'I was depressed so sold the medals to cruise the Med': Sister of war hero auctions medals on eBay

By Claire Ellicott
Last updated at 2:31 PM on 26th July 2010

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The sister of a war hero who died in Afghanistan sold his uniform and medals to an eBay trader to fund a luxury cruise for herself.

Corporal Rob Deering left his elder sister everything in his will, including four war medals, his uniform and an engraved memorial shell casing from his funeral.

But Elaine Deering, a single mother of one, sold it all for £1,100 and put the money towards a trip round the Mediterranean.
The 37-year-old, who is unemployed, said: ‘I’m on income support and I’m very hard up, so I did what I thought was best.’

Now the man who bought the mementos – which include medals from Corporal Deering’s service in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as an International Security Assistance Force medal – has returned them to the hero’s fiancee Gemma Polino.

Corporal Deering, a Royal Marine with the Commando Logistic Regiment, died in December 2008 as he raced to help injured comrades whose armoured Viking personnel carrier had been blown up by insurgents.

The 33-year-old was killed in a second explosion as he approached the vehicle in Afghanistan’s notorious Helmand province. He left everything to his sister, who also claims she was forced to sell the mementos to help look after her 14-month-old son.

Miss Deering, of Sheldon, Birmingham, said her brother would have wanted her to sell the medals to support herself and her son, who she named after him.

Hero for sale: Corporal Deering, left, and his former fiancée Gemma Polino who was given back his medals by an eBay buyer after he discovered their story

‘When you’re on your own, have a child and are offered £1,100, it’s a tough thing to turn down,’ she said. ‘I used some of the money to go on a cruise because I was depressed about everything that had happened. I needed a break.’

Miss Deering visited ports in France, Spain and Italy during her two-week Mediterranean cruise in May this year. She added: ‘I regret the fact that I lost the medals and I would love to get them back one day. I loved my brother and miss him every day, but I wanted to give my son the best.’

In April Miss Deering put a number of stuffed birds up for sale on online auction website eBay. She was contacted by trader John Langley, who travelled from his home in Cheshire to buy them.

Then Miss Deering, in the presence of her mother Karen Waspe, offered him her brother’s medals, uniform and the shell casing, one of three fired over his coffin at a memorial service held in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.

Mr Langley, 67, said: ‘As an ex-serviceman myself, I couldn’t believe the family of a fallen soldier who died in a war that was still going on would offer me his medals. Memories: Gemma Polino and Cpl Deering on holiday in Turkey in August 2007

‘But I admit as a collector it was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. I knew I’d get a big price for them from other collectors. It’s unheard of to have a full set of medals and uniforms from a soldier who has only just died.’

Mr Langley was offered £4,000 for the collection by another trader, but turned it down after becoming uneasy about the sale.

He researched Corporal Deering and, when he learned the circumstances of his death, ‘felt sick’.

He tracked down the soldier’s fiancee and gave her the mementos for free. ‘I can’t believe a mother and daughter could part so easily with the medals of their dead son and brother,’ he added.

‘The bodies of these young lads are being flown home weekly in body bags, yet this woman sold her own brother’s medals for a cruise in the Med.’

Yesterday Mrs Waspe, a 61-year-old nurse, said she regretted allowing her daughter to sell the medals. ‘Morally, she shouldn’t have sold them, but legally they’re her property and she can do what she likes with them,’ she said.

‘I wish I had just given her the money instead.’ Miss Polino was unavailable for comment yesterday.

She and Corporal Deering had been together for four-and-a-half years and were living-together when he departed for his final tour of Afghanistan.

They had planned to marry in May 2009. The Deering family are involved in a legal dispute with Miss Polino over the soldier’s estate.

Miss Polino, 28, a carer, claims he drew up a second will in which he left everything to her.

She told the Daily Mail last year that he had left her his half-share of their £148,000 home in Sheldon, Birmingham, and the life insurance payout to cover the mortgage.

She said that he had drawn up a will in her presence but the will was lost by Army administrators before it could be sent for safekeeping to a documents handling centre.

The MoD insists it has no record of the will, and Miss Polino cannot inherit unless a will is found.




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Army came close to 'seizing up'
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The former head of the British Army has said that UK forces were close to seizing up with the pressure of conducting operations in Iraq while increasing their commitment in Afghanistan's Helmand province in 2006.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009, told the Iraq War inquiry said that the army was "running hot".

