Help Nuclear Test Veterans & families sue the MoD!

My name is Steve Purse and my ‘warrior’ wife Georgina is taking part in a gruelling ‘Savage Saturday’ exercise session. It is an SAS style ‘beasting’ through the Welsh countryside in March 2024 to raise funds to help Nuclear Test veterans and their families get the truth. To find out why, please read below…

Britain’s Nuclear Weapons testing programme is hailed as a success and gave Britain a seat at the nuclear table. However, it was not without its cost, a cost that has been borne by the 22,000 British service personnel that served on the tests and their families. Only approximately 2,500 survive, the rest have been taken from us too early through cancers, tumours, suicide and a whole host of other illnesses, many of which can be attributed to radiation exposure. The story does not end with those who served, the genetic damage to their DNA has been passed down through the generations to their children and grandchildren.

I am the son of a Nuclear Test Veteran, my father served with the RAF at Maralinga, South Australia where the UK detonated 7 nuclear weapons and conducted 593 highly toxic and polluting plutonium experiments. I was born with disabilities and health conditions that have severely impacted my life. My main disability cannot be diagnosed. All I am told is that It’s a genetic mutation and I am unique. My wife Georgina and I have a beautiful son, Sascha, who is two and our worst fear has come true, he has been diagnosed with a rare genetic, inherited condition. My story is not unique, the descendants of nuclear test veterans have 10 times the rate of birth defects that is found in the general population. This genetic ‘fallout’ will carry on through the generations for an estimated 500 years.

The veterans, their families and descendants are trying to get hold of service medical records for the period that the veterans served at the British Nuclear tests. We have evidence they all had blood and urine tests while at the tests but the MOD is not helping. Initially they said none were taken, then that they could not find any. Now evidence has come to light that they hold thousands of these records. They are refusing to release them. These would give us a starting point for meaningful research to help descendants alive now and those who will come along in the future. We need to know what the servicemen were exposed to and by how much. We are suing the MOD for the trauma of withholding this evidence. Their only defence is to produce the records that we know exist and they have admitted exist. Please help us as the veterans and families cannot proceed unless we can pay the law firm. We have £55,000 already but we need £45,000 more. The firm is one of the world’s top human rights law firm and are doing this at cost price.