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A Norfolk-based soldier serving in Afghanistan could face a cut in compensation paid to him for a gunshot wound suffered in Iraq after a high court ruling yesterday.
Judges in the Court of Appeal, London, said a compensation award given to Cpl Anthony Duncan of the Swanton Morley-based Light Dragoons should be sent back to a compensation tribunal for reconsideration.
It follows a legal challenge by the Ministry of Defence into the payments made to Cpl Duncan and Marine Matthew McWilliams on a point of principle.
The result could have ramifications for future soldiers' compensation claims, especially those who develop secondary complications from an original would.
It comes just a week after the Dragoons heard their bloody six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan was to be extended by about a month.
The tour has seen four Light Dragoons and two REMEs attached to the regiment killed in action and many more left with serious injuries.
Yesterday, Lord Justice Carnwath said the MoD had been justified to bring the appeal, adding: “At least from a legal point of view.”
Cpl Duncan, 27, was originally awarded £9,250, but it was increased to £46,000 by a compensation tribunal. A bullet had ripped through his leg while he was on patrol on his last tour in Iraq in 2005.
He overcame his fears and two years of rehabilitation to go out to Afghanistan in April this year with the Light Dragoons.
Marine McWilliams fractured his thigh in training. Marine McWilliams's £8,250 award was increased to £28,750.
There was a public outcry during the hearing of the appeal, with accusations that the MoD was unfairly trying to cut soldiers' compensation awards.
The case centred on the correct interpretation of complex tables identifying categories of injuries and their seriousness - such as simple and complex fractures - and how subsequent complications might alter the category.
Just read this in our local paper online, it seems so wrong to me to mess with the compensation amounts, surely there should be consistent payouts for various injuries.
To think the lad went out again to fight after having a bullet rip through his leg, is brave of him, it would scare me off bigtime.
Lizx
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This is outrageous, why do we treat our forces so badly... when you see the vast amounts the footballers get just for kicking a ball.....it must be so hard when they read something like this.... life is so unfair, rules made by folk who have no knowledge of the hardship these lads endure....
hope you are feeling a lot bettter Liz....
love Jean xx
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this snatch back attitude, is SO SO wrong, especially when it is a case like this......
He got the injuries serving his country,and deserves not to have it taken away.......
Bob
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I agree, it is disgusting, but please try and get a little bit of perspective... trust me, I'm a soldier's wife!! lol
The MoD stance is that the table of amounts to be awarded is rigid... and it is.... the amounts are ridiculously low, but they have to be interpreted within the law... and because they are low, and they are rigid, but also a bit fuzzy.... they can be overturned as in these cases if set too high, but via a legal process that means no-one wins.
The MoD has to fight the case through the courts.... there is no other way to highlight the anomalies.... and then hopefully public outcry will be enough that we demand compensation be legally set at a much more realistic rate, and the Government will HAVE to re-evaluate the compensation tables....... for those whose bodies have been ripped apart and mutilated, the compensation is dismal.... but let your sensibilities be wounded... well whoopie dooh, it's payout time!!
Something similar happens with soldiers and their families leaving the army.... they do not automatically qualify for a council or Housing Association house, so go to the very back of the lists.... they have a roof over their heads, so why should they qualify? The fact that the soldier is due to leave the Services is irrelevent to the local authority.... the only way the MoD could get around the hurdle, was to write to the soldier, giving notice to quit.... so that the soldier can then produce this letter and say that he is about to be made homeless, and this puts him up to the top of the list... in theory (in practice it doesn't.... I know that often it is other people who take priority, 9 times out of 10, and the soldier's family ends up in a hostel or B & B..... they can stay in the Quarter, but it is often far away from where the soldier has found work)
As for insurance.... there is one.... a very good one in many ways, actually, much cheaper than critical illness cover in civvy street. But it still doesn't pay out as much for a blown off limb as it would for cancer, for instance..... but it does cover the families for act of war injuries (if you extend it to do so)
I would suggest any loved ones of serving soldiers ensure those soldiers have PAX cover.... nag them about it.
But they still have to pay for it themselves!
By the way... PAX covers once said soldier comes out of the Services, too.... so is long term good value... but all the bumf doesn't really make that very clear.
Love
Daff xxxx
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