-- PRESS RELEASE --
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -
NUCLEAR TESTING VETERANS DEMAND JUSTICE
AFTER THE RELEASE OF GROUNDBREAKING BBC TV
DOCUMENTARY: “BRITAIN'S NUCLEAR BOMB SCANDAL:
OUR STORY”
VETERANS GIVE HMG NEW YEAR DEADLINE BEFORE
COMMENCING LITIGATION FOR JUSTICE
LONDON, UK, 21 NOVEMBER 2024 - Veterans of Britain’s Cold War nuclear bomb experiments (the Vets) today thank the team behind the acclaimed BBC TV film documentary Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story (Hardcash Films) for revealing the truth about their plight and the UK government’s 70 year cover up.
The 75-minute documentary – aired at 2100 on 20 November on BBC 2 – stands to be as significant for the Vets as Mr Bates v The Post Office was for postmasters. Underlining the strength of the Vets’ current legal action against the Government (HMG), it makes clear:
The Vets were knowingly, recklessly and negligently exposed to dangerous and health critical levels of radiation during the nuclear testing programme in Australia and the South Pacific in the 1950s and 60s.
Some Vets were placed as guinea pigs in the proximity of atomic bomb blasts, without any protection, in part to generate data on its effects on humans. Some were ordered to fly, march, crawl and sail through mushroom clouds and clean up contaminated debris for experiments.
They were given little or no protection from the blasts. Many were placed in front of blasts with only a t-shirt and shorts for protection.
Many have suffered crippling injuries as a result – including skin tumours, heart disease, leukaemia, miscarriages and still births.
These injuries and conditions have lasted generations, and harmed their families, with as many as 155,000 descendants still suffering to this day. The psychological effects on them all has been traumatic; some feared having children, others have had lifetimes of chronic disabilities.
Our veterans were not alone in such ill treatment, their colleagues in the Australian military – who supported the British test programme – likewise suffered. Indigenous People were forcibly removed from their homes to make way for the blasts, and many more saw their lands contaminated and were subject to the same medical monitoring.
Last year, the Vets and their families renewed a legal campaign against the Ministry of Defence and HMG.
The potential litigation exposes HMG to payment of damages which could be in excess of £5 billion. As part of that litigation, in March 2024 the Vets and their families demonstrated yet more responsibility and honour by proposing an alternative dispute resolution platform, a Special Justice Tribunal. A Special Justice Tribunal is a more cost effective and efficient mechanism than litigation asit vastly reduces HMG’s financial exposure (the whole process would be reconciliatory rather than adversarial and could cap HMG’s financial exposure to a fraction of the litigation cost to produce timely justice for the survivors).
HMG – despite a change in leadership – has provided no substantive response to their proposal in over six months. It has only sought to prevaricate and delay. HMG knows full well that the Vets are not getting any younger and, as each elderly hero dies, believes the legal risk reduces. It is our view that continuing denials in the face of evidence to the contrary in fact multiplies the likely compensation bill.
To date, the UK is the only Western nuclear power not to honour its veterans’ sacrifice within the nuclear bomb testing programmes with a fully automatic paid compensation scheme to help them deal with the mental and physical trauma they all suffered. Instead, successive UK governments have covered it up for over 70 years. They continue to do so. As the documentary and the legal action demonstrate, the fact remains that HMG, and its predecessors have misled and mistreated thousands of our military Vets regardless that they claim to honour and protect them each Remembrance Sunday.
The Vets announce today that if HMG continues to ignore them and does not engage with their proposed Special Justice Tribunal by 31 December 2024, they will have no choice but to issue litigation that will expose HMG to the far higher damages and costs than the alternative offer.
Today they demand that, by 31 December, HMG:
Engages formally with the Vets’ legal representatives regarding the Special Justice Tribunal proposal, and:
a. that an outline agreement is reached regarding its ambit and parameters; and
b. that HMG makes a public announcement confirming the same.
2. Publicly announces it has removed all continuing and existing restrictions on medical test records relating to the Vets and will fast track disclosure of such to them and their legal representatives.
Failing which, the Vets have little choice but to reluctantly:
Commence litigation – a mass of claims – in the new year which will expose the government to the far higher financial exposure in the form of litigation damages and costs.
Ask the Metropolitan Police to formally investigate the Vets’ legitimate concerns that officials over decades (many in both senior and junior positions) have engaged in misconduct in public office to suppress the Vets’ medical records and other pertinent information relating to the testing programme.
Pursue criminal sanctions pursuant to the forthcoming Hillsborough law against public officials that thereafter continue not to meet the new duty of candour.
