A FORMER Army major from Ryedale is threatening the Government with High Court action if it does not hand over thousands of pounds in compensation.

Solicitors for Richard Leigh Perkins, 88, from Lastingham, have set the MoD and the Inland Revenue a three-week deadline to come up with the £86,000.

Mr Perkins' pension was wrongly taxed for more than 40 years, and he has been fighting a seven-year battle for full recompense.

He was discharged from the army in 1959 after he suffered a nervous breakdown. Service personnel who are discharged for medical reasons are not meant to pay tax on their pensions, but Mr Perkins is one of around 1,000 ex-servicemen who were wrongly taxed.

Two years ago, the MoD admitted its mistake and reimbursed him £20,000. However, others in the same position have been awarded larger sums as compensation for living without the money for so long.

"For 40 years, I didn't have my own money, it was being pinched by the MoD," said Mr Perkins. "If I had had the money, I would have been able to invest it."

He says the figure of £86,000 was calculated using the Inland Revenue's own methods.

Mr Perkins added: "The objections have come from people who are supposed, as part of their job, to be trying to help people like me.

"Who needs enemies with friends like the MoD?

"They are looking over their shoulders at the Treasury but that doesn't entitle them to break the law."

Mr Perkins is a writer, and says he needs the money to enable him to catch up on work he has put on hold.

"I desperately need this money and it's ruined seven years of my life not having it," he said.

"I've put a lot of things on the backburner while fighting this battle."

Mr Perkins said that he was not the only person in this position. As well as other elderly ex-servicemen, he feared for disabled soldiers coming out of the army now.

"The 100th British soldier has been killed in Iraq," he said. "What is not mentioned is the number of disabled or wounded who are coming into my category. There are X number of disabled people who will fall under the tender mercies of these individuals and I don't know how they sleep at night."

A spokesman for the MoD told the Gazette & Herald he could not comment on individual cases.

Updated: 15:03 Wednesday, February 08, 2006