Latest news with #NukedBloodScandal
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Labour under pressure as viral video shows broken promises to nuclear veterans
A video showing Labour ministers promising compensation to nuclear veterans has gone viral, putting the government under pressure to keep its word Pressure is growing on the Labour government to keep its years of promises to nuclear veterans, after a social media video went viral. It includes clips of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard all insisting that when in power they would offer full recognition to Britain's most mistreated heroes. More than a million people have now seen the video, compiled by social justice campaigner Peter Stefanovic. He is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to sit down with the families affected by involvement with Cold War nuclear weapons tests. In Opposition and the shadow cabinet, the three gave unscripted and unasked-for offers of compensation, saying "there was no good reason" not to and it was "really dumb" of the Tories not to have done it already. Mr Starmer himself told them: "The country owes you a huge debt of honour. Your campaign is our campaign." Yet after almost a year in power, nothing has changed. Mr Stefanovic said: "Despite expressing his "gratitude" to the veterans in opposition, after becoming PM, Keir Starmer has made no public comment on the nuclear blood test programme, and 10 months since Labour came to power, there is no compensation scheme, no recognition, beyond a commemorative medal which was authorised by the Tories. "A 'thorough' review of the archives promised to Parliament by Mr Healey has been given no budget with which to find answers. Our nuclear test veterans - national heroes to whom this country owes a huge debt of honour and gratitude, most of whom are now in their eighties and with chronic ill health - are calling on the PM to meet with them and honour the commitment which his party to them in opposition... it's the very least the veterans deserve." The pledges were all made before evidence emerged in November 2022 of the Nuked Blood Scandal, a secret biological monitoring programme on troops involving blood tests, urinalysis and chest x-rays to determine whether radiation had entered their bodies. The MoD had long denied such a programme existed, but a three-year investigation by the Mirror has uncovered thousands of pages of evidence hidden on a secret database at the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Discovery of the cover-up has led to a civil lawsuit, a police complaint, and a decision to declassify the entire historic archive. After it featured in a BBC documentary, a review was launched but six months on ministers have refused to reveal any findings, and admitted it has no deadline. The video shows Ms Rayner addressing a conference of the forgotten Cold War heroes in 2022, telling them: "Myself and my Labour colleagues are calling on the Secretary of State for Defence to.... liaise with the Treasury to set up an appropriate financial compensation programme for veterans and their descendants, as America, France, China, Russia, Fiji and the Isle of Man have done." Mr Healey told the same event: "The UK remains the only nuclear test country in which there is no scheme at all for compensation and recognition, and that's why on behalf of the British Labour Party I've said to your veterans, your campaign is our campaign. It's why British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has met with veterans and their families, the first-ever party leader in Britain to do so. We are totally together on the campaign for justice, for compensation." Mr Pollard is shown in a third clip, saying: "The UK, unlike many of our allies, has never compensated or recognised the sacrifice of those veterans... their significant exposure to radiation has also led to consequences for close family members and their children. "So that's why it seems really dumb the UK government has been denying, not only a medal to those veterans for their exceptional service 70 years ago, but compensation, and Labour has been campaigning on this for quite some time." Steve Foote's sailor dad John was sent to Christmas Island to take part in Operation Grapple in 1957. After two years of fighting he was bale to get his dad's medical records, which show he was given 6 chest x-rays in 8 years with no clinical reason. He said: "If only their actions were as powerful as their words in Opposition." Jim Shaw, whose dad was also a veteran, added: "It's taken the government 65 years for my dad to receive his nuclear veteran's medal and certificate. The government are just biding their time, in 10 years most of the veterans will be gone.. The same will happen to the blood scandals, and the post office sub-postmasters, sadly.. Cannot and never will be trusted.." Campaigners have requested a meeting with Mr Healey and Mr Starmer, but received no response. A spokesman for the MoD said: "We recognise the huge contribution that nuclear test veterans have made to national security. Since entering government, ministers have commissioned officials to look again at unresolved questions regarding medical records as a priority, and this is now underway. This work will be comprehensive, and it will enable us to better understand what information the department holds in relation to the medical testing of service personnel who took part in the UK nuclear weapons tests."
