MoD stance on UDR widows' pensions '˜quite chilling'

The News Letter recently reported the story of Belfast woman Muriel Gray, who said the withdrawal of her widow’s war pension made her feel as though her husband’s sacrifice was being erased from history.

Jimmy McFall was a 40-year-old UDR man who was shot by the IRA in Belfast in 1977 at his front door.

His widow, the now-Mrs Gray, received a small war widow’s pension which helped her scrape by as she raised their five children. However, when she remarried in 1988 the pension was stopped.

She said: “It made me feel as if I didn’t exist, as if these things did not happen. I felt helpless, sad and betrayed – all for the sake of a few pounds.”

An MoD spokeswoman said that such pensions “will stay suspended until their current relationship ends. If that happens the pension can be restored, and once restored, the pension would remain for life”.

But victims’ spokesman Kenny Donaldson said the MoD response showed “no comprehension of the human cost of terrorism” and asked: “Just what sort of mentality are they demonstrating?”

He branded the MoD comments as “shocking and actually quite chilling”.

He added: “Effectively what they’re saying to widows is: ‘If you want to be able to receive a pension from us and have some reassurance around your financial future then break off your current marriage’. That is an incredible position for the MoD to take.”

Some widows’ second husbands are disabled or on benefits, he said.

But the fundamental point is that their first husband was murdered whilst defending the UK.

“Widows who remarry do not forget their first husbands, they continue to grieve for them alongside the children who they may have created together,” he said.

The MoD said that as of last year, widows’ war pensions would not be stopped upon remarriage.

However, the changes are not retrospective as this would impact the entire public service and cost the MoD alone £100m, a spokeswoman said.

It is understood some 30 UDR widows have lost their war pensions upon remarriage. RUC widows suffered a similar fate until a rule change in 2014.

Mr Donaldson called on supporters to sign an online petition to have affected UK war widows’ pensions restored at www.change.org/p/ministry-of-defence-justice-for-war-widows