When 'hurt feelings' cost more than an arm and a leg
Richard Littlejohn 27th November 2008
If Captain Kate Philp is reading the Daily Mail in her bed at Selly Oakmilitary hospital, I suggest she turns the page now.
With any luck, she missed yesterday’s edition, too.
Capt Philp, 30, is recovering from having her left leg amputated below
the knee, as a result of injuries she sustained in Afghanistan.
She was serving in Helmand province with the Royal Artillery earlier
this month when the Warrior vehicle in which she was travelling was hit
by a roadside bomb.
The blast killed a Gurkha sergeant and wounded two other soldiers.
She is the first female British soldier to lose a limb in Afghanistan or
Iraq, but has borne her predicament with courage and selflessness.
Capt Philp was serving out her final year in the Army, but insisted on
one last tour of duty in Afghanistan.
When she is discharged, after rehabilitation and painful physiotherapy,
she can expect a small disability pension and a lump sum by way of
compensation.
The going rate for a leg is about £50,000.
I doubt she has given a moment’s consideration to how much money might
be coming her way.
She’s from a military family and joined the Army to serve her country,
not get rich. She knew the risks.
It is impossible to read about the bravery and sacrifice of young
soldiers such as Capt Philp without being overwhelmed with admiration.
This column wouldn’t wish to cause her further distress, which is why I
suggested that if she did happen to be reading, she should turn away for
the sake of her recovery.
As Capt Philp recuperates, she would be forgiven if her blood pressure
rose more than a couple of notches over the case of another young female
‘soldier’, featured in yesterday’s Mail.
Lance Bombardier Kerry Fletcher has been awarded almost £200,000 for
hurt feelings after alleging she was subjected to a campaign of sexual
harassment by a male sergeant.
Miss Fletcher, who claims to be a lesbian, says she was pestered by
Staff Sergeant Ian Brown, who offered to ‘convert’ her to the joys of
straight sex.
An industrial tribunal ruled that this was ‘so outrageous’ that her
delicate sensibilities could be assuaged only by a shedload of
compensation, including £50,000 in punitive damages.
Yet again, this goes to prove the sheer stupidity of allowing civil law
and mores to interfere in the internal disciplinary procedures of the
Armed Forces.
No one is condoning bullying. But it should be a matter for senior
officers and the courts-martial.
Back in 1998, Miss Fletcher, then in the King’s Regiment, Royal Horse
Artillery, was within a whisker of being kicked out of the Army after
being caught naked in bed with a female Australian policewoman at the
women’s barracks in St John’s Wood, North-West London.
The reason I said she ‘claims’ to be a lesbian was because, at the time,
she denied any such thing.
In fact, she told a tabloid newspaper: ‘It is all lies. I am totally
straight. I have had boyfriends like any girl my age. I even had a fling
with a married NCO.’
Given the slightly more censorious sexual climate back then - especially
in the Forces - perhaps her reticence was understandable.
But Miss Fletcher gave every impression of enjoying her newfound
notoriety, which may explain why she posed for pictures wearing a lacy
bodice and combat trousers.
That unsavoury publicity stunt should have been enough to get her kicked
out. Instead, she was suspended briefly and transferred to another unit.
A few years later, she was back in the spotlight again.
This time she was caught ‘ romping in the hay’ with a blonde female
corporal in the stables at a base in Yorkshire - the catalyst for her
obscene pay-out this week.
It was in the wake of that incident that she decided to sue for ‘sexual
harassment’.
During the tribunal hearing, we learned that she had sent topless photos
of herself to male colleagues, which in other circumstances could be
considered sexual harassment on her part.
Miss Fletcher also drove a sports car with the number plate T4 RTX,
doctored to read TART X, tending to suggest she was no shrinking violet.
Nevertheless, in the Looking Glass world of our industrial tribunal
system, the default position in sex and race cases is that the
complainant is always an innocent victim and the accused guilty as
charged.
With no ceiling on pay-outs, that’s the reason so many companies settle
out of court. They know they’re on a hiding to nothing.
