Written question asked by Lord Morris of Manchester (Labour), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Drayson (Labour) on Monday, 12 June 2006.

Iraq: Veterans

Question: Why a soldier who had received severe spinal injuries in the Iraq war was warned by an official of the Ministry of Defence, through his solicitor, Hilary Meredith, of ““consequences in medical treatment”” for commenting publicly on major failures in the care system for Iraq veterans; whether any apology has since been made to her client; and whether they are considering taking any other action.

Answer: I can reassure the noble Lord that no such warning was given. The Ministry of Defence press office returned a call from the lawyer to discuss in principle whether her client, who had been injured in Iraq, could appear on a television programme. The press office advised that there were two issues of which the lawyer should be aware: first, the policy that all serving service personnel must seek approval from their chain of command before engaging with the media and, secondly, our policy that service personnel undergoing medical treatment must receive consent from their doctor in advance because, in certain circumstances, there could be adverse consequences for their recovery, for example by reliving traumatic experiences in an interview. The explanation of this policy, which is designed to protect patients from media intrusion where it could impact adversely on their recovery, appears to have been completely misconstrued by the lawyer as a threat that there would be consequences for her client’s treatment if he spoke to the media. These facts were explained in full and in advance to the journalist responsible for the ““Dispatches”” documentary but did not find their way into either the programme or the pre-publicity newspaper reports that preceded it.

Secondary information