£12,500 compensation for wrecked lives is insulting
London – 8 November 2024
Sacked LGBT+ military veterans picketed the Ministry of Defence in London today, Friday 8 November, just before Remembrance Sunday, with the support of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
They were protesting at the Labour Government’s failure to pay adequate and fair compensation to LGBT+ veterans who were sacked during era of the military ban on LGBT+ personnel.
Labour is offering a derisory average compensation of a mere £12,500 for wrecked lives. Sacked LGBT+ veterans have been forgotten this Armistice Weekend.
“Thousands were dismissed from the armed forces because they were LGBT+. Some were jailed. All lost their jobs, homes, pensions and medals. Most were “dishonourably discharged with disgrace” and this made it hard for them to get decent new employment for decades, plunging them into poverty,” said Peter Tatchell who helped organise the protest and joined the LGBT+ veterans protest today.
One of the LGBT+ veterans at the protest, Adrian Radford, is a former Sargent in the Army’s Intelligence Corps and one of the original six European Court of Justice claimants in the 1990s who sought to overturn the military’s LGBT+ ban.
Mr Radford said:
“We believed the Government would do the right thing by LGBT+ veterans who proudly served their country, yet we have been forgotten this Armistice Weekend.
“As LGBT+ veterans, we call upon the Ministry of Defence and Government to recognise that the proposed compensation of £12,500 per person is derisory and insulting.
“It is unequal and unfair treatment when compared to the pay-outs to the blood and post office scandal victims.
“As we remember those veterans who have fallen on Remembrance Sunday, we ask the Government to remember and compensate fully the LGBT+ veterans who are still living and suffering,” said Mr Radford.
Another veteran outside the Ministry of Defence was ex-aircraftman David Bonney. He was sacked by the Royal Air Force for being gay in 1994. After a court martial, he was jailed in a military prison. He is the last person to be imprisoned for homosexuality in Britain.
Mr Bonney said:
“I served my country and ended up disabled. Yet the RAF robbed me of everything, even my freedom, just because I am gay. After 30 years of seeking justice, my RAF badge was recently finally returned to me but it was broken – yet again a further insult.
“£12,500 is not adequate compensation for 30 years loss of income and pension. In opposition, Labour undertook to raise the £50 million cap on LGBT+ veteran compensation, previously promised by the Conservative government. Labour have now broken this promise, once again victimising LGBT+ veterans who continue to be treated unfairly 24 years after the ban on LGBTs serving in the armed forces was lifted,” said Mr Bonney.
Mr Radford added:
“In the budget, the government undertook to increase compensation for infected blood scandal victims to £11 .8 billion. It also agreed to increase compensation for Horizon post office scandal victims to £1.8 billion. But the government is refusing to increase the miserly £50 million cap on compensation for sacked LGBT+ military veterans.
“The Ministry of Defence is about to release a compensation scheme that will pay only about £12,500 to sacked LGBT+ veterans, even though there are only 676 claimants! This means that even the miserly £50 million will not even be paid out in full and the Ministry of Defence now admit this.”
Radford, Bonney and Tatchell said:
“We call upon the Ministry of Defence and the Government to pay fair compensation, equivalent to that of the infected blood and post office scandal victims.
“The £12,500 cap per person should be lifted and serious payments made to each veteran, based on the losses and suffering they endured.”