Recruit overpaid £115,000 damages

An Army recruit whose career was ended because of a broken ankle has been ordered to pay back £115,000 damages because she was over-compensated. Jennifer Brown, 32, was awarded almost £258,000 after she was forced to quit the Royal Signals Regiment in 1998. But a hearing at the Court of Appeal in London ruled the compensation had been miscalculated after hearing evidence from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Ms Brown of Warnell Drive, Carlisle, hurt herself doing an assault course. In making the original award during a hearing at Carlisle County Court in May last year, Judge John Townsend ruled that had it not been for her injury, Ms Brown would probably have served 22 years in the Army. But his ruling was overturned after the Court of Appeal heard that female Royal Signal recruits only serve an average of six years.

The hearing heard that Ms Brown, who followed her staff sergeant father into the Army, shattered her ankle when she leapt from a 12-foot assault course wall just eight weeks into her basic training in April 1998. She had hoped the injury would heal, but had to be discharged in October 1999 and became a physiotherapist. During the original hearing Judge Townsend said it was Ms Brown's "long-held wish" to join up and she left a stable job with Cumbria County Council to pursue her dream.

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