"You can run hot when you are in balance and there is enough oil sloshing around the engine to keep it going," he said. "When the oil is thin, or not in sufficient quantity, the engine runs the risk of seizing up.

"I think we were getting quite close to a seizing-up moment in 2006."

The decision to send British troops into Helmand province had been "reasonable" when it was initially discussed in 2004, but was more difficult in 2006 as the insurgency in the province had grown stronger. The ongoing wars in Iraq and heavy fighting in Helmand created a difficult situation for British forces.

"We could see that perfect storm coming to fruition in about the middle of 2006 and I would contend that it did," said General Dannatt

The former army chief praised America's troop surge in Iraq in 2007, led by US General David Petraeus, and added that the surge, coinciding with Britain's phased withdrawal, had made British forces look "flat-footed".

"Against that description of them adapting quickly, in Iraq we may have looked a bit flat-footed. But I would maintain the circumstances were rather different. They were reinforcing their campaign. They were surging their troop numbers. They were spreading themselves in small bases throughout the population, getting among the people, whereas we were doing absolutely the opposite."

As well as difficulties in Helmand, General Dannatt said that the UK had "worked round" the problems with the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers.

"It remains unsatisfactory that it is only now that we have closed with the issue," he told the inquiry. "We worked round the problem, we didn't actually confront the problem."

Dannatt was also critical of the "internal machinations" which resulted in the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) in-service date being pushed back from 2007 to 2015.

"It has now moved so far to the right that it is effectively a dead programme," he said. "The money that might have gone into the FRES programme substantially went into the carrier programme."

America's deadliest month yet: As three more U.S. soldiers are killed in Afghanistan the death toll for July stands at 63

By David Gardner

July became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nine-year Afghanistan War today following the deaths of another three soldiers in two separate bomb blasts.

The new casualties took the death toll to 63, three more than were killed in June.

News of the latest grim milestone came as British and Afghan troops launched a new offensive today in the Sayedebad area of Helmans in southern Afghanistan to deny insurgents a base from which to launch attacks.
U.S. soldiers stand guard as a medical helicopter arrives to evacuate a soldier

On alert: U.S. troops stand guard today as a helicopter arrives to evacuate an injured soldier. July became the deadliest month for the U.S. in Afghanistan today following the deaths of another three soldiers

Few details were available about the three Americans who died in the south of Afghanistan today. Their families were still being contacted.

The fatalities bring the number of U.S. dead in Afghanistan to 1,976.

A total of 325 British troops have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.


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    * Hundreds of British troops launch Operation Black Prince in fresh surge to clear Taliban

The American death tally over the last month included two sailors who went missing from their base outside Kabul last week.

The bodies of Petty Officer Justin McNeley and Petty Officer Jarod Newlove were both found this week, days after the Taliban claimed to be holding one of the men captive.

The Taliban has since offered no explanation for the deaths.

The discovery of Newlove's body only deepened the mystery of the men's disappearance nearly 60 miles from their base in Kabul.

An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remain at a loss to explain what two junior enlisted men in non-combat jobs were doing driving alone when in the Taliban stronghold of Logar - much of which is not under government control.

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Afghanistan: The unsustainable in pursuit of the unbeatable

Nine years after the invasion, US-led forces are still trying to pin down and defeat the elusive Taliban

By David Randall and Jonathan Owen

Sunday, 1 August 2010
At midnight last night, the United States formally recorded its most lethal month in the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. Some 66 servicemen died – at least two a day, every day, for 31 days. That was July. June was the deadliest for the coalition as a whole, and the first six months of 2010 were among the bloodiest for civilians since records began in 2007. What will August bring? Or September and October, months which, General David Petraeus, the US commander, has warned may well bring even more intense fighting? By that time, the war will have gone into its 10th year, and so will move towards, and beyond, the landmark when it will have lasted longer than the First and Second World Wars combined.

It is, especially for the Afghan people, a war without end, and one to add to their history of other fruitless conflicts. An Independent on Sunday assessment, using records kept by Professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire and the UN, puts the civilians killed as a direct result of the war since 2001 at 13,746. Last year, the toll of those who died directly or indirectly was estimated by another US academic to be as high as 32,000.

