Bomb victim's partner denied army pension
A Derry woman says she has been refused an army pension because she and her partner were not married when he died in a Real IRA bomb blast in the city's Waterside.
Father-of-three David Caldwell, a former UDR soldier, died after picking up a lunchbox packed with explosives at a TA base on the Limavady Road almost six years ago.
His long-term partner Mavis McFaul says the Ministry of Defence has told her she does not qualify for his pension. She insists she is struggling to get by on income support.
"It's terrible. I'm sitting here in the house and I've a mortgage over my head and all I'm getting is 79 a week," she said. "That's what I have to live on, to pay for oil and groceries for me and the wee girl."
Derry MP Mark Durkan, who has taken up the case, is urging the MoD to act with sensitivity.
"Here is a woman and a daughter who have lost someone in a terrible atrocity," he said. "The issue that the MoD would be relying on will appear to them to be grossly insensitive and almost a bit of a 'gotcha clause' where they're looking for an excuse not to pay."
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Derry
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 29 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 14 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