Daily Mirror
07-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Nuked Blood: The men being asked to set the record straight
The Mirror has asked three lawyers who have worked for the government to reveal what they know about the Nuked Blood Scandal These are the lawyers the Mirror is asking to set the record straight about the Nuked Blood Scandal. Nicholas Crossley and Guy Higginson were government solicitors when they signed statements about blood testing of troops during nuclear weapon trials, saying they had seen no proof of it. The statements were submitted as evidence to court hearings, alongside submissions by barrister Charles Gibson KC that he had personally ordered a thorough review of all documents held about the Cold War programme. But the Mirror is asking all three to correct the record after new evidence came to light. The Atomic Weapons Establishment was recently forced to declassify 4,000 pages of top secret documents, and they show hundreds of blood tests were taken from servicemen during the weapons programme. Steve Purse, 51, was born with a range of undiagnosable disabilities after his dad served with the RAF at plutonium experiments in the Outback, where his blood was regularly tested for the effects. 'My dad was treated as little more than a lab rat, but even though the MoD has confirmed it has his blood tests, it hasn't given them to my mum and me,' said Steve, of Prestatyn. 'We're begging Keir Starmer to order those tests to be produced so we can finally have the answers. I need them for my son's sake, in case any damage has been passed on.' Almost 40,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen served at 45 nuclear blasts and nearly 600 radiation experiments in Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1967. Survivors claim a catalogue of cancers, blood diseases and rare medical conditions. Their wives show three times the normal rate of miscarriages, and their children 10 times the usual amount of birth defects. Successive governments have always denied troops were part of the experiment. In 2008, a group of 1,011 veterans and widows took the Ministry of Defence to court for negligence. The AWE created a database for all relevant files, called Merlin, which was supposed to be searched and shared with veterans' lawyers. Mr Crossley led the government's legal team and gave a sworn witness statement to the High Court in 2008. He stated that, relying on information he had been given, there was no evidence troops were medically monitored. 'The planning policy for the tests indicates that the intention was to prevent intake, rather than to allow it and monitor the results,' he said, adding 'no personal records' of medical monitoring were made. Mr Crossley is now a senior Whitehall mandarin, working as a deputy director in the Government Legal Department. Mr Higginson, who worked on Crossley's team, said in signed evidence given to the Court of Appeal in 2010 that while some testing may have been done, 'the MoD had a policy not to take blood tests by July 1958'. The declassified files show blood tests that were taken for several years after that date, which were logged as 'records of personal exposure'. Mr Higginson is now a solicitor for the Metropolitan Police, advising them on issues of 'considerable complexity, technical novelty and sensitivity'. Mr Gibson, a leading barrister, led the government's court battle against the veterans for more than three years. In May 2010 he told an appeal court judge that he 'personally ensured' a team of 15 barristers searched for all relevant documents. 'I was so concerned to make sure that we were able to say that we had given comprehensive disclosure raised by the issues in the case,' he said. At the time, veterans' lawyers argued evidence was being hidden, and Mr Gibson was assuring the judge there was a 'comprehensive disclosure exercise'. Mr Gibson has since represented corporate giants accused of wrongdoing, including Shell which had to pay out £55m over allegations of contamination from a Nigerian oil pipeline, and Johnson & Johnson which paid millions in an out-of-court settlement last year to women injured by vaginal mesh. In 2019, he was named winner of the environmental category at the UK Bar Awards. All three men knew about the Merlin database, and that veterans repeatedly told the courts their medical records were missing. It is not known whether they had personal access to it, or if they were misled by a third party. The Mirror asked all three whether they agreed the blood test results we found at AWE were medical data, if they had noticed them at the time, and whether they made any effort to ensure they were in the medical records of the individuals concerned. We also asked if they would now seek to correct their earlier statements to court. Mr Crossley and Mr Higginson said they 'could not recall' details of the case and refused to comment on whether they would correct the court record. Mr Gibson did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Government Legal Department said: 'The department does not comment on the actions of individual lawyers who act for the Government departments that it represents... [we are] committed to upholding the rule of law and maintaining the highest professional standards.' After the legal cases were over, the database was locked from public view on the grounds of national security in a move approved by a Cabinet minister. The fact it held personal medical information was uncovered only after the Mirror revealed the Nuked Blood Scandal, with a 1958 memo about the 'gross irregularity' found in blood tests of Group Captain Terry Gledhill who was ordered to lead planes through the mushroom clouds to take samples. In 2008 Mr Crossley had told the High Court that Gp Capt Gledhill was dead, when in fact he was alive and in receipt of a war pension. Had he given evidence, his blood tests may have become relevant. Gp Capt Gledhill's relatives have since discovered some of the blood tests hidden at AWE were not put on his personnel file. He later suffered decades of unexplained illness, and his health was monitored "in relation to Christmas Island" for at least a decade. The veterans' claim went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2012, which ruled too much time had passed for a fair trial. Had the case revealed the full extent of the blood testing programme, it is possible the government would have settled the claim for as little as £25m. More than a decade later, with a new claim being brought over missing medical records, the total bill could top £5bn, in part aggravated by alleged failures to tell the truth sooner.
