Nimrod families take legal action

BBC News Scotland reports that some of the families of those killed in the crash of the RAF Nimrod XV230 are to sue the government. Demands for legal action have been led by Graham Knight, whose son Ben was among those killed when the aircraft crashed in Afghanistan two years ago.

I have blogged on this a number of times and I am not surprised by this turn of events. The government see it as an embarrassment and try to put their heads in the sand and ignore the problem hoping it will just disappear. The coroner has already ruled that the planes are "not airworthy" and should be grounded.

Apparently lawyers will argue the basis of the case would be in relation to Article 2 of the Human Rights Act the thrust will be that the airmen were sent into the theatre of war ill-equiped.

Mr Knight told BBC Scotland:

"Fourteen men died on that plane and apart from apologies nothing has really been done about it and although the planes have been deemed un-airworthy, they're still flying. Had it been a bus company and it had been an un-roadworthy bus, legal action would have been taken against the bus company. I feel that something needs to be done as nobody has been brought to task."

Let us only hope that by doing this it will keep in the minds of the current government that they cannot keep cutting back defence expenditure and still send our soldiers into action ill-equipped. The Nimrod is just the toip o f the iceberg.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Nimrod families take legal action