McBride’s lawyer Davis said:

“It was the fatal blow made in conjunction with the decision made a few days ago that limits what we can say to the jury on David’s behalf in terms of what was his duty as an officer was on the oath he took to serve, as we say, the interests of the Australian people.

Well the ruling was, he doesn’t have a duty to serve the interests of the Australian people. He has a duty to follow orders.  That is a very narrow understanding of the law in our view that takes us back really pre-World War II. We all know how military law has been judged since then in terms of compliance to follow orders.

So facing that reality, we’re limited in terms of what we could put to a jury in term’s of David’s duty … together with the removal of evidence makes it impossible, realistically, to go to trial. It is a sad day and a difficult day for us to advise David on his options this afternoon and he embraced them.”