Ex-soldier faces anxious wait

3:37pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

A FORMER soldier who says negligence by the Ministry of Defence has left him suicidally depressed and unemployable now faces an anxious wait while a top judge considers his £1 million damages claim.

Stephen Michael Hibbert, 40, of Shrubbery Street, Kidderminster, was "a mature and confident soldier" who "loved" the Army, joining the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters regiment, based in Worcester, aged 16, after a boyhood spent in the cadets.

He rose to become a Lance Corporal and served with the Cheshire Regiment - who are based in Chester - in Northern Ireland and as part of the UN peacekeeping force Bosnia in the early 1990s.

It was during those tours of duty that he says he suffered the mental scars which have reduced him from "a reliable solider with above average discipline skills" to a wreck of a man who is so haunted by his past that he will never work again and finds it difficult to leave his home.

Mr Hibbert claims that post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by being caught in a mortar attack when he was asleep in his barracks in Strabane, Northern Ireland, in 1990 and "a series of horrific experiences" in Bosnia in 1992 and 1993 should have been spotted earlier by Army doctors.

He says his condition was left undetected and untreated for so long that it has become "entrenched" and is untreatable and is now claiming over £1 million in damages.

The MoD deny liability and their barrister, Robert Jay QC, rejected Mr Hibbert's claims during the course of the hearing before Mr Justice Owen at London's High Court.

The barrister argued that an assessment of his condition by an Army psychiatrist was "reasonable" and that Mr Hibbert had tried to conceal the extent of his difficulties from medical staff.

"The MoD has denied that it was negligent as alleged or at all," said Mr Jay.

"The Army offered Mr Hibbert the opportunity of engaging in therapy. However, he was very unhappy and reluctant to do so. When Mr Hibbert sought help from the Army medical services for his psychological difficulties, he was appropriately assessed and treated."

Mr Hibbert, for his part, claims that the examination he received from an Army psychiatrist was "a farce".

After hearing closing speeches from both sides today, Mr Justice Owen reserved his judgment on the case and will give his decision at an unspecified later date.

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