High Court to rule on secret nerve gas tests

Lillias Craik, a quietly spoken pensioner from the East Midlands, has become increasingly uneasy over the past few days. At 68, she has been preparing for her first trip to London. But tomorrow, in a much bigger step, she expects to be closer to learning why her brother Ronnie, a leading aircraftman in the RAF, died violently aged 20 in secret nerve gas trials almost 50 years ago.

"I'm apprehensive, but not about the outcome – I know it will be on the side of Ronnie and the other volunteers," she said before setting out from her bungalow in Mansfield.

In a landmark hearing tomorrow morning, the High Court is expected to quash the findings of a secret inquest held 10 days after Ronnie Maddison's death on 6 May 1953, reopening one of the most wretched episodes of the Cold War.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of soldiers and RAF crew were duped into volunteering for secret tests at the chemical warfare laboratories at Porton Down, Wiltshire. The tests involved potentially lethal nerve agents, anti-crowd weapons, mustard gas and artificial smog. Many, including Maddison, believed they were helping find a cure for the common cold. Hundreds claim that the tests left them suffering long-term breathing, skin and eye disorders.

Unopposed by the Ministry of Defence, the court will order a new inquest, up to two months long, clearing the way for the Wiltshire coroner, David Masters, and a jury, to determine early next year whether Maddison was unlawfully killed.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the test on Maddison was done just after another "guinea pig", a soldier called Kelly, nearly died after being dosed with 300mg of sarin. As Maddison was directed into the gas chamber to receive a 200mg dose of sarin, Kelly was recovering in Porton Down's medical wing from the spasms, vomiting, oxygen deprivation and unconsciousness the sarin had induced.

Maddison's death and the other volunteers' allegations have also been the focus of a two-year investigation by Wiltshire police into the legality of Porton's trials. In files now being studied by the Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith QC, the force has recommended that several former Porton scientists be prosecuted.

Mrs Craik still has a clear memory of the day her brother died. Then 19 and living at home in Consett, Co Durham, she and a sister, Gladys, had returned home from a shopping trip to find the house silent. She called out for her parents. "My sister Florence came out of her bedroom and said, 'stop making so much row, Ronnie's dead'." The family was never officially told what had happened. Porton Down paid for a funeral suit for her father John and invited him to the inquest. He was told to keep its results secret, even from his wife Jane.

Mrs Craik said that in 1956 she asked her father about Ronnie's death. "He said, 'I can't tell you. I could go to jail.' He just didn't want to talk about it." Her mother was also reluctant to talk of Ronnie.

The 20-year-old had volunteered for Porton for a few days' extra leave and pay, while on national service in Northern Ireland. He would not have gone had he known of the nerve gas, Mrs Craik says. "He wouldn't have risked his life for something like that. He was a clever lad, quiet, one of the nicest people."

Raised in a conscientious, patriotic family, Mrs Craik grew increasingly disillusioned with officialdom as the facts behind Ronnie's death emerged over the past eight years. "I feel more and more angry that nobody has officially told us. As far as an apology, there's been nothing, not a word. They don't give a damn."