UK: Sarin death settlement angers veterans
01 January 2006
In February the Ministry of Defence (MoD) admitted that Leading Aircraftsman Ronald Maddison was unlawfully killed due to gross negligence when he died participating in lethal nerve gas tests at the Porton Down chemical warfare facility 50 years ago. Maddison, who was 20 years old when he died after having sarin applied to his arm at the laboratory on Salisbury plain in 1953, never gave his informed consent to the experiment, believing that he was testing a cure for the common cold. While the original inquest into his death in 1953 reached a verdict of death by misadventure in 2004, a Wiltshire coroners court returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Now the High Court has approved a deal between the MoD and Maddison's family, which means that the second inquest verdict stands (see Statewatch Vol 13 no 5).
The settlement was greeted with anger by other veterans of the Portland experiments who said that the agreement "smothers" evidence that Maddison did not give his informed consent. Eric Gow, chairman of the Portland Down Veterans Group, who was the subject of tests with LSD and mustard gas experiments, told the BBC:
Young servicemen were subjected to dangerous non-therapeutic experiments without being properly informed of the risks
He added:
They were not told that the object of the exercise was to discover the boundaries of vulnerability of the human body to dangerous war gasses.
The High Court rejected these arguments in agreeing to the settlements, saying:
"Whilst recognising the strength of feeling on behalf of the Porton Down Veterans Group, we do not feel there is sufficient public interest to be served by a further legal and factual assessment concerning consent to non-therapeutic test such as occurred in this case."
Porton Down carried out tests on thousands of military personnel during World War II and after the war so-called "volunteers" participated in nerve-agent trials. This practice continued until at least 1989. During the 1950s, when Maddison participated in the sarin trials, the facility also tested hallucinogens. This February three ex-servicemen who volunteered to be guinea pigs in Porton's tests for the common cold in 1953-1954 were awarded compensation after being dosed with LSD in mind control experiments. The Ministry of Defence did not make any admission of liability in relation to the payments, which are reported to be less than £10,000 for each man.
For background on the Porton Down experiments see Rob Evans' book Gassed; BBC News 13 & 24.2.06; Wiltshire Advertiser 14.2.06