Fri 28 Nov 2008 02:47
If Captain Kate Philp is reading the Daily Mail in her bed at Selly Oak military 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.