Public Witness Statement of disabled FSV-JSH.

I… disabled Fire Service Veteran of…will state as follows:

I was a Firefighter with Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service for 33 years.

Following a serious house fire in 1997 I was given a Chief Fire Officer’s Commendation for my actions which involved entering and re-entering a burning building and on each of three occasions removing and attempting to resuscitate an apparently dead child; one child responded and fully recovered; one child responded but unfortunately had been without oxygen for too long and suffered severe brain damage; and the third child who was breathing when I removed her from the building did not respond to my, or the subsequent attempts of Paramedics at resuscitation.

I was hospitalised for a short time following the fire due to the effects of smoke inhalation; the same hospital that the children were taken to; and shared the distress of the casualty department nurses in the children’s condition.

Following my release from hospital my emotional condition deteriorated. I could not get the image of the 13yr old girl dying in my arms from my mind. I also felt to some extent responsible for her death following decisions I had made and actions I had taken whilst en route acting on incorrect information supplied to me by the control room at Service H.Q. The address given to them had been confused and wrong but these things occasionally happen in the heat of the moment.

I subsequently included this information in my report for the Coroner but when the report was presented to the court, I found that it had been completely rewritten, changing the facts to present the Fire Service in a good light. When I brought this to the attention of a senior officer he stated that if I wished to keep my job I should keep quiet.

I continued to work for approximately 6 months after the fire until I had a complete emotional breakdown and had to take time off work, over the succeeding months. I was surprised at the lack of pastoral contact from the Brigade and in particular from my own station. This lack of routine pastoral care did not seem normal, It was only much later that I found out that orders had been issued that no-one was to visit me. It seems that I was being isolated. I was then told that I was to be pensioned off. I was distraught because to me the Fire Service was not just a job, it was a vocation. During my working life I had turned down ‘better’ careers outside the Fire Service because of my love of the Service and because I believed this was what I had been ‘called’ to do in life.

I challenged my proposed retirement and I attended a medical assessment by a Review Board convened by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The Review Board felt that LFRS had not provided me with sufficient, if any, pastoral care and were premature in trying to dismiss me. The Review Board also ordered that I should be reintroduced back into the Service in a fully supportive and sympathetic manner.

Unfortunately LFRS disregarded the Review Board and it seemed to me perversely and deliberately tried to make this challenging transition for me more difficult rather than less. Once more I was put into isolation by not allowing me to work at my own station where at least I would have found supportive camaraderie but instead I was made to travel three times the distance to Divisional HQ to sit alone in a small office with nothing to do but read training manuals and Brigade orders.

It seemed to me for reasons I am still unable to determine to this day that I was to be treated as a pariah as though whatever affliction I might have could somehow rub off on others.

During my absence the Uniform had undergone a dramatic change but despite several requests the LFRS would not issue me with the new uniform. Because this made me ‘stand out like a sore thumb’ it simply contributed to my sense of isolation.

I was sent to Training Centre on training courses designed for basic Fire-fighters, a rank I had achieved 26 years previously. I was in point of fact Senior in Rank to the instructors taking the course; and more professionally qualified than the Course Director and the Senior Instructor of the Training Centre.

I had no doubt by this time that I was being given the ‘treatment’ in that I was being isolated and humiliated with the intention of ultimately forcing me out of the Service for having done my very best personally and with my crews at this terrible incident.
The ‘mixed messages’ of a CFO’s Commendation set against my subsequent ‘treatment’ caused me great distress and huge domestic stress.

My emotional health once again plummeted and I approached HQ with a view to taking the retirement they had previously offered and was told that this was no longer available but if I wished to leave I must resign without pension. Then in what I regard as a blatant attempt to starve me into submission, they stopped all salary payments to me for almost 12 months and only reinstated them when the FBU’s solicitors threatened court action.

I again approached The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and an Appeal Board was convened.

Once more the report from the Appeal Board found in my favour stating that LFRS had not given me proper pastoral care nor had they carried out a proper evaluation of the issues. The Board also recommended that a further review should be carried out within 5 years.

The Appeal Board recorded the Qualifying Injury as Mixed Anxiety and Depressive Disorder and stated that they felt that the diagnosis by the health professionals who were regularly treating me, for the more serious condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which would have impacted favourably on an ill health pension was not sustained. However this medical decision should be reviewed within the 5 years).

Not long after this appeal hearing I attended St George Hospital, London. This is regarded as the UK Centre of Excellence for PTSD. I was examined by Professor Ian Robbins and colleagues (experts in this field who have reviewed and assessed many Firefighters) who stated that there was no doubt that I was indeed suffering from the more serious condition of PTSD. I forwarded a copy of Professor Robbins’s report to LFRS asking for a review of my qualifying injury. I received no reply. I wrote a second time again enclosing a copy of the report and still did not receive a reply. This failure to reply to me has been a common and long thread in my dealings with LFRS.

My opinion was, and remains, that the LFRS were simply discriminating against me to save pension expenditure. If the LFRS accepted the honesty of my letters and the specialist Opinion of Professor Robbins they would be forced to concede that I was indeed suffering from PTSD and as a direct consequence they would be left with no option but to justly increase my pension.

LFRS are aware that I receive DWP benefits that are related to my PTSD (I have informed them and have a letter acknowledging this) and I have offered them qualified access to my relevant DWP records, but they have rejected this because they want permanent unrestricted access to all my health records, something I find unacceptable because from prior experience my condition became the subject of common gossip at SHQ simply because they are incapable of ensuring privacy and security with regards to my very personal information.

It seems to me that the LFRS are a pension law unto themselves and that they twist and change to rules just to save themselves money at my expense and the expense of my family.

Mr Warren’s delays in answering my letters to him have increased from 3 months to 5 months to 2 years. Currently he now refuses to reply to me and advises my Member of Parliament he will no longer reply to him either!

I have made official complaints about the way my case has been mishandled throughout and the refusal of LFRS officials to reply to me including my requests for action under their Complaints Procedure which have repeatedly been simply ignored.
My letters to the Chief Fire Officer have gone unanswered. As have letters to CC O’Toole, the former Chairman of the Combined Fire Authority and CC Driver former leader of the Lancs CC.

My personal thoughts on this matter are that LFRS and Mr Warren are creating delays trying once again to ‘starve us out’ or in the hope that we will die off. They are fully aware of my fragile emotional state and have, I believe, deliberately exploited this in common inhumanity by doing everything in their power to make my condition worse.

One unforgivable aspect of this is its direct impact on my wife who because of my worsening condition is also suffering emotional distress and is in turn receiving prescribed anti-depressants.

The senior management of LFRS should hang their heads in shame and ponder their position particularly when they well know what they are doing and where the simple solution lies.

The LFRS has become an employer who lacks common humanity and any sense of decency where the human spirit is concerned. They do not know the meaning or spirit of pastoral care; they are lackadaisical lawless administrators; they have a bullying autocratic dictatorship style which will brook no challenge however legitimate.

Their only concern is not for the people of Lancashire, where we are told in letters writ large that ‘People Matter’ who they are supposed to serve, or for the magnificent Firefighters who daily risk their lives for the community but are simply consumed with their own self-importance and personal financial greed with only an eye for their next promotion and the personal bonuses which they set for themselves.

Corruption is the LFRS in any common man’s eyes.

This LFRS bears no relation to the once proud Lancashire County Fire Brigade I joined and loved. The Brigade that was considered to be at the pinnacle of the British Fire Service, a Brigade that could be relied upon to do its utmost for the people it served and the people it employed.

It is an understatement for me to declare that I feel that LFRS; the CFA; the LCC and their publicly elected politicians have all behaved shamelessly in this matter.