GULF War veteran Terry Walker today hailed a High Court decision in favour of a soldier claiming to be a victim of Gulf War Syndrome.

The court threw out a Ministry of Defence appeal against a decision by a War Pensions Appeal Tribunal that former Parachute Regiment medical officer Shaun Rusling was a victim of an identifiable syndrome attributable to his service in the 1991 Gulf conflict.

The decision, by a tribunal in Leeds last May, was hailed by thousands of Gulf War veterans as a major development in their fight for damages against the MoD on the basis that their illnesses were caused by a common factor.

Mr Walker, of Wheldrake, near York, who has suffered from a range of medical problems since serving in the 1991 Gulf War, has been campaigning to win official recognition for the syndrome.

He said today's decision would open up the way for other veterans claiming war pensions because they were suffering from the syndrome.

"If the High Court recognises Gulf War Syndrome, it exists," he said. "This is a very important decision."

Today's judgement was announced by Mr Justice Newman at the High Court in London.

During the hearing of the appeal earlier this year, the judge had cast doubt on the suggested wider implications of the case.

Mr Justice Newman said then that the appeal appeared to him to have no significance beyond questions of disablement pensions and whether the tribunal had the power in this instance to make a finding that Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) did exist.

After the judgment, Mr Rusling said; "I am elated. it is a total vindication of all war veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome."

In his ruling, the judge said that he could not find any basis upon which the tribunal's decision could be legally impugned.

He said that since the Secretary of State had not rejected the claim based on Gulf War Syndrome on the ground that the overall medical evidence did not "support the existence of a single disease entity, Gulf War Syndrome, there was no issue on the appeal in that regard.

The MoD said the judgement had not found that Gulf War Syndrome existed. The Government accepted that some Gulf veterans were ill and believed it was related to their Gulf experiences.

But the overwhelming consensus of medical and scientific opinion was that this did not constitute a discrete medical disorder or synrome.

Updated: 14:04 Friday, June 13, 2003