UK: Wounded soldiers could be sacked under army redundancy plans

Leaked memo discloses that 16,500 service personnel in total could be made redundant over the next three years

the Guardian,

Saturday 12 November 2011 10.23 GMT

The Ministry of Defence has been forced to deny reports that soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq could be made redundant under secret plans to double the job cuts in the armed forces.

In an embarrassing leak on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, a leaked memo shows that as many as 2,500 injured soldiers, including 350 who have lost a limb, could face the axe under purported plans to accelerate an army redundancy programme.

Wounded soldiers who had been "temporarily downgraded" would "not be exempt" from the programme and those too injured or sick to return to service would be "looked at in more detail", said the memo, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The MoD was said to be "furious" with the report, dismissing the memo as untrue and the work of a junior officer who had been misinformed.

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