Personal injury
Ex-servicemen who took part in nuclear tests in the South Pacific in the 1950s have won the right to bring a class action against the Ministry of Defence.
More than 1,000 men claim to have suffered illhealth following the tests on Christmas Island, the Australian mainland and the Montebello islands off the Australian coast, between October 1952 and September 1958.
They claim that a 2007 report into a group of New Zealand veterans, The Rowland Report, demonstrates a link between the radiation to which they were exposed and their conditions, which have included cancer and skin defects.
Some 40,000 servicemen were present at the tests, more than 20,000 of which were British. The tests included six detonations at Christmas Island of weapons more powerful than those discharged at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Witnesses recall holding up their hands and seeing their bones exposed as an X-ray.
The High Court ruled last week that all 10 of the test cases could go ahead—five had been statute-barred under the Limitation Act 1980, but Mr Justice Foskett ruled that he could exercise his discretion under s 33 of the Act to allow them to proceed.
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