He told the newspaper: 'In Kajaki I saw Taliban digging in IEDs and was denied the chance to do anything about it for fear of upsetting the locals. Permission to open fire was denied as it would alarm the population.'

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said it had not seen the soldier's diary but it could be a loose interpretation of courageous restraint.

Sergeant Rayner was serving with the 2nd Battalion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment and was leading a ten-man patrol in Helmand when he was killed in an explosion last October.

The father-of-one received ‘catastrophic’ head injuries.

During the inquest, Mrs Rayner said that the Army had promised that her concerns would be dealt with, but she said: ‘I have been fobbed off.’

Mrs Rayner told Bradford Coroner's Court her husband, who joined the Army at 17, had feared his own death.

She said: ‘He was concerned about the number of explosive devices being planted in the area they were patrolling and had told higher ranks because he feared one of them would be killed.

‘He said they could see people planting these devices but could do nothing about it.

‘I feel that maybe if a bit more had been taken on board about what he had said then things might have been different.’

Mrs Rayner said her husband was ‘highly stressed’ when he called her, claiming that officers had ‘laughed off’ his concerns and he had been told to do his job.

‘He loved his job and I believe he deserved more respect,’ she said.

His commanders, British and American, and the yes-men-and-women who employ them do not agree. In their growing desperation to placate, cajole, bribe, bomb and weasel some semblance of cooperation out of the primitive Islamic tribes that inhabit Afghanistan to justify the extraordinary sacrifice of blood, treasure and mental health the West has made on their behalf, our leaders seem to have locked into some distressed mental state akin to Stockholm Syndrome whereby they identify more with "the Afghan people," and less with their own -- as if that will somehow keep the gross failures of COIN from crashing down on them someday. Meanwhile, it leaves our troops increasingly to become IED-fodder.  

‘I know it was a routine patrol, but I believe that if he had been given a bit more respect and not just laughed off maybe they could have done something about it, we are losing too many men out there.’

Sergeant Rayner told his wife that officers told him that he and his men could not open fire on insurgents planting bombs or make contact with them.

His complaints were rejected by a Sergeant Major and a Captain, the inquest heard.

‘I think that if more notice had been taken of him, then he might not have died,’ she said. ‘Peter loved his men and would have done anything to stop them being killed.’

Mrs Rayner told the coroner, Professor Paul Marks: ‘I thought about it long and hard and I think he deserves his last words to be heard.’

She added: ‘Now it's my day, people will listen because I'm in court.’

Mrs Rayner rejected the offer by the coroner to adjourn the hearing so that officers involved could be called to give evidence.

Take it to the people, Mrs. Rayner. It's the only hope. Our leadership is too vested in the disaster to turn it around.

The coroner recorded a verdict that Sergeant Rayner was unlawfully killed.

But who will stand accused? 

Outside Bradford Coroner’s Court Mrs Rayner fired a further broadside at the Ministry of Defence, calling for rules of engagement to be changed  to protect soldiers.

‘They are not allowed to return fire unless they are fired upon. But all the lads have expressed concern because the patrol area was filled with IEDs.

‘They can shoot at us and take us out but the lads can’t do that to them.

These terrorists and Taliban can do what they want yet our soldiers try to do their job and get persecuted by the law.

‘If they are going to be soldiers let them be soldiers and do their jobs. The job is hard enough as it is.

‘There will be an internal investigation, but I think the rules of  engagement need to be looked into if someone is planting IEDs and threatening lives.’

She said two of Sergeant Rayner’s colleagues had also been killed before her husband’s death.

‘I am really annoyed. If they had listened a bit more then it would not have happened. He should have been taken more seriously. He was just trying to protect his men. He did protect his men – but  got himself killed.’

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘The whole point of a counter insurgency operation is to protect the civilian population.’

He said soldiers had to go through a series of stages before opening fire and were sometimes asked to exercise ‘courageous restraint’ even when shots had been fired.

‘It is all about winning hearts and minds and using the least force possible,’ the spokesman said. 

At what point do we stop making Western troops human sacrifices to the COIN gods?