Wounded in grenade attack in Iraq -- accused of faking his injuries
A seriously disabled British soldier injured in Iraq is taking the Department for Work and Pensions to a tribunal next week after they cut his carer’s allowance.
Adam Douglas, 45, a former lance corporal with the East and West Riding Regiment (now the Yorkshire Regiment), was wounded in a grenade attack in 2003 and then hurt in an accident in Basra in 2006. He has had more than 20 operations on his spleen and spine but doctors say there is no more they can do. Though he regained some independence after being fitted with a device to help him better control his bowel and bladder functions, he says he still needs help washing and going to the toilet, and regularly uses a wheelchair.
He says that six successive doctors, including three appointed by the DWP, have agreed his injuries are serious.
But assessors from the department have stopped a £70 monthly allowance to Douglas’s wife, Maria, for help with his “bathing and toileting difficulties” after in effect accusing him, he says, of “faking” his injuries. The DWP said he had failed to inform them of a “change in circumstances”, essentially that his health had improved.
It’s a decision described by Douglas’s former platoon sergeant, Andrew “Jock” Henderson, as “an absolute disgrace”. He said: “British soldiers are thrown on the slagheap when they return from combat – we give this country freedom and look how the government treats us.”
Henderson wrote to the tribunal: “Corporal Douglas was considered for a serious commendation for gallantry. His actions were directly responsible for the saving of large loss of life or injuries to others by preventing the tanks and infantry to cross undetected into friendly forces’ rear areas.”
On Monday, Douglas will attempt to overturn the decision at a tribunal in Leeds. He believes he is being punished for getting his life on track: he founded the Forgotten Heroes, a charity for the carers of wounded service personnel, and got a job. “What’s the point of having these medicals done if a decision-maker can simply overrule them?” he said.
“They couldn’t have picked on a more honest man: I work full-time, I am the chairman of the only forces charity that is dedicated to solely the carers, I am a school governor for children with special needs and I am a prospective candidate in mainstream politics and I stand as a candidate as a prospective Leeds city councillor.”
He added: “Just because I have these injuries, why can’t I maintain what I do? Why do I have to be labelled with ‘I must have to stay at home and do nothing’? Why can’t I still be productive and contribute? I don’t want to stay at home and cry into my spilt milk, it won’t get me anywhere. Finally I have a mortgage to pay and even with Maria working full-time and me claiming everything that I could possibly claim, we would still be left with no cash to spare each month or possibly not enough income to pay for a mortgage and daily living.”
Alan Taylor, a vicar and Liberal Democrat councillor in Leeds who was until recently the city’s lord mayor, said in a letter to the tribunal: “I have known Adam for the past four years as a political colleague and during that time I have had no reason to doubt his integrity or honesty.”
