Soldier too badly hurt for army - but not enough for compensation (From Daily Echo)

Soldier too badly hurt for army - but not enough for compensation

1:47pm Monday 6th February 2012 in News

A Hampshire soldier says he was booted out the army because he was too badly injured– but not injured enough to qualify for compensation.

Jamie Geary claims he was booted out after suffering hearing loss of up to 14 per cent, only to be refused a pay-out because his handicap was not sufficiently serious.

Jamie, of Kings Worthy, near Winchester, says he feels betrayed by the Ministry of Defence, who are currently faced with cutting 7,000 Army personnel by 2015 under the Defence Review.

“On the one hand the Army says I’m not well enough to work and yet on the other they’re saying I’m not unwell enough to get compensation,” he said.

“The Army is reshaping, trying to save money, so people with injuries are simply being discharged.”

A former drummer and machine gunner in the Coldstream Guards, the 27-year-old Iraq and Northern Ireland veteran has been unemployed for three months.

He has gone from earning £1,300 a month to getting just £31 a week Jobseeker’s Allowance, plus a monthly Army pension of £374.

Jamie and his wife Karina, 23, and their two children, aged four and 14 months, are scraping by in a two-bedroom council flat.

In 2005 routine tests showed that the soldier’s hearing had been affected by exposure to noise from training ground explosions and his drumming.

But he was still cleared to go on a seven-month tour in Basra, Iraq, where his base was subjected to several mortar attacks.

In 2007 another test confirmed that his hearing had deteriorated as a result of the blasts. Two years later he was preparing for frontline duty in Afghanistan when he was told to take a desk job instead.

Last year he was medically discharged because new tests showed his hearing loss was between six and 14 per cent.

But Jamie discovered that compensation was awarded only to servicemen whose loss of hearing is 20 per cent or more.

He was handed a £13,000 resettlement grant but says he spent a large amount of the money making himself debt-free in a bid to overcome the challenges that lay ahead.

“I’ve been unemployed since I left the Army last November,” he said.

“I have appealed against the decision not to award me compensation and will keep on appealing until I get some kind of help.

“I gave my life to the Army but when I needed them they weren’t there for me. I feel betrayed.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said it paid compensation whenever it had a legal liability to do so but was last night unable to comment further.