The government will this week launch an attempt to deny soldiers crippled in battle full compensation for their injuries.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will go to the Court of Appeal on Tuesday to try to slash the compensation awarded to two injured soldiers by up to 70%. If the government wins, it will fuel the mounting disquiet over the relatively paltry payments some soldiers are receiving for lifelong injuries.
The legal action comes as British troops are suffering their heaviest casualties since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in 2001.
Yesterday a soldier from the 40th Regiment Royal Artillery became the 20th to die this month, and the 189th overall, when he was killed in an explosion in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
It also emerged this weekend that the new commander of a platoon that had lost five men in a Taliban bomb attack earlier this month has himself been badly wounded in an explosion. Second Lieutenant James Amoore, 2nd Battalion the Rifles, stepped on an improvised explosive device last Sunday.
The 24-year-old officer had just replaced his predecessor, who had been seriously wounded in a similar explosion that killed five soldiers. Both officers are receiving critical care at the Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham.
The rising number of casualties has attracted attention to deficiencies in the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, which was introduced in 2005. Last week Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, said the nation was not meeting its “obligations” to injured servicemen.
Compensation payouts to soldiers are routinely dwarfed by those awarded in the civil courts. In one of the most high profile cases Ben Parkinson, 25, suffered 37 injuries, including brain damage and the loss of both legs. He initially received £152,000. After a campaign by his mother, this was raised to £546,000.
Lawyers believe that Parkinson would have received £3m in a civil trial.
In the landmark legal case this week Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, is appealing against a ruling that two soldiers should have their compensation increased.
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Thanks for your sacrifice, Tommy but we can’t afford to pay both you and the dole….
Small financial gain, large morale loss….
Who makes these decisions?
Bean counters and other fools.
Maybe they need to hire some more risk managers. Reputational risk is a mutha… Once you start mistreating soldiers, the patriots lose their zeal, which puts your party one step closer to the exit door. Britain is in the midst of an identity crisis and does not need the decimation of yet another long-running institution. Government messed up, plain and simple.
Agreed. Wholeheartedly.