Meanwhile, the US continues to pile in troops. American strength stands at about 95,000, and by the end of August the figure is expected to swell to 100,000 – three times the number in early 2009. As a result, US commanders have been stepping up the fight against the insurgents in their longtime strongholds such as the Arghandab Valley, Panjwaii and Zhari – all on the outskirts of Kandahar city, the biggest urban area in the ethnic Pashtun south, and the Taliban's spiritual birthplace, where support for the insurgency runs deep.

Yet, as the US and its allies step up pressure around Kandahar, Taliban resistance has also intensified in Helmand to the west and in Zabul to the east. And there were disconcerting scenes in Kabul on Friday. Police fired weapons into the air to disperse a crowd of angry Afghans who shouted "Death to America!", hurled stones and set fire to two vehicles after an SUV, driven by US contract employees, was involved in an accident that killed four Afghans.

Yesterday, hundreds of UK troops, together with Afghan army units, were in the second day of Operation Tor Shezada, attempting to push Taliban insurgents out of a stronghold in southern Afghanistan. Military chiefs said they made progress, and two compounds near Sayedebad in central Helmand were being held. The operation started on Friday, spearheaded by 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, with soldiers being dropped from Chinook helicopters under cover of darkness. They then moved in to clear compounds and establish patrol bases in the area. They were unopposed as they took their first objectives and then reinforced positions.

Major Simon Ridgway said British and Afghan troops had faced no more than limited small-arms fire in the initial stages. "By securing and dominating the area, we reduce the freedom of movement for the insurgent and then, together with the local people... we can establish security that stops the insurgent having the ability to influence and intimidate the local people."

The Ministry of Defence said the operation was "progressing well".

Such upbeat talk is not new, and is often followed, weeks or months later, by news that successes have been undone by Taliban resurgence, Afghan government corruption, or the day-to-day survival instincts of a war-weary population whose hearts and minds have never been lastingly captured. The US documents made public by WikiLeaks have only added to the sense that the Afghan war against an elusive enemy unaccountable to any democracy is the unsustainable in pursuit of the unbeatable.

New details of incidents referred to in the documents highlight the relentless "collateral damage" – revealing how innocent bystanders have been killed, including women and children, by coalition forces. Among the cases are more than 20 incidents where British troops fired on civilians, resulting in 46 people being killed or injured. The documents contain allegations that a detachment of British troops repeatedly shot civilians in the streets of Kabul in one month of 2007, and that commandos shot innocent civilians on eight occasions in Helmand province in 2008.

One incident, on 15 October 2008, saw a platoon commander from 45 Commando Royal Marines shoot a seven-year-old boy who died from his wounds five days later. The soldier had fired "an aimed warning" shot at what he claimed was a "young man 'dicking' [spying on] the patrol". Other cases include a US patrol machine-gunning a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers; and, in 2007, Polish troops directing mortar fire against a village, killing members of a wedding party – including a pregnant woman.

One report details an incident where a compound was bombed in an attempt to kill a "high-value individual", after "ensuring there were no innocent Afghans in the area". A US commander reported that 150 Taliban had been killed. But locals reported up to 300 civilians had died. Civilian casualties continue to mount as fighting intensifies. Just over a week ago, at least 45 civilians were killed by a Nato rocket attack on a town in Helmand.

The death of innocent civilians, whether by accident or design, goes some way towards explaining why the coalition is failing to win hearts and minds. A compelling example of the depth to which some Afghans are opposed to what they view as a foreign occupation is the incident where an American patrol was lured into a deadly ambush by villagers in Ganjigal, eastern Afghanistan, in September last year. Four US soldiers died. A report says soldiers stated: "They had eyewitness accounts of children in the village firing at the CF ground unit... and women assisting to resupply ammunition."

A number of the leaked documents refer to incidents where Afghan police or soldiers have turned on coalition forces, often to deadly effect. One report relates how five British soldiers were shot dead and six injured by a rogue Afghan policeman last November. Last month three British soldiers were killed and four injured by an Afghan soldier at a base in Nahr-e Saraj.

