UK: Belated apology for Porton Down test victims
01 January 2008
At the end of January, and after more than fifty years of campaigning, several hundred veterans of covert Ministry of Defence (MoD) chemical and biological tests at the Porton Down chemical warfare installation, learnt that they will receive compensation for their ordeals (see
Statewatch Vol 13 no 5, Vol 16 no 1). Defence minister, Derek Twigg, announced at the end of January that the MoD would pay £3m, amounting to approximately £8,300 each for the 369 surviving veterans. He said that "The government sincerely apologises to those who may have been affected." The servicemen had launched a legal action against the MoD in March 2006, shortly after it eventually admitted the unlawful killing of Leading Aircraftsman Ronald Maddison due to gross negligence. He died from lethal exposure to sarin after being duped into believing that he was participating in tests to find a cure for the common cold. His family received £100,000 in compensation. Lawyers for the 369 men have said that their acceptance of the offer will bring an end to legal actions against the MoD.
However, while a number of veterans have expressed relief that their campaign is now over, some of the victims felt that were coerced into accepting the government's terms. Glaswegian, Joe Kearns, a former radio aircraft engineer who was used as a guinea-pig at Porton in the 1970s told
The Guardian:
I haven't been able to work for 37 years. I couldn't even get a job as a hospital porter. I have short term memory problems. I'm really blind. I'm back and forth to hospital. I've had two hips replaced and spinal operations. It's the pure injustice. I've had no option but to sign and accept the form. Otherwise they will wash their hands of us. I just don't want the MoD to walk away smelling of roses.
Other servicemen have refused the government's offer, as insufficient. Derek Shenton told the BBC that "There was very high pressure to sign - threats basically: Take it or leave it".
In February 2004, the Foreign Office, on behalf of MI6, paid compensation to three ex-servicemen who participated in tests of the hallucinogen LSD without their consent in the 1950s. The out-of-court settlement is reported to have been under £10,000 each. In a statement at the time the MoD said it was:
grateful to all those whose participation in studies at Porton Down made possible the research to provide safe and effective protection for UK armed forces.
In June 2006 the Crown Prosecution Service said that no scientists would be charged over the tests that took place at the Wiltshire based facility, because there were insufficient grounds to prosecute.
The Porton Down saga recalls other recent military experiments in which the MoD first coerced servicemen into unneccesarily endangering their lives and then turned its back on them when they began to suffer the consequences. The MoD has flown in the face of scientific evidence in denying that there is any evidence to link medical problems to the atomic bomb tests in the Pacific in the 1950s, when servicemen were forced to stand unprotected in the open.
For more information on Porton Down's serviceman victims see Rob Evans “Gassed: British chemical warfare experiments on humans at Porton Down“ (House of Stratus) 2000; BBC News 17.1.08, The Guardian 31.1.08.