London Daly Telegraph.
Ministry of Defence admits it was wrong to deny war widow a pension
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:30AM BST 21/07/2008
The widow of a war hero who had been wrongfully denied a pension by Whitehall bureaucrats for years was celebrating a victory after the Ministry of Defence admitted "maladministration".
Capt John Nunneley personally haranged the former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Dozens of Daily Telegraph readers gave more than £5,000 to Gillian Norbury after hearing of her plight, but she has now been freed from poverty after the Veterans' Agency admitted it was wrong to deny her a war widow's pension.
For five years a tireless campaign has been led by one of husband Lt Billy Norbury's comrades, Capt John Nunneley, which included personally haranguing the former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mr Nunneley, 85, has been "apprehended" by police, travelled from his Surrey home to Scotland to argue with the Overseas Pension Department and protested outside Downing Street.
He finally confronted Me Blair last year after bluffing his way into a veterans tea party at No 10 telling the then Prime Minister: "I protest most strongly at the inhumane treatment of Lt Billy Norbury".
Lt Norbury won an immediate Military Cross for an action in Burma in 1944 in which he received horrific injuries to his feet, legs and abdomen.
Fifty-four years later the decorated King's African Rifles officer died penniless in a public hospital in South Africa after decades of agony and operations.
After selling the family home and its contents and despite his wife Gillian working part-time while nursing her husband, the Norburys ran out of money to support the medical bills. For decades, following alleged bureaucratic bungles by the Ministry of Defence and the Veterans' Agency, Lt Norbury, MC, was denied a war disability pension because he had enlisted in a "colonial" regiment.
After his death in 1998 Mrs Norbury was forced to leave her family behind in South Africa, where one of her sons was murdered and another died in a flying accident, to live off a state pension in a flat in Newbury, Berks.
But now the Veterans' Agency has finally caved in admitting the "maladministration" and will pay Mrs Norbury a pension plus a modest back-payment.
In a letter to Derek Twigg, the Veterans' Minister, Mr Nunneley wrote of the "army of heavily entrenched bureaucrats" who had obstructed the case for five years.
The minister replied that the victory it was "in no small way down to your dogged determination to fight Mrs Norbury's case".
Mrs Norbury said without the "terrier-like" help from Mr Nunneley she would never have won. "Without his determination and utter refusal to give up on my behalf he has done everything no other person would have done."
Richard Benyon, her MP, said the case was an example of "a disgraceful performance by officials" and "appalling maladministration" in the pensions system.
The MoD said "new evidence" - a third letter from Mr Norbury's doctor stating he had died from war wounds - meant it was now possible to award the pension.
It claimed that the pension was back-dated from her claim, two years ago. Both Mr Nunneley and Mrs Norbury had to accept the MoD's decision despite making their original claim five years ago.
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So, the MoD mongrels still get their revenge?
Miserable barstewards.
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Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka,
from the HD Committee and its decision.