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A FORMER soldier who says he has been left suicidal and unemployable by the psychological fallout of traumatic experiences he endured in the Army, today launched a High Court claim for massive damages against the Ministry of Defence.

Stephen Michael Hibbert, 40, of 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 in Bosnia in the early 1990s.

It was during these tours of duty that he says he suffered the mental scars which have reduced him from "a reliable soldier 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 even 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.

His condition was left undetected and untreated for so long that it has now become "entrenched" and is untreatable, his lawyers claim.

Today, at the beginning of a High Court hearing before Mr Justice Owen, Mr Hibbert's barrister, Guy Mansfield QC, set out his case, saying that the MoD owes his client "substantial" damages in recompense for his ruined life and career.

"This is a claim for damages against the MoD brought by a former soldier who was exposed on two occasions to what the doctors call stressors," the barrister began.

"The first was a mortar attack on his barracks in Strabane, in Northern Ireland. Early in the morning as they lay in their beds the roof above their heads came crashing in. That was a shocking experience for him, though at the time he thought he had coped with it.

"Secondly, and much more importantly, there were a series of horrific experiences in a part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Those occurred in 1992 and 1993, when he was a member of the UN peacekeeping force and attached to the Cheshire regiment.

"His case is that this led to him developing PTSD and that he started to develop symptoms by the summer of 1993.

"As a result of that he suffered a collapse in the spring of 1994 when he had returned after another operational tour to Northern Ireland, following which he was referred by a medical officer to a consultant psychiatrist in the Army, who saw him twice.

"Our case is that the doctor failed to diagnose his PTSD. In fact he ruled out PTSD which, we would say, was a most unwise course.

"The result was that this man, who had been told by the medical officers "don't worry, we can help you," left his appointment in May, 1994 without a treatment plan, having been told, in effect, there was nothing wrong with him that some time away from operations would not put right.

"Consequently, he remained undiagnosed and unhelped and his condition deteriorated and became entrenched.

"As a result, when he returned to the Army Duchess of Kent Hospital, in Catterick, North Yorkshire, in 1996 he was beyond treatment.

"He is now a very damaged man and it is unlikely that any treatment he might undergo will be effective. He is unlikely ever to be employable and the damages will be substantial," the barrister concluded.

Giving evidence from the witness box, an emotional Mr Hibbert told the court today how, despite being on anti-depressants, his condition had made his life so unbearable that within the last two weeks he had "tried to end it all".

Mr Hibbert also told the court how his attempts at forging new careers as a mechanic and a dry stone waller had been ruined by the nervousness that his condition made him feel about being outside and meeting people.

The hearing of Mr Hibbert's case - which is being contested by MoD, who deny all liability - is expected to last three days.

3:12pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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