A YOUNG airman was unlawfully killed by government scientists in secret nerve gas tests at Porton Down 51 years ago, an inquest jury ruled this week.

The verdict, delivered on Monday, could spark compensation claims running into millions of pound from other veterans who underwent similar tests at the research establishment.

Veterans' groups are demanding a public inquiry into what they say was a Cold War scandal that lasted for decades.

Leading Aircraftsman Ronald Maddison (20) died after having drops of sarin dabbed on his arm at the chemical warfare testing centre in 1953, while serving as a national serviceman.

His family claims he and other military personnel were duped into taking part in what they believed were harmless experiments.

It took jurors in Trowbridge five hours to reach their verdict on the 64th day of the inquest, which started back in May.

Mr Maddison, from County Durham, was one of hundreds of human volunteers involved in tests at Porton Down between 1939 and 1989.

The inquest was the second to be held into Mr Maddison's death. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, quashed the original verdict of death by misadventure in 2002 and said a new inquest was needed in the interests of justice.

The original hearing, shortly after the airman's death, was held behind closed doors for "reasons of national security".

This week, the jury of six men and four women concluded that the cause of Mr Maddison's death was "application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment".

An MoD spokesman said later: "The ministry of defence notes the jury's findings and will now take some time to reflect on these. We will be seeking legal advice on whether we wish to consider a judicial review.

"We don't believe the verdict today has implications for other volunteers. However, we will consider the implications."

The new inquest was ordered after Wiltshire coroner David Masters was given files by Wiltshire police documenting the "insufficiency of the original inquest and that the coroner in 1953 was not apparently provided with all the potentially available relevant material".

The files were handed over after a £2.8m police investigation into Mr Maddison's death, which began in July 1999.

In April 2002, the Attorney General gave Mr Masters permission to make an application at the High Court for the original inquest's verdict to be quashed and for a fresh inquiry to be opened.

The new inquest jury was told by Gerwyn Samuel, for the Maddison family, how servicemen were told tests on them at Porton Down were to find a cure for the common cold, when the men were really being exposed to potentially lethal chemical agents such as sarin.

But the MoD insisted all the servicemen tested at Porton Down were told beforehand that they were taking part in nerve gas experiments.

The MoD, represented by Leigh-Ann Mulcahy, told the inquest there was no documentary evidence to support the veterans' claims.

In 2001, after the re-investigation of Mr Maddison's death began, Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, a world-renowned professor of ethics, was commissioned by the MoD to write a chapter of the Porton Down Historical Survey.

Controversially, Sir Ian said that researchers were "acting on From page 1

the edge of their knowledge" when they exposed volunteers to the "uncontrollable danger" of sarin, a lethal chemical agent, in tests at Porton Down laboratories.

The dabbing of sarin on to the skin of Mr Maddison took place after another such test resulted in the "near-fatal" poisoning of another volunteer, army serviceman James Kelly, nine days earlier, the court was told in September.

Responding to revelations that sarin tests continued in a mobile gas chamber after Mr Maddison's death despite a government ban, endorsed by Winston Churchill, Dr Paul Rice, currently a researcher at Porton Down, insisted his 1950s predecessors had acted in "reasonably good faith".

The new inquest heard evidence from an ex-army ambulance driver called to help Mr Maddison.

Alfred Thornhill told the jury: "He was convulsing and foam was coming out of his mouth.

"Then he was taken into the medical centre where there were scientists and medical people. They just threw him on to the bed and gave him a big injection.

"It was a terrible atmosphere - they were all panicking. They couldn't handle what they were looking at."

Porton Down has been in the front line of Britain's research into the use of, and defence against, chemical weapons for the last 85 years, with scientists at the base involved in top-level and highly secretive work.