Coalition forces are faced with a ruthless enemy that is unfettered by "rules of engagement" and totally unaccountable for its actions. The WikiLeaks documents reveal not only a huge rise in the Taliban's use of improvised explosive devices since 2004 (up from around 300 to 7,155 last year), but an attempt to kill coalition forces by poisoning their drinking water with cyanide in October 2009.

Another document reveals how a three-year-old child was murdered by the Taliban and left in a rubbish bag on the steps of the Afghan Women's Council. A report in June 2007 stated: "The deceased child [of a student] was placed in a garbage bag in front of the Women's Council. This was to display dislike for the female student attending classes."

Fatal flaws: MoD ignored repeated warnings about vulnerable vehicles

Defence chiefs were warned of the fatal vulnerability of the lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rovers used by British forces in Iraq three years before ministers were told the vehicles must be replaced, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

It emerged last week that a British general told the Government in July 2006 that front-line commanders wanted better-protected vehicles so they could carry out missions "without unnecessary casualties".

But an internal Ministry of Defence report shows that only weeks into the conflict, in 2003, members of the Royal Military Police (RMP) complained about the "risk" they had faced travelling in Snatch and the need for vehicles that offered better protection.

As many as 19 UK personnel were killed in the vehicles, in Iraq and Afghanistan, during the intervening period.

The IoS established that, in the post-operational report submitted by 1 (UK) Armoured Division on its return from the Iraq conflict, the RMP stated the need for protected vehicles which "would allow them to operate further forward (they did deploy forward in soft-skinned vehicles at risk)".

It added that "the necessity... to be equipped with protected vehicles was demonstrated repeatedly throughout the operation" and that "at times [personnel]... driving Land Rovers were placed in range of enemy... fire".

Rose Gentle, whose soldier son Gordon was blown up in a Land Rover in Iraq in 2004, said: "If they had heeded the warnings, none of these lads would have had to get into one of those vehicles again."

Brian Brady

MoD scientist's death in top-secret blast to be investigated after eight years
Relatives of a Government scientist killed in a top-secret bomb test will finally discover how he died after an eight-year wait.

By Martin Beckford
Published: 10:14AM BST 02 Aug 2010

The inquest into the death of Terry Jupp is to begin next week following the longest hearing delay in Ministry of Defence history for a civilian employee.

Among those giving evidence will be the world’s leading explosives expert, who was at one stage charged with manslaughter over the case, and at least one eyewitness from the US military.

Although the four-week case will be heard before a jury, parts of it are likely to be held behind closed doors to protect military secrets about the deadly materials being tested on the weapons range where Mr Jupp died.

His father, Roy, told The Daily Telegraph: “Obviously we’re relieved it’s now taking place after such a long spell.

“We hope and pray that as much of the truth that can be revealed, will be.”

The eighth anniversary of his son’s death will fall during the hearing and he admitted “It’s likely to be rather difficult, as you can imagine. But overall we appreciate that the inquest is going to be conducted and this was the only time available.”

Terry Jupp, 46, worked as a chemist at the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory - which also employed Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert who died in mysterious circumstances – and died following an accident at a firing range near Shoeburyness, Essex.

As part of a joint Anglo-American experiment to replicate the homemade bombs used by terrorists, on August 14th, 2002, he was told to mix a 22lb (10kg) charge of highly volatile substances.

When the explosive charged ignited unexpectedly, the married father-of-two suffered horrific burns and died of his injuries six days later after being airlifted to hospital.

The MoD police and the Health and Safety Executive investigated the accident, while a Board of Inquiry report was carried out but never made public.

In 2005 two scientists who were running the tests were charged with gross negligence manslaughter.

Maurice Marshall and Robert Weighill were accused of failing to warn Mr Jupp about the danger he faced, and were due to stand trial at the Old Bailey.

They both denied the accusation, and a judge threw out the case against Mr Weighill while in March 2007 the Crown Prosecution Service dropped its case against Mr Marshall, a world expert on explosives, following a “high-level review”.

Since then Dr Peter Dean, the coroner for Southend and South East Essex, has repeatedly set dates for the long-awaited inquest but had to cancel them because of delays in the release and redaction of “highly sensitive” documents.

The MoD insists it has co-operated with the coroner but admitted last year: "This is the longest-running MoD inquest relating to the death of a civilian."

The hearing is now scheduled to begin in Southend on Tuesday, with both Mr Weighill and Mr Marshall due to give evidence.