Beith and Repatriation Commission
[2005] AATA 948
•29 September 2005
Administrative
Appeals
Tribunal
DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2005] AATA 948
ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL )
) No N2004/1434
VETERANS APPEALS DIVISION ) Re BETTY BEITH Applicant
And
REPATRIATION COMMISSION
Respondent
DECISION
Tribunal Senior Member, Mrs Josephine Kelly and Dr John Campbell, Member Date29 September 2005
PlaceSydney
Decision The reviewable decision made on 22 April 2003 is set aside and substituted for that decision is the decision that Mr Beith’s death was war-caused.
[sgd] Senior Member, Mrs Josephine Kelly
Presiding Member
CATCHWORDS
VETERANS’ APPEALS – operational service - kind of death was cardiomyopathy - an hypothesis identified that drinking habit connected with war service and contributed to death – cardiomyopathy Statement of Principles satisfied -– facts not disproved beyond a reasonable doubt – death war caused - the veteran’s widow entitled to pension - decision set aside
LEGISLATION
Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 ss 6A(1), 8, 120(1), 120(3), 120A, 120A(3), 175(1) and 196B
Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 section 37CASELAW
Repatriation Commission v Law (1980) 31 ALR 140
Repatriation Commission v Tