Crewe Sgt Danny Nightingale SAS conviction overturned (From Crewe Guardian)

Crewe Sgt Danny Nightingale SAS conviction overturned

3:55pm Wednesday 13th March 2013 in News By Matthew Taylor

AN SAS soldier from Crewe, who was jailed for 18 months for possessing an illegal firearm, has seen his conviction quashed.

Sgt Danny Nightingale argued that a brain injury meant he had forgotten about a 9mm Glock pistol that returned to Britain in his luggage.

The 38-year-old was freed from military detention in November after his case was presented to judges at the Court of Appeal, who reduced his punishment to a 12-month suspended sentence.

Yesterday, March 13, judges finally cleared his name, ending a long struggle by campaigners and family.

He will now face a retrial.

Wife, Sally Nightingale, 38, lives in Crewe with the couple’s two young daughters.

Supporters including MPs and celebrities backed her fight to see her husband’s conviction overturned.

More than 100,000 people across Britain signed a petition to free the jailed soldier.

Supporters argued the pistol was given to him in Baghdad in 2007, as a gift by Iraqi soldiers whom he had helped to train, and packed into his suitcase by a colleague when Sgt Nightingale flew home to attend the funeral of two comrades.

Latterly, the married father of two collapsed during a marathon in South America in 2009, contracting a tropical illness that supporters say affected his memory, causing him to forget about the weapon’s existence.

Sgt Nightingale served the SAS for 17 years, and lends his name to a revolutionary surgical dressing that he invented, and is now widely used by the NHS.