Ref. 29459-11THE family of SAS hero Vince Phillips say their 13-year wait for the truth about what happened to him on the ill-fated Bravo Two Zero mission is over.

This week a new book Soldier Five, written by fellow patrol member Mike Coburn says Sgt Phillips was a loyal, dedicated and honourable man who died a hero in Iraq.

Its publication follows a five-year multi-million pound court battle with the Ministry of Defence, which tried to block its general release.

Coburn's main objective is to rubbish previous accounts that Sgt Phillips died a coward and was not up to the job in 1991.

Years after the first Gulf conflict, Sgt Phillips' family has endured a series of books and films that told how he jeopardised the secret mission to locate Iraqi scud missile sites.

Andy McNab and Chris Ryan, who both served with Sgt Phillips behind enemy lines, have written best-selling accounts of what happened. But it was Ryan's tale in The One That Got Away that particularly hurt the Phillips family.

Ryan maintains Sgt Phillips was not up to the job, screamed during the night and should not have been picked for the mission. But Coburn dismissed this as "unfair and undignified".

After the patrol split up Ryan, Phillips and another soldier 'Stan' headed for the Syrian border, but Sgt Phillips was lost and almost certainly died of hypothermia.

Sgt Phillips' mother Veronica, 73, of Old Town, says she can finally let Vince and her husband Jim, who died of cancer aged 67 three years ago, rest in peace.

"We are all at peace now because Mike has done this for us. We have been trying for years to vindicate Vince he was not a coward."

Vince's brother Jeffrey, who has suffered depression and lost his job trying to clear his brother's name, said: "They were trying to use Vince as a scapegoat for everything that went wrong.

"Vince was blamed for the split up and compromise of the patrol, for falling asleep, for not being up to the job and has been portrayed as twitchy and a coward can you imagine how we felt?

"My father threw Ryan's books across the room and from that day we have been fighting for the truth.

"Mike Coburn was a good friend of Vince and they knew each other inside out. He read the other books and knew they were not true, which is why he has written this one.

"If Vince was not up to the job then why was he in the SAS? He wouldn't screw up anywhere."

Sgt Phillips served in A Squadron of the elite Hereford-based SAS regiment, but was drafted into B Squadron for the 1991 Bravo Two Zero mission. He died aged 36 and is survived by a wife, Dee, and two daughters, Sharon, 21 and Lucy, 18

l Soldier Five is on general release at bookshops across the country, and is published by Mainstream Publishing in hardback at £17.99.

Giles Sheldrick