Ex-soldier loses bid for damages

A FORMER soldier who seriously damaged his back while giving a “barrel-chested” colleague a fireman’s lift on a training course in Iraq has lost his bid for £1.7m damages from the private security firm he worked for.

Former paratrooper Joseph Davidson, 41, injured himself when told to run in full kit carrying the “widest” man in his group, while training in casualty evacuation in Basra in 2007.

The damage was so bad that Mr Davidson’s contract with AEGIS Defence Services (BVI) Ltd and AEGIS Defence Services Ltd was cancelled and his career in the lucrative private security business terminated.

Mr Davidson had been working as a bodyguard to US army engineers and has since won the right to a payout of more than a million US dollars from the American government.

However, feeling badly let down by AEGIS, Mr Davidson, of Tullibody, Alloa, launched the £1.7m damages claim, which has now failed.

A High Court judge Nigel Wilkinson QC said the claim had been brought too late, prejudicing AEGIS’s ability to defend itself, and so was time-barred by the Limitation Act.

Mr Davidson’s lawyers argued that the firm was “obviously negligent” in requiring him to run in full kit, while carrying a colleague and equipment weighing 350lb in total.