A Territorial Army soldier who handed faked photographs appearing to show British troops abusing Iraqis to a national newspaper will not face criminal charges.

Lawyers have advised the Ministry of Defence Police there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction against Private Stuart Mackenzie, a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said today.

A CPS spokesman said: "The potential offence considered was obtaining property by deception. We have concluded there is insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of a conviction."

Court martial proceedings were discontinued against the 25-year-old member of the Lancashire and Cumbrian Volunteers earlier this year.

The photographs were published in the Daily Mirror newspaper on May 1 2004. The images shocked the world, coming days after the release of images of American abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

One picture, reproduced on the Mirror's front page, showed soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment allegedly kicking and urinating on an Iraqi prisoner in Basra.

Another purportedly showed an Iraqi civilian being kicked in the head and groin while lying in the back of a military lorry with a hood over his face. In another, a soldier stands over him, apparently urinating.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, responded immediately saying that he was appalled by what was being alleged and that any soldier guilty of such action was not fit to wear the Queen's uniform.

Doubts soon began to emerge over the pictures' authenticity: the lorry shown in the photos had never been used in Iraq, and further questions were raised over the uniform the soldiers were wearing.

Pressure then grew on Piers Morgan, the editor of the Mirror, as MPs began to ask whether the publication of the faked photos could prompt revenge attacks against British troops.

Two weeks later - after Adam Ingram, Armed Forces Minister, declared them fake in a statement in the House of Commons - he was fired and the newspaper printed a front-page apology.

Mr Mackenzie, from Haslingden, Lancashire, went to Iraq attached to the 1st Battalion Queen’s Lancashire Regiment and works for the Inland Revenue.

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