Monday - July 21, 2008

Ministry of Defence admits it was wrong to deny war widow a pension.  (GOTTA SEE THIS)

This really is an outrageous bureaucratic blunder of the worst sort.  My mind can’t take in how it happens, and yet I know it does and this is probably only one of many stories.  But this is exceptional I think you might agree. 

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:29AM BST 21/07/2008

The widow of a war hero who had been wrongfully denied a pension by Whitehall bureaucrats for years was celebrating a victory after the Ministry of Defence admitted “maladministration”.

(only “maladmin?” Is that how the jerks cover their collective butts?)

Dozens of Daily Telegraph readers gave more than £5,000 to Gillian Norbury after hearing of her plight, but she has now been freed from poverty after the Veterans’ Agency admitted it was wrong to deny her a war widow’s pension.

For five years a tireless campaign has been led by one of husband Lt Billy Norbury’s comrades, Capt John Nunneley, which included personally haranguing the former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

He finally confronted Me Blair last year after bluffing his way into a veterans tea party at No 10 telling the then Prime Minister: “I protest most strongly at the inhumane treatment of Lt Billy Norbury”.

Lt Norbury won an immediate Military Cross for an action in Burma in 1944 in which he received horrific injuries to his feet, legs and abdomen.

Fifty-four years later the decorated King’s African Rifles officer died penniless in a public hospital in South Africa after decades of agony and operations.

After selling the family home and its contents and despite his wife Gillian working part-time while nursing her husband, the Norburys ran out of money to support the medical bills. For decades, following alleged bureaucratic bungles by the Ministry of Defence and the Veterans’ Agency, Lt Norbury, MC, was denied a war disability pension because he had enlisted in a “colonial” regiment.

After his death in 1998 Mrs Norbury was forced to leave her family behind in South Africa, where one of her sons was murdered and another died in a flying accident, to live off a state pension in a flat in Newbury, Berks. 

(Berks. is short for Berkshire. A county.  It is I am informed, not pronounced the way spelled.  It’s pronounced, Barkshire.  like, Hampshire in USA)

But now the Veterans’ Agency has finally caved in admitting the “maladministration” and will pay Mrs Norbury a pension plus a modest back-payment.

In a letter to Derek Twigg, the Veterans’ Minister, Mr Nunneley wrote of the “army of heavily entrenched bureaucrats” who had obstructed the case for five years.

The minister replied that the victory it was “in no small way down to your dogged determination to fight Mrs Norbury’s case”.

Mrs Norbury said without the “terrier-like” help from Mr Nunneley she would never have won. “Without his determination and utter refusal to give up on my behalf he has done everything no other person would have done.”

Richard Benyon, her MP, said the case was an example of “a disgraceful performance by officials” and “appalling maladministration” in the pensions system.

The MoD said “new evidence” - a third letter from Mr Norbury’s doctor stating he had died from war wounds - meant it was now possible to award the pension.

It claimed that the pension was back-dated from her claim, two years ago. Both Mr Nunneley and Mrs Norbury had to accept the MoD’s decision despite making their original claim five years ago.

(uh huh. but it’s perfectly okay to pay out hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to immigrants both legal and otherwise and an equal amount to would be terrorists and make nice and spend big on asylum seekers who CAN’T BE RETURNED to their native countries cause they might get boo-boos there.
But this woman had to jump thru hoops and go thru all she has.  I’m glad she got something but those so called civil servants should be canned.)

http://tinyurl.com/559p8m

Posted by Drew458     on 07/21/2008 at 07:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Outrageous • UK •  
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