Nuke Vets' Legal Joy

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 5, 2009

Byline: SARA NICHOL

NUCLEAR test veterans from across the region were celebrating today after winning the right to sue for compensation.

A High Court judgement has given 1,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen the green light to sue the MoD for ill health suffered after witnessing atomic explosions in the 1950s and 60s.

The veterans, some of whom come from the North East, believe they were used as guinea pigs to study the effects of radiation, leaving some suffering cancer, skin conditions and fertility problems.

Many of them are terminally ill and seven have died since the hearing at London's High Court in January which prompted today's decision.

The MoD could have to pay out hundreds of millions of pounds in damages to the former servicemen.

John Lowe, Chairman or the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, said: "It's victory for common sense over bureaucracy.

"It's great news for not only the people involved in the case, but everyone else as well because these men might finally start getting the pensions they deserve." Pensioner John Taylor, 71, was only 20 when he travelled to Maralinga in Australia as an RAF leading aircraftman in 1957.

The grand-father-of-five, from Carnegie Close in Biddick Hall, South Shields, said: "My main concern is for my family and their well-being.

Scientists believe radiation altered veterans' DNA and it is likely there is chromosome damage of veterans and their descendants."

The former servicemen, who took part in the bombtesting programme on the Australian mainland, Monte Bello islands and Christmas Island between 1952 and 1958, say new scientific evidence has shown links between exposure to radiation and their conditions.

The Ministry of Defence is fighting the multimillionpound group action on the preliminary issue that it cannot proceed because it was launched outside the legal time limit.

Its QC, Charles Gibson,also said the 10 cases presented to the court as examples did not prove the atomic explosions caused their conditions.

Mr Justice Foskett rejected a submission by the MoD, which denies negligence.

Other claimants from the region include Bede Christopher McGurk, from Lawson Avenue, Jarrow, and Robert William Redman of Queens Crescent, Hebburn..