomely or its own soldiers so poorly.

No wonder Richard Kemp, the retired colonel who was a commander of British troops in Afghanistan, described these payouts yesterday as “insanity”.

Of course lawyers love to think that such settlements make the problem go away and close the possibility of further litigation being brought.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. There are reported to be as many as 600 other claims pending.

This could lead to payouts of many millions of pounds, going on for years.

And who would not press ahead with such a case now they know the rules?

The evidence does not have to be of a sufficient quality to see soldiers tried.

And the rewards are obvious.

The payouts for citizens in Basra are like winning the lottery.

Who wouldn’t think of defaming the British Army and claiming their cash prize?

What happened this week was a disgrace but it will also prove the start of a colossal shakedown.

One paid for by every one of us.

Douglas Murray is the author of The Strange Death Of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (Bloomsbury)