Daily Mirror
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
EXCLUSIVE: How MoD officials blocked evidence of Nuked Blood cover-up
Senior civil servants blocked the release of records that showed nuclear hero's medical data had been tampered with Ministry of Defence officials blocked a minister from publishing evidence of wrongdoing in the Nuked Blood Scandal. Emails obtained by the Mirror show civil servants unlawfully withholding the full truth from the family of a nuclear veteran 'lab rat' used in Cold War radiation experiments. Alan Owen of campaign group LABRATS said: 'Either the officials don't know what they're doing, or they intentionally misled a minister of the Crown to authorise an unlawful act. "In either event we believe this is a criminal offence in which state employees have knowingly, or at best recklessly, broken the law. Keir Starmer is their boss, and as a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service he must act on this.' Group Captain Terry Gledhill had been medically monitored while leading squadrons of 'sniff' planes on sampling missions through the mushroom clouds of Operation Grapple at Christmas Island in 1958. It was revealed in a top secret memo sent between Atomic Weapons Establishment scientists discussing the 'gross irregularity' in his blood tests. When his horrified daughter Jane O'Connor asked to see his personnel file, she was refused. A judge later ruled that as his executor, she had a legal right to it. The memo, some of the blood tests, and 14 months of records were found to be missing from the file. It also showed Terry was given unexplained chest x-rays after his return, and was having 'routine' checks on his blood 11 years later. Following Jane's win, the Mirror made a Freedom of Information request to see the advice given by officials who had refused her access. After an 11-month battle, a dozen pages of redacted emails have been released, and show officials repeatedly misled then-defence minister Andrew Murrison. In June 2022, a squadron leader from the RAF medical archive told the MoD that Jane had no right to access the records. Six months later, after Jane asked to see the advice and told them she was executor, the emails show deputy heads of department agreeing she could not have it, and asking the minister to rubber-stamp it. A senior civil servant team leader claimed: 'Releasing this information for public consumption would expose officials to public rebuke and, therefore, more likely to react defensively to criticism making it harder to achieve the most effective outcomes.' But guidance from the Information Commissioner states: 'The threat of future disclosure could actually lead to better quality advice.' They also told the minister there was 'no media interest' and 'no direct financial implications', even though Terry's blood tests had been subject of extensive coverage three months earlier, and withholding medical records can make organisations liable for damages. The emails show Mr Murrison questioned 'the validity of the actual advice we wish to withhold'. Senior civil servants then agreed the wording of an email to send him and the rest of the frontbench ministerial team, falsely claiming 'there is no legal obligation' to provide the records to Jane. She said: 'If they had just published when I first asked, we would have known three years ago what happened to my dad. Because they fought it, there are now half a dozen senior civil servants involved in what sounds like a cover-up. He would be devastated to know this is how the country he served was treating him and his crews, after all they did for us.' A source close to Mr Murrison said he had been 'very keen to release as much as possible' on a range of topics while in office, and had taken officials' advice at face value. He was no longer in a position to check if they had been in the wrong, said the source. Civil servants blocked the Mirror's request for the emails for nearly a year, claiming a change of government made a difference to the FOI laws, and that new ministers were not allowed to see what previous ministers had been told. They even sought help from the Cabinet Office and Attorney General, before finally releasing some of them with redactions. 'We would like to offer our sincere apologies for the length of time taken to provide you with a response which has been due to the complexity of the request and the need for serval government departments to liaise in order to ensure that your request is considered robustly,' the MoD told the Mirror. Asked about the contents of the emails, a spokesman said: 'The government is committed to being open and transparent and takes its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act very seriously. 'We have accepted the FOI Tribunal's ruling and provided the requested records to the family. We have reviewed our internal guidance and processes to ensure they fully align with ICO requirements and that ministerial decisions on disclosure are properly supported with accurate and complete information.'
