A former elite soldier is suing the MOD for over £75,000 in compensation for damaged hearing caused during his 16-year Army career. William Isherwood, a former sergeant in the Irish Guards, claims his hearing was ruined while training for riot duty in Northern Ireland.
A former elite soldier who claims his hearing was ruined while training for riot duty in Northern Ireland is suing the MOD for over £75,000 in compensation.
William Isherwood, a former sergeant in the Irish Guards, one of the regiments which guard the Royal Family, claims to have suffered lasting damage to his hearing during a 16-year Army career, including on a deployment to Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He claims he was not properly protected from the roar of helicopters, heavy gunfire, rockets and explosions during his Army service and training because sub-standard ear defender plugs kept falling out, or were not used at all.
Despite leaving the Army in 1999, he has now launched a bid for compensation over the damage, which he says has caused reduced hearing, tinnitus and an increased sensitivity to certain types of sound. According to documents filed at the High Court, Mr Isherwood, now 60, of Widnes, Cheshire, joined up in 1983 and did his basic training at Pirbright, in Surrey, before joining the Irish Guards and serving initially in Germany.
The Irish Guards - known in the forces as 'The Micks' - are an elite infantry regiment of the British Army, which was formed by Queen Victoria in 1900 and perform a dual role as front-line combat soldiers and ceremonial guards for the Royal Family. After some time performing ceremonial duties back in the UK, he served in Belize before conducting a tour of Northern Ireland in 1992 and later working as a physical training instructor at Chelsea Barracks until he left in 1999.
Mr Isherwood says there was a respite from the intrusive noise during 'ceremonial duties' as part of the royal bodyguard, but the exposure picked up again during his later years of service.
'The period back at Pirbright before touring Northern Ireland was noisy,' explained his barrister, Philip De Berry, in court documents. 'He went through pre-deployment training for Northern Ireland, which involved riot training, fighting in built-up areas training, ambush exercises and various other scenarios. 'In Northern Ireland, the main exposure to noise came when the claimant was transported by helicopter - Chinook or Puma. 'This would be a few times per week.
No hearing protection was provided or used.
'The main exposures during basic training involved using the range to fire weaponry and participating in field exercises. 'The claimant's weapon was the SLR. He was also introduced to the GPMG, the Sterling machine gun and the Browning 9mm pistol.
'Further exposure came from training with grenades and the use of pyrotechnics during exercises. 'On the range, the claimant and his colleagues would each fire several magazines. Many more rounds would be fired using the general purpose and sub-machine guns.
'Green ear defenders or push-in earplugs were available. The earplugs would frequently fall out. Both types of ear protection were poor quality.
'Exercises typically involved firing blanks and exposure to pyrotechnics. Hearing protection was generally not used and a range of weaponry was used. Mr Isherwood alleges negligence on the part of the MOD in failing to provide effective ear protection, failing to carry out proper noise assessments and failing to test his hearing adequately.
Described by his lawyers as 'both disabled and disadvantaged in the open labour market,' he is also a likely candidate for hearing aids due to his condition, it is claimed. But the MoD is denying liability for any ear damage he may have sustained, insisting that his superiors did everything possible to minimise risks, that lethal weaponry is 'inherently noisy', and that in the context of realistic combat training 'noise exposure cannot be reduced to zero'
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Former soldier sues MOD over £75,000 in compensation for damaged hearingA former elite soldier who claims his hearing was ruined while training for riot duty in Northern Ireland is suing the MOD for over £75,000 in compensation. William Isherwood, a former sergeant in the Irish Guards, claims to have suffered lasting damage to his hearing during a 16-year Army career, including on a deployment to Northern Ireland during The Troubles.
Read more »