A former Royal Marine is demanding answers from the Ministry of Defence after a high-profile settlement involving Marines and soldiers who say they were exposed to dangerous asbestos during military exercises more than 25 years ago.
Ed Hill, who is an independent Devon county councillor for Exeter’s Pinhoe and Mincinglake ward, wants to know why no MoD officers or exercise planners were criminally investigated over the alleged asbestos exposure.
More than 250 Marines and soldiers settled their case out of court earlier this month.
Cllr Hill led the seven-year legal case involving 256 Royal Marines and soldiers, having raised the alarm after personnel were accommodated at a former Soviet military site in Latvia during the exercise.
He says he was the lowest-ranking Marine on the exercise at the Skrunda-1 site – a huge abandoned radar complex – when a qualified officer told personnel that dust in their accommodation contained asbestos.
He says he protested about sleeping there but says the order was repeated. He subsequently collected around two kilogrammes of the dust and brought it back to the UK, where independent laboratory testing confirmed the presence of asbestos.
“The laboratory didn’t know where the sample had come from or the circumstances,” said Cllr Hill. “They assumed it was a UK-based building site.
“They called me and said we should evacuate the area, cordon it off and contact the Health and Safety Executive.”
But, he claims, when he reported the findings, instead of investigating those responsible for putting personnel there, the MoD tried to charge him for bringing the hazardous material back to Britain on military air transport.
A subsequent Service Inquiry identified serious failures surrounding the planning and assessment of Skrunda-1 and the management of the asbestos risk, and the building from which Cllr Hill had collected the asbestos-containing dust has now been demolished.
“This has always troubled me,” he said. “At the very least, there should be scrutiny of why a comprehensive asbestos survey was not undertaken, why the building was demolished while the inquiry was ongoing, what evidence was preserved beforehand and who authorised those decisions.”
There has been no independent military criminal investigation into the conduct of the officers or exercise planners responsible for the decisions that resulted in personnel being exposed.
While the litigation has concluded with the out-of-court settlement, Cllr Hill says there are still questions to be answered.
“The military justice system was readily turned against the lowest-ranking Marine when I exposed what had happened,” he said. “What I want to know is why that same system was apparently never used to independently investigate those responsible for planning and executing the exercise.
“I am not saying anybody should be presumed guilty. I am asking why nobody was independently investigated to establish whether criminal offences had been committed.
“The litigation is over, but the question of accountability is not.”
The Ministry of Defence has been invited to comment.
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