Sun Millies nominated war hero Corporal Stuart Robinson slams law firm paid £200k by MoD as government ordered crackdown on ‘tank-chasers’ who hound British Iraq veterans
Corporal Stuart Robinson — up for a Sun Millies gong today — attacked the tactics of tank-chasing lawyers
THE “tank-chasing” law firm which hounded British Iraq veterans was paid more than £200,000 by the MoD — as ministers were publicly blasting it.
Hero Corporal Stuart Robinson — up for a Sun Millies gong tomorrow— called the tactics of lawyers like Phil Shiner a “kick in the teeth”.
Stuart, who lost his legs in a bomb blast, said: “When you are away serving you are just trying to do the job you have been trained to do, and make your unit and family proud.”
The RAF Regiment airman, 34, who did four tours of Iraq, added: “Coming back to this is an added stress everyone could do without.”
Stuart lost both his legs in a Taliban bomb attack in Helmand, Afghanistan, in 2013. But now the married dad-of-four is a double-medal winner at the Invictus Games and a member of Team GB Olympic wheelchair rugby squad.
Stuart said it was a “massive privilege to be nominated in the Sun Military Awards’ Overcoming Adversity category.
He added: “I want to show my kids they don’t need to worry about me, that I can still do all the normal things any dad can do.”
He spoke as new documents showed that Shiner’s disgraced firm Public Interest Lawyers was reimbursed thousands of pounds from the MoD’s taxpayer-funded Iraq Historic Allegations Team between January and July. It has since collapsed following a misconduct probe.
Tank-chasing profits
LAWYERS were paid thousands by Iraqi “war crimes” investigators on the same day they were shamed by a minister, documents reveal.
Disgraced Phil Shiner’s firm Public Interest Lawyers received a glut of payments a year after being reported by the MoD for paying fixers.
It raked in £208,342 between January and July this year despite then-PM David Cameron ordering a crackdown on taxpayer-funded firms suing the MoD.
In January Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt called them “the enemy of justice and humanity”.
But, on the same day, papers reveal the Iraq Historic Allegations Team paid Shiner’s PIL firm £6,817.
In July alone, just before it collapsed, it received £27,233.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority announced on 12 January 2015 it was investigating claims the firm paid agents to drum up business in Iraq.
Last week Birmingham-based Shiner, 59, finally admitted paying a fixer willing to smear British troops, along with a string of other misconduct charges.
Tory MP and former Army officer Johnny Mercer branded the payments a “national disgrace”.
IHAT defended the “essential” expenses for PIL employees, who were interviewing “clients” in Turkey and Lebanon between March 2013 and January 2016.
An MOD spokesperson added: “They were judged necessary to effectively investigate the cases and were agreed before the SRA investigation into PIL began.”