UK: Nuclear test vets begin court battle for compensation
21 Jan 2009 9:20 PM
LONDON, Jan 21 AAP - Hundreds of former servicemen involved in British nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific in the 1950s begin their legal battle for compensation in London on Wednesday.
The veterans are demanding the British government compensate them for a range of illnesses they claim they have suffered as a result of being present at the tests carried out at sites including Maralinga in South Australia and Christmas Island.
The group of about 800 former servicemen from Britain, New Zealand and Fiji last year launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Ministry of Defence, claiming they had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
British Nuclear Test Veterans Association spokesman Douglas Hern, who suffers diabetes, said the servicemen had been treated as "human guinea pigs".
"We are the frontline heroes from the Cold War," he told the BBC.
"There was no-one closer to it than us."
Many of the veterans blame the radiation from the tests for causing a range of health problems, from cancer to fertility problems and reduced life expectancy.
Wednesday's hearing at London's High Court will not examine medical evidence.
Lawyers representing the veterans will first ask the court to overturn a legal ban on bringing compensation claims more than three years after injury was caused.
Veterans' lawyer Neil Sampson said the full liability case would take another two to three years to prepare, if the court orders a trial.
"Then hopefully the veterans will get justice," he told the BBC.
"Their argument is that when they first started these tests 50 years ago on various national servicemen, they were exposed to radiation which has caused them to suffer illness and disease and in some cases death since then and they seek compensation."
If a compensation hearing can go ahead, the defence ministry could face claims from up to 1,000 individuals, potentially costing millions of pounds.
Australian nuclear test veterans said last year they would monitor the mass compensation claim in Britain as they prepare to launch their own class action against the federal government.
Last June, the federal government announced it would provide free cancer tests and treatment to about 100 Australian police who patrolled the British nuclear test site at Maralinga up to 1988.
Only about 450 of the test veterans are still alive and many claim to have suffered serious illness, including cancer, as a result of exposure to radiation during the 1950s tests.