Comment
H-bomb veteran John Morris, whose tragic story is featured in the documentary, said:
“There’s only one person all these nodding donkeys listen to, and it’s the Prime Minister. When we met him two years ago, we were only asking for a medal. We didn’t have all this evidence. Now we’re asking for justice. The veterans are dying at a rate of knots and all we want is the bloody truth. Keir Starmer wants to change things, well here’s his chance. It’s on his mat, and he’s got to deal with it.”
Investigative journalist Susie Boniface said:
"I seem to be finding evidence of potential crimes at different government departments week after week. The cat's out of the bag and, if the government does not want to agree to their economic alternative to litigation of a special tribunal, then the most obvious option for the veterans is to take our evidence to the police and start the litigation."
McCue Jury & Partners LLP represents veterans and their families.
Senior Partner Jason McCue said:
“Veterans are not just for Remembrance Day. We have an on-going duty of care and responsibility towards them every day of the year because of the sacrifices they made for us all. Shame on any member of government that stood at the Cenotaph to honour our veterans whilst continuing to block fair justice for them and their families”.
“The case evidences a history of the nuclear test Vets being misled across all levels of government. They have been treated with anything but candour for decades. The cover up will soon envelop Starmer’s new government unless the PM draws a line on the cover up and provides justice.”
“I rarely find myself trying to help the other side in litigation but one feels a duty to the British public in this case to explain to government that the Vets offer of a Special Tribunal – as an alternative to litigation – is in the country’s best interests. Ironically displaying candour to government on this issue is something they are not familiar with. “
Senior Associate Oli Troen said:
“This is the veterans’ “Alan Bates” moment. Finally, the public will see what the veterans have known all along: that the MoD has washed its hands of one of the most harmful programmes in this nation’s history. The veterans gave their health and happiness for our nuclear deterrent. This must now be properly recognised, and the truth must come out.”
Notes:
Contemporaneous medical testing at the time is crucial to prove the Vets and their families’ illnesses and conditions were caused by exposure to the atomic bomb radiation within the British test programme.
Over the years the Ministry of Defence has vacillated from there being no medical testing at the time (though Vets recall being tested), to there being no longer any records because they were not kept or were destroyed. The latest obstruction is that they may have been classified for scientific purposes.
Despite clear evidence that medical testing was ordered to take place at the time, the Vets continue to be denied access to their blood and urine medical records. When they request their medical files, many veterans find that the sections arising from their deployment as part of the nuclear testing programme are missing. Without them, they cannot assess the danger they are in or receive appropriate treatment for the injuries they suffer.
The Vets and their families are stuck in an Orwellian nightmare where they are suffering from radiation related sicknesses/conditions – common sense dictates that the cause of their suffering must be the test programme – but they are told time and again by the Ministry of Defence that it does not accept their suffering is linked to the nuclear testing programme, unless the Vets can prove it is so, which requires the contemporary medical test records (which the Ministry of Defence have not provided or cannot disclose for a variety of unacceptable reasons).
The Ministry of Defence spent millions battling the Vets to the Supreme Court in 2012, within which the Vets could not progress in part with their case without contemporary medical records (which were not disclosed within that action). Since then, thanks to the journalism of Susie Boniface and The Mirror, their investigations have shown that many such medical records were taken at the time, and many have been withheld or not produced on request.
In March 2024, following The Mirror’s revelations, the Vets launched a renewed legal action to obtain their medical records. Without their records the Vets and their families simply claim for their continued suffering from psychiatric and PTSD conditions caused by the anxiety of not having their records, without which they cannot know the truth about their illnesses and conditions. To put this in context, some fear/ed having children, while others spend their lives in constant fear of cancer diagnosis. So, if they are not provided with the medical records (for any reason, whether negligently or recklessly because they were not taken kept or whether intentionally withheld) tens of thousands have claims for the psychiatric suffering this causes/caused them.
If the renewed action obtains the medical records, the records will form the basis of renewed and substantial claims by the Vets whose radiation illnesses/conditions are proven – by the fact that they could now demonstrate they were exposed to radiation – to be caused by the British test programme. Either way, HMG is exposed to huge damages compensation claims.
The Vets are clear: this renewed legal campaign must help not only UK veterans, but all Indigenous People harmed by the UK’s nuclear testing programme and any non-UK troops involved in the deployment.
Despite promising to help the Vets when in Opposition and advocating for a special tribunal of one form or another, the new Labour Government, once in power, has stonewalled the Vets’ requests to date. It has failed since in power to take them seriously or engage at all with the idea of a Special Justice Tribunal, maintaining its position that the Vets were only exposed to negligible levels of radiation.
// End //
Please direct all legal enquiries to McCue Jury & Partners at enquiries@mccue-law.com
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