A Careless Omission Costs Client £6,500
Don't leave anything out
The following advice is the kind that might seem self-evident, yet our experience leads us to the conclusion it needs to be heard all the same: if you do not tell the truth when completing your Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) / War Pension Scheme (WPS) applications, it WILL come to light – and will likely ruin your chances of a successful claim with the MOD.
It gives us no pleasure to have to offer this same piece of advice but if you do not tell the truth when completing your Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) / War Pension Scheme (WPS) applications then we WILL find out – and clearly so will the MOD.
One of our clients injured his right ankle playing football for a civilian team and spent 8 months recovering but did not need surgery. As you know, playing football for a civilian team is fine, but if you are injured during a game then any Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) claim will fail because the injury was not caused by your service.
14 months later our client was on Selection and injured the same ankle whilst negotiating a hill walk carrying a weighted Bergen. His injury had different factors to that of his earlier injury, with damage to different ligaments that now required surgery.
6 months after making a good recovery he contacted us to help him with an Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) claim. He failed to tell us about his first injury or make any mention of it when completing the application. We spent a lot of time making this application as strong as possible by getting medical evidence on his long-term prognosis and his prospects of remaining in the Army.
His application was declined by Veterans UK on the basis that he had a pre-existing injury to his right ankle, sustained whilst playing football for a civilian team, and as that was not caused by his service he received no award.
What this soldier did, by failing to tell us about his first injury, caused us to be blind-sided by Veterans UK. We could have given him very different advice on how to proceed with his application had he disclosed the full facts of his injury, but that opportunity was now gone.
What he also failed to appreciate is that he had signed a declaration in his Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) application that stated, “If I knowingly give false information, I may be liable to prosecution.” There was no way he could argue that he had somehow forgotten about his first injury on that right ankle. He would also have found it difficult to defend the allegation that he must have known, or ought reasonably to have known, that failing to mention it would have a fundamental impact on the outcome of his application. In effect he lied – and got caught.
At the end of the day he had wasted his time, wasted 5 months of our time in helping him with a claim that was never going to succeed, and put himself at risk of prosecution. The lesson here is that before you make an Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) / War Pension Scheme (WPS) claim, take professional advice and be honest, because had this soldier been honest with us from the start, he would probably have £6,500 in his bank account by now!