Falklands war victims in court

Tuesday, March 5th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

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The court case brought by Falklands and other war veterans against the British Ministry of Defence has begun in London (on March 4th) with accusations that the British Government failed to protect them from the “horrors of war”.

The Ministry was surprised by the number of veteran service personnel involved in the court case. Instead of about 165 cases quoted the previous week by the Ministry, no fewer than 1,900 soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in the Falklands, the Gulf War, Northern Ireland and Bosnia have joined in the legal action.

The claimants allege that they were inadequately prepared for their inevitable exposure to the terrifying or horrific experiences of war and that the MoD failed to deal with the predictable psychological or psychiatric consequences.

The barrister representing them, Stephen Irwin QC, told the court they were not suing for exposure to war. He said: "War is what servicemen should expect and is what they sign up for. It is also what their masters should expect and they should provide for this exposure to the horrors or war.. So far as they had a system, it did not work properly to protect and care for the soldiers, sailors and airmen".

Forces "macho culture"

He blamed what he called "a macho culture in the forces which meant that many servicemen did not want to acknowledge the trauma they had endured or discover it in others. There is a weakness in military medicine...and a hostile attitude to psychiatry by some members of the military establishment". The barrister said the Ministry of Defence had a "uniquely high degree of control over their lives. There are special pressures in service life. Their life is turbulent. In battle, they face unimaginable stress".

Sir Galahad horror

He claimed that a quarter of the people sleeping rough without a roof over their heads in Britain are former servicemen suffering from stress.

It is alleged that the majority of those affected by trauma were discharged without even a recognition of their complaints, let alone treatment.

One of the 15 main claimants is an unnamed former sailor who watched his best friend burn to death aboard the landing craft HMS Sir Galahad at Fitzroy in the Falkland Islands in 1982 after being bombed and set ablaze by Argentine warplanes. He was 20 at the time. The court case includes 40 Welsh Guardsmen who were trapped aboard Sir Galahad, in which 50 men were killed and another 57 wounded.

Ministr

Categories: Falkland Islands.

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