Flight Sergeant (ret'd) Barbara Eyton-Hughes & Anor, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Defence

“Appropriate redress” under Armed Forces Act 2006 may include post-discharge and post-resignation financial losses. The statutory scheme does not confine redress to non-quantifiable payments or to losses recoverable in contract, tort or unfair dismissal. Such losses remain subject to the decision-maker’s evaluative judgment, including causation, remoteness and mitigation by analogy, and must have a clear relationship with the wrong suffered.

Policies distinguishing quantifiable and non-quantifiable payments must be interpreted consistently with the statute. They must not fetter the discretion to seek Treasury authority. An oral hearing is not generally required, but fairness may require one where central factual disputes or effective participation make it necessary. The claims were nevertheless dismissed because the Appeal Body’s conclusions were rational and procedurally fair.

The claimants, former RAF senior non-commissioned officers, brought consolidated judicial review claims concerning redress awarded for maladministration and delay in service complaints made against them. Their complaints were upheld in substantial part and each received £3,000 from the Decision Body and £3,500 from the Appeal Body.

The claimants challenged the refusal to award compensation for career, earnings and pension losses following their early resignation. They also alleged that the Appeal Body acted unfairly by reversing or qualifying findings about career damage, refusing oral hearings, failing to make further inquiries and failing to give fair warning of its proposed conclusions. The court considered the statutory and policy meaning of redress, the relevance of reasonableness, procedural fairness and the alternative-remedy issue.

1. Scope of redress. Under s.340 C(2)(b) of the Armed Forces Act 2006 and regulations 9 and 13 of the Armed Forces (Services Complaints) Regulations 2015, “appropriate redress” may include post-discharge and post-resignation losses. The statute imposes no exclusion for such losses. The concept is broader than damages for a private-law cause of action and is closer, though not identical, to redress under an internal grievance procedure.
2. Authority and policy. “Appropriate redress” and delegated authority are distinct. Policies such as Annexes A and B and JSP 472 may regulate when Treasury approval is required, but cannot be interpreted to exclude a category of redress which the statute permits. Quantifiable and non-quantifiable losses may arise from the same wrong. A decision-maker must not fetter its discretion by treating a policy as an absolute bar.
3. Stress-related losses. “Stress” in JSP 831 referred to an emotion, not psychiatric injury. Personal injury claims were excluded by the statutory scheme, but the existence and consequences of stress could remain relevant to a service complaint. Pecuniary losses caused by resignation were not automatically converted into non-quantifiable injury-to-feelings compensation.
4. Reasonableness. The Appeal Body was entitled to assess whether the claimants’ belief that they had no choice but to resign was objectively reasonable in their individual circumstances. The assessment could draw by analogy on causation, remoteness and mitigation, but did not import employment or tort law wholesale. The Appeal Body rationally relied on career evidence, appraisal records, the limited findings against the claimants and, in the second claimant’s case, resignation before completion of the complaints.
5. Procedure. An oral hearing was not required. There was no central credibility dispute requiring oral evidence, and the claimants had opportunities to provide written evidence and comment on the career material. Although a further question about the reasonableness of resignation would have been helpful, fairness did not require it in the circumstances. The claims were dismissed. The alternative argument under s.31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 was academic, but the court considered it highly likely that the outcome would have been substantially the same.

First-instance judicial review proceedings. The court dismissed both consolidated claims and all grounds of challenge.