The Mirror has asked three lawyers who have worked for the government to reveal what they know about the Nuked Blood Scandal
These are the lawyers the Mirror is asking to set the record straight about the Nuked Blood Scandal.
Nicholas Crossley and Guy Higginson were government solicitors when they signed statements about blood testing of troops during nuclear weapon trials, saying they had seen no proof of it.
The statements were submitted as evidence to court hearings, alongside submissions by barrister Charles Gibson KC that he had personally ordered a thorough review of all documents held about the Cold War programme.
But the Mirror is asking all three to correct the record after new evidence came to light. The Atomic Weapons Establishment was recently forced to declassify 4,000 pages of top secret documents, and they show hundreds of blood tests were taken from servicemen during the weapons programme.
Steve Purse, 51, was born with a range of undiagnosable disabilities after his dad served with the RAF at plutonium experiments in the Outback, where his blood was regularly tested for the effects.
“My dad was treated as little more than a lab rat, but even though the MoD has confirmed it has his blood tests, it hasn’t given them to my mum and me,” said Steve, of Prestatyn.
“We’re begging Keir Starmer to order those tests to be produced so we can finally have the answers. I need them for my son’s sake, in case any damage has been passed on.”
Almost 40,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen served at 45 nuclear blasts and nearly 600 radiation experiments in Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1967. Survivors claim a catalogue of cancers, blood diseases and rare medical conditions. Their wives show three times the normal rate of miscarriages, and their children 10 times the usual amount of birth defects. Successive governments have always denied troops were part of the experiment.
In 2008, a group of 1,011 veterans and widows took the Ministry of Defence to court for negligence. The AWE created a database for all relevant files, called Merlin, which was supposed to be searched and shared with veterans’ lawyers. Mr Crossley led the government’s legal team and gave a sworn witness statement to the High Court in 2008. He stated that, relying on information he had been given, there was no evidence troops were medically monitored.
“The planning policy for the tests indicates that the intention was to prevent intake, rather than to allow it and monitor the results,” he said, adding “no personal records” of medical monitoring were made.
Mr Crossley is now a senior Whitehall mandarin, working as a deputy director in the Government Legal Department.
READ MORE: MoD accused of “dangerous levels of incompetence” for having no idea who has seen nuclear secrets
Mr Higginson, who worked on Crossley’s team, said in signed evidence given to the Court of Appeal in 2010 that while some testing may have been done, “the MoD had a policy not to take blood tests by July 1958”.
The declassified files show blood tests that were taken for several years after that date, which were logged as “records of personal exposure”. Mr Higginson is now a solicitor for the Metropolitan Police, advising them on issues of “considerable complexity, technical novelty and sensitivity”.
Mr Gibson, a leading barrister, led the government’s court battle against the veterans for more than three years. In May 2010 he told an appeal court judge that he “personally ensured” a team of 15 barristers searched for all relevant documents. “I was so concerned to make sure that we were able to say that we had given comprehensive disclosure raised by the issues in the case,” he said.
At the time, veterans’ lawyers argued evidence was being hidden, and Mr Gibson was assuring the judge there was a “comprehensive disclosure exercise”.
READ MORE: After 70 years, MoD finally admits there ‘may have been’ radiation experiments on UK troops
Mr Gibson has since represented corporate giants accused of wrongdoing, including Shell which had to pay out £55m over allegations of contamination from a Nigerian oil pipeline, and Johnson & Johnson which paid millions in an out-of-court settlement last year to women injured by vaginal mesh. In 2019, he was named winner of the environmental category at the UK Bar Awards.
All three men knew about the Merlin database, and that veterans repeatedly told the courts their medical records were missing. It is not known whether they had personal access to it, or if they were misled by a third party.
The Mirror asked all three whether they agreed the blood test results we found at AWE were medical data, if they had noticed them at the time, and whether they made any effort to ensure they were in the medical records of the individuals concerned. We also asked if they would now seek to correct their earlier statements to court.
Mr Crossley and Mr Higginson said they “could not recall” details of the case and refused to comment on whether they would correct the court record. Mr Gibson did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the Government Legal Department said: “The department does not comment on the actions of individual lawyers who act for the Government departments that it represents… [we are] committed to upholding the rule of law and maintaining the highest professional standards.”
After the legal cases were over, the database was locked from public view on the grounds of national security in a move approved by a Cabinet minister.
The fact it held personal medical information was uncovered only after the Mirror revealed the Nuked Blood Scandal, with a 1958 memo about the “gross irregularity” found in blood tests of Group Captain Terry Gledhill who was ordered to lead planes through the mushroom clouds to take samples.
In 2008 Mr Crossley had told the High Court that Gp Capt Gledhill was dead, when in fact he was alive and in receipt of a war pension. Had he given evidence, his blood tests may have become relevant.
Gp Capt Gledhill’s relatives have since discovered some of the blood tests hidden at AWE were not put on his personnel file. He later suffered decades of unexplained illness, and his health was monitored “in relation to Christmas Island” for at least a decade.
The veterans’ claim went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2012, which ruled too much time had passed for a fair trial. Had the case revealed the full extent of the blood testing programme, it is possible the government would have settled the claim for as little as £25m. More than a decade later, with a new claim being brought over missing medical records, the total bill could top £5bn, in part aggravated by alleged failures to tell the truth sooner.
