Family’s relief after winning justice for tragic Royal Marine Nimrod crash
13/10/2010
The family of a Royal Marine who was killed when the Nimrod plane that he was travelling in crashed in Afghanistan has today won their fight for justice in a Scottish court.
A jury at Edinburgh's Court of Session found in favour of the mother and sister of 22-year-old Joe Windall in their claim against the Ministry of Defence, following the crash that took the life of their son, one of 14 men on board the Nimrod aircraft who were all killed. The court awarded his devastated mother, Philippa Young, £90,000 in damages and his sister, Marie, a further £60,000 in compensation.
An inquest into the tragedy in 2008 ended with the Coroner, Andrew Walker, recording a narrative verdict, concluding that the Nimrod had "never been airworthy from the first time it was released to the service nearly 40 years ago".
The MoD was further criticised following the independent review of the Nimrod fleet by Mr Haddon–Cave QC in 2009, which accused the MoD of sacrificing safety to cut costs and that the Nimrod accident occurred because of a "systemic breach" of the military covenant.
Speaking after the two-day hearing, Mrs Young welcomed the verdict but said no amount of money could ever bring back her son who would 'always be her hero'.
"My son will always be my hero. As a family we were, and always will be, unbelievably proud of him and all his colleagues who died in this crash that we have always felt could have been avoided," said Mrs Young.
"The past four years have been awful for us. We know there is a risk for all service personnel when they deploy on Operations, but you expect the risk to come from the conflict with the other side, not from the equipment that is supposed to help keep them safe.
"It is important that we have won this battle. No amount of money can ever bring my son back and that is something we have to live with every day and we are disappointed that we had to go to court in order to get justice for Joe."
Andrew Buckham, a specialist military solicitor from Irwin Mitchell who represented all 14 families at the inquest, said the Royal Marine and his colleagues had been 'let down very, very badly indeed'.
"All families accept that their loved ones may be in danger when they go to fight for their country, but our clients were determined to bring their case to court, not because of the issue of compensation but because they feel so strongly about the way Joe and his colleagues were put at risk and ultimately lost their lives," he said.
"The safety of our servicemen has to be the paramount issue at all times and we would hope lessons have been learnt to ensure the same mistakes are never made again."
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