A NEW attempt to win posthumous pardons for British soldiers executed during the First World War has been welcomed by a relative of an executed Worcestershire soldier.

Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay has tabled an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, which came up for discussion in the Commons, to try to grant more than 300 pardons.

Jill Turner, great niece of Sgt Jack Wall, of the 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, said she was praying for Mr MacKinlay's success.

"He has been on the case for years," she said. "He is a man to be admired. I am praying that he will be successful this time round."

Mrs Turner's great uncle, who came from Tenbury Wells, was fighting on the border of France and Belgium when he and two others became separated from their battalion.

They took cover until they felt it was safe to rejoin the company and Sgt Wall was subsequently charged with desertion. Despite his exemplary record, he was shot by a firing squad on September 6, 1917, aged 21.

"My mother is still alive and she remembers the pain felt by all the family," said Mrs Turner, who lives in Eastbourne. "My grandmother lost three people in the Great War and they were all from the Worcestershire Regiment. Her husband died in France, her cousin in Gallipoli and her brother was executed in Belgium."

She believes her great uncle should be exonerated, rather than pardoned, because he did not do anything wrong.

She has written to Defence Secretary Des Browne, who supported the campaign to clear the names of the British soldiers while he was a backbencher, protesting at his apparent change of heart.

"He signed a motion in 1997, asking the Prime Minister to grant pardons, but now he seems to have changed his mind," she said.