So despite Miss Fletcher’s previous colourful sexual history, including
denying she was a lesbian, she is believed unreservedly and it costs the
Army a small fortune.
I was going to say ‘an arm and a leg’ - but those who lose an arm and a
leg in combat can expect to cop a great deal less than £200,000.
How many bullet-proof jackets or additional armour-plating for Warrior-
vehicles would that kind of money pay for?
This opportunist sexual adventuress is described as a ‘soldier’, but
seems to be little more than a glorified stable girl.
Imagine if she were to be sent to Afghanistan and captured by
insurgents.
If she can’t cope with barrackroom banter and has a fit of the vapours
when a sergeant jokingly offers to ‘convert’ her to straight sex, how
would she react if some mad mullah threatened to saw off her head with a
scimitar unless she converted to Islam?
The Taliban are not that big on industrial tribunals.
Despite taking the Army to court, she intends to remain on the payroll
until next April, when she hopes to join the police.
I bet she does. Given the Old Bill’s record on bumper pay-outs for
alleged sexual harassment, she needs only a couple of weeks of canteen
culture, then all she has to do is make one quick call to her brief and
it’s trebles all round again.
Meanwhile, Capt Kate Philp has to get on with rebuilding her life, minus
half a leg lost in action and with minimal compensation.
If she has read about the case of her ‘comrade in arms’ Kerry Fletcher,
it would be understandable if she wondered what kind of country she’s
been fighting for.
Forget flip-flops, bring out the water cannon
Today’s edition of Mind How You Go comes from Torquay, where police are
handing out flip-flops to help drunken young women get home safely.
They’re worried that these sozzled sluts might fall off their high heels
and hurt themselves.
Inspector Adrian Leisk said: ‘Sometimes people get drunk and you see
them carrying footwear, which is inappropriate.
Cartoon
'The emphasis is on providing replacement footwear for people to go home
in, should they find their footwear uncomfortable or soiled.’
Nice. Thank you for sharing that.
Surely the police would be better advised to storm the pubs before women
can drink themselves senseless — and threaten to strip the licences of
the landlords who continue to serve them when they are visibly drunk and
incapable.
These flip-flops are being paid for by a £30,000 grant from the Home
Office.
Imagine how much that would add up to if the idea catches on and every
police force in the country decides to start handing out ‘safe
footwear’.
The Government can’t afford to buy proper boots for our troops on active
service, but has no problem forking out for flip-flops for floozies too
boozed up to walk home in their Matalan peep-toe platforms.
A spokesman for Safer Communities Torbay said they were targeting
‘vulnerable people, particularly females, in need of support’ as part of
their campaign to clean up the streets.
What’s wrong with water cannon?
Dial 0898 Hyacinth
Hattie Harman has recruited the Women’s Institute to scour local papers
for small ads offering sex for sale in the suburbs — everything from
phone lines to saunas.
I think she’s missing a trick.
She should get the WI to take over the 0898 numbers and massage
parlours. It’s not much of a leap from all those nude calendars.
There are plenty of men who would pay good money to be told they were a
‘very naughty boy’ or to get rubbed down with home-made jam by a
Hyacinth Bouquet lookalike.
I had a good friend who used to fantasise about being taken in hand by
disciplinarian and Tory MP Teresa Gorman, and would have paid handsomely
for the privilege.
If all the cash went to the Treasury, we could pay off Gordon Brown’s
trillion-pound black hole before Christmas.
HALT! Fiscal stimulus ahead!
We're all going to have to learn a new vocabulary as the credit crunch
deepens and the Government tries to spend its way out of recession by
throwing billions at unnecessary and unaffordable public works projects.
A friend arrived late at my house after a nightmare journey across
London.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘There are roadworks everywhere.’
‘No, you’ve got it all wrong,’ I corrected him. ‘Not roadworks — fiscal
stimulus.’
* Two-bob chancer Tarique Ghaffur has dropped his racial
discrimination claim against Scotland Yard and swallowed a cut-price
£280,000 pay-off.
Still a sizeable sum, but nowhere near the £1.2 million he was
demanding.
The Met is better off without him. I’d call it money well spent.
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