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LAWYERS for the Ministry of Defence today hit back against a claim for over £1 million in damages by a former soldier who says negligence has left him suicidally depressed and unemployable.

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 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 to leave his home.

He 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 medics.

His lawyers argue his condition was left undetected and untreated for so long that it has become "entrenched" and untreatable and, on Mr Hibbert's behalf, they are now claiming more than £1 million pounds compensation from the MoD.

But Robert Jay QC, the MoD's barrister, today insisted the Army was in no way at fault.

He said it is Mr Hibbert's case that an Army doctor was negligent in assessing him and treating him in 1994 and that his condition went undiagnosed until he was admitted to hospital in 1996. Even then, the ex-soldier says he was not given any proper treatment.

But Mr Jay told London's High Court: "The defendant has denied that it was negligent as alleged or at all. The assessment in 1994 was reasonable.

"On Mr Hibbert's own account he went to some lengths between 1994 and 1995 to conceal such psychological difficulties as he was experiencing."

The QC said the doctor who examined Mr Hibbert in 1994 used "recognised diagnostic criteria" before deciding he had "not had enough time to readjust after returning from operational service in Bosnia and that he had been sent on operational service to Northern Ireland too quickly".

Mr Jay told the court that, even two years later, a civilian consultant psychiatrist who assessed Mr Hibbert found he "did not meet the full criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD".

Although offered the opportunity to engage in therapy, Mr Hibbert "was very unhappy and reluctant to do so", said the barrister.

The Army doctor who examined him told him that "if he had further problems then he would be very happy to offer him treatment" but, after considering PTSD as a possible diagnosis, "reasonably ruled it out".

Mr Jay said: "It is denied that the MoD caused or permitted Mr Hibbert's alleged PTSD to become entrenched and resistant to treatment as alleged.

"When he sought help from the Army medical services for his psychological difficulties, he was appropriately assessed and treated."

Mr Hibbert, for his part, says the examination he was given by an Army medic was "a farce".

The hearing, expected to last two more days, continues.

2:04pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

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