Gulf veterans win a skirmish

The Government denies that there is any such thing as Gulf War Syndrome, but a recent Pensions Appeal Tribunal ruling has raised the hopes of Gulf veterans. The news will please one former British soldier and many comrades. Jon Robins reports

Shaun Rusling, a former sergeant in the parachute regiment who served in the Gulf war, is struggling to explain what it is like to suffer from a medical condition that doesn't officially exist. He offers a guided tour of the contents of his medicine cabinet as tangible evidence of what "Gulf War Syndrome" means to him.

It is larger and more jam-packed than a well-stocked larder, and bears witness to the irreparable damage done to his physical and mental health. "I have regular steroid injections, steroid tablets and then about 14 other tablets a day," he says. "I have lost my libido, I'm on anti-depressants and, on top of that, I still get frequent infections."

There was some rare good news for the Gulf war veterans last month when a court, for the first time, acknowledged the medical legacy of their military service. The Pensions Appeal Tribunal upheld Shaun Rusling's appeal against a War Pensions Agency (now called the Veterans Agency) decision to refuse a war pension. It is a ruling that will be closely watched by the more than 5,000 former servicemen and women who also hope to claim pensions arising from their service in the Gulf war.

"It's bad enough being ill and that illness being unexplainable," Rusling says. "But then having those people that supposedly owe a legal duty of care to you denying that you've got a problem really adds insult to the injury." Next week, the soldier, who is chairman of the National Gulf Veterans & Families Association, will represent UK veterans before a US Congressional investigation into Gulf-related illnesses. It will be headed by Ross Perot and is hosted by the House of Lords.

The simplicity of the judgment of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal will have a special resonance for the veterans. "The tribunal finds that the injury, wound or disease on which the claim is based, namely Gulf War Syndrome, is attributable to service," it reads. The ruling contradicts the strict MoD line that no such condition exists.

Lawyers, campaigners and MoD officials are considering what impact, if any, the pensions ruling has on the fight for compensation for veterans of the Gulf war. Patrick Allen, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, heads up a 10-strong legal team at his firm, Hodge Jones & Allen. He represents 600 veterans and co-ordinates claims on behalf of the Legal Services Commission for more than 2,000 veterans.

"War pensions are adjudicated quite separately from the courts," Allen points out; explaining that the burden of proof in those cases rests on the MoD. "So the significance of the Rusling case was that the ministry had not satisfied the tribunal that the condition which they called Gulf War Syndrome was not as a result of service," he continues.

Allen, who will also appear before the Ross Perot investigation, is still looking to see whether the ruling will have any bearing on the wider legal action. No proceedings have been issued in the High Court on behalf of the Gulf veterans and, according to the lawyer, "we won't do so until we're ready". The Government signed up to a mediation scheme 15 months ago, but progress on the claims seems to have since stalled.

The pension ruling marks the end of a gruelling nine-year legal battle for Rusling. He first submitted his claim for a war pension in December 1993 following "a complete physical and mental breakdown".

"I was driving to the top of the street where I was born," he recalls. "I broke down behind the steering wheel and I just didn't know where I was." That episode of depression combined with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder culminated in the ex-soldier walking out on his first wife and child. He is now re-married and has a second child but admits that those dark days are not behind him. "I still don't take stress very well... veterans as a whole don't," he says. "I can get a letter from the MoD which can cause me significant distress." There must have been plenty of those in the past.

The former soldier has fared better than many of his peers. Since the Gulf war ended in 1991, the NGVFA reckons that 540 veterans have died and that two-thirds of that number committed suicide.

The former soldier accessed his own 9,000-page service pension file from the War Pensions Agency under data-protection legislation. Rusling's original claim was rejected in June 1994 and he appealed in December 1996. In that file is War Pensions Agency correspondence recording that "the rejected label of 'Gulf Syndrome' has been replaced by an acceptance of the label of 'Symptoms and Signs of Ill-defined Conditions' ". As the tribunal makes clear, the soldier's consent was never sought nor was he told of the re-classification. "This has been happening the length and breadth of the country," argues Rusling. In his appeal, he cross-referenced his own claim with 50 other soldiers whose claims for Gulf War Syndrome had been recognised by employers, such as the NHS, but not the MoD. He reckons that he could have provided 550 such cases. "People are losing their jobs and their lives to Gulf War Syndrome and yet the term still has not been accepted by other bodies," he says.

Yesterday, Kevin McNamara, the Labour MP for Hull North and Rusling's local MP, tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons calling on MPs to voice their concern that his file was "fraudulently altered" and express their shock "that the Secretary of State subsequently stood by their action".

But Rusling goes further and alleges that "every dirty trick" has been used to prevent his appeal for the last nine years. In particular, he says that files have gone missing, case workers have been off sick, and computers have crashed at critical times holding up his appeal.

For those lawyers familiar with military claims, his story is entirely credible. John McKenzie, a solicitor who specialises in actions against the MoD, attests to the shoddy treatment of veterans and, in particular, the habitual losing of files. From his own experiences acting on behalf of the Falklands veterans, McKenzie reckons that two features have characterised the MoD and the Veterans Agency treatment of claims. As he puts it: "Firstly, there has been a complete lack of concern for the servicemen, particularly in the junior ranks, and then there has been a mania for penny pinching at a rather ludicrous level."

The MoD is still weighing up what impact the pensions ruling might have on other claims. "Until we have considered and evaluated the full implications... there is nothing we can say," a ministry spokesman says.

But the MoD flatly denies any suggestion of a systematic cover-up in the Rusling file. "There is certainly nothing sinister about that," he continues. "There is a long-standing practice that we don't recognise the phrase not because there is any cover-up but to use it is an absolute recognition that these illnesses are caused by Gulf war service," a spokesman says.

The present focus of the veterans' lawyers is to make treatment available for the ex-soldiers. "At the moment they aren't receiving anything at all, and that's something we are investigating in terms of a breach of the legal duty with the MoD," says Patrick Allen. At the moment, the kind of treatment that would make a difference, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, is not made available through the NHS.