MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands' veterans lose stress case.
Falklands and other war veterans have lost their court case accusing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of failure to protect them from the effects of the horrors of war.
The High Court in London has ruled against them after a hearing lasting several months. It accepted the Government's defence that the MoD had acted in accordance with the best medical evidence available to prepare the men for exposure to war and the psychological and psychical consequences.
The Ministry says it has for years carried out measures to prevent stress-related illnesses. The Minister for veterans' affairs, Lewis Moonie, himself a medical doctor and psychiatrist, says they will apply what lessons they have learned to returning veterans from the latest Gulf War.
The hearing focused on eighteen test cases but no fewer than 1,900 men who served in the Falklands, the Gulf War, Northern Ireland and Bosnia joined in the legal action. They included 40 Welsh Guardsmen who were trapped aboard the blazing Sir Galahad, in which 50 men were killed and another 57 wounded in the Falklands.
The veterans alleged MoD failure to recognise and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which had left many veterans emotionally scarred and unable to work.
It is claimed that more British Falklands veterans have committed suicide than were killed in action. Many Argentines have also taken their own lives.
If the veterans had won, they could have received pay-outs, costing the Government 100-million pounds, with each possibly receiving at least £300,000 for loss of earnings and ruined lives The British Legion charity which cares for ex-servicemen and women has expressed disappointment at the court's decision.
The South Atlantic Medal Association (SAMA) has been supporting the veterans' case, led by its founders, former Royal Navy Surgeon Captain Rick Jolly, whose field military hospital at Ajax Bay in 1982 saved the lives of hundreds of British and Argentine wounded, and its secretary, former paratrooper, Denzil Connick, who lost one leg and had the other badly injured on Mount Longdon. They have been campaigning for much greater research into PTSD.
Harold Briley, (MP) London
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