Tank commander sues MoD for £500k over damage from testing 'troubled' new Ajax fleet

A former tank commander is suing the MoD for over £500,000, claiming he suffered "acoustic shock" whilst testing the Army's "troubled" new £6.3bn fleet of Ajax armoured vehicles.

Jonathan Bevan, formerly a sergeant in the Household Cavalry - the elite cavalry regiment which guards the royal family - says his hearing was blighted by having to listen to "horrible" and “piercing” emergency alarms going off in his headset while testing the new Ajax fleet - a 40-ton light tank designed to be the Army’s new generation scouting and logistics vehicle on the battlefield.

Mr Bevan, 46, who left the Army after he was medically discharged complaining of chronic tinnitus and mental health problems, was deployed as an Ajax tank commander while the new combat vehicle was being tested out between 2017 and 2021 - “putting it through its paces” after he was taught how to drive the tank and fire its weapon system.

Before the country's top judge, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, he is now fighting the Ministry of Defence for over £500,000 in damages, alleging his chronic tinnitus and mental health problems stemmed from “acoustic shock” syndrome caused by repeated noises in his earpiece while in the cockpit of the Ajax.

Although the MoD has previously admitted negligence in relation to high levels of noise within the tank, it denies that this triggered any acoustic shock and also disputes whether Mr Bevan’s condition was caused by noise from his headset.

The development of the new Ajax armoured fleet has been plagued with difficulty and delays with the process being described in Parliament in 2023 as "troubled" by then defence secretary Ben Wallace.

Difficulties included ministers pausing payments to the American manufacturers of the tank fleet between December 2020 and March 2023 because of problems with noise and vibration affecting personnel during operation.

The first of the fleet of 589 armoured vehicles across six variants - which include reconnaissance, personnel carrier, command and control, engineer reconnaissance, and recovery and repair vehicles - came into active service late last year after initially being expected to be ready for use by 2017.

Mr Bevan's compensation claim against the MoD first went to the High Court in Manchester last year, where a judge rejected his claim, but is now being considered at the Court of Appeal by the Lady Chief Justice and two other senior judges.

His lawyers say he had served a gruelling tour of duty in Afghanistan, being seconded to the Gurkha Rifles before taking part in the Ajax testing which he says ended his career.

From June 2017, he spent a good deal of time in the vehicles, driving them around the test track and testing their performance, the court heard, with Mr Bevan seeing it as "important work" and a "gateway" to more responsible tasks.

But by March 2021, he was experiencing “ringing or buzzing” in one ear, while the following year he was diagnosed with PTSD which was then attributed to his previous traumatic combat tour of Afghanistan, and he was finally medically discharged in June 2023.

Mr Bevan’s damages claim reached court in April last year, but was dismissed by Judge Nigel Bird in Manchester the following month after he found there was no compelling evidence of acoustic shock.

But the case is continuing, with his lawyers now challenging that decision, arguing that the judge wrongly concluded that the ex-cavalryman’s symptoms could not be linked to acoustic shock syndrome.

The army veteran had complained about a variety of symptoms experienced at the time - including “noisy high-pitched ringing in his Bowman headset”, a fan behind his head emitting a high frequency sound, and an alarm dubbed the “nuclear biological chemical alarm” making an intermittent high-pitched screech.

An alarm would be going off in his headset “every six to seven seconds”, he explained in written evidence, and commenting on the “nuclear” alarm added: “it was so loud and so piercing but it goes off all the time, you acknowledge it, you know it's going to come back on within a few seconds.

He continued: “We had a job to do which was to drive round and test these vehicles, but because the project was so big we were told to just get on with it.

“As a driver and the commander, you're in this thing for hours on end sometimes and this alarm is going off in your headset, it can be very disorientating and quite horrible.”

Judge Bird decided Mr Bevan’s symptoms fell outside being caused by acoustic shock as there was no specific “memorable event” which triggered his ear problems

But the ex-sergeant’s barrister, Timothy Meakin, argued before the Court of Appeal that the ruling contradicted recognised guidelines on acoustic shock mapped out by medical experts.

After half a day in court, the Lady Chief Justice, who heard the case with Lord Justice Popplewell and Lady Justice Whipple, reserved the decision in the case, to be given at a later date.

MPs have recently questioned whether the Ajax fleet will ever be "fit for purpose," with a report from the Public Accounts Committee commenting: “Armoured vehicles which injure soldiers when they are operated outside rigid parameters will be of little use on the modern battlefield."

Recent reports have also suggested the Ajax fleet may now be deployed alongside drones to modernise and increase its effectiveness on the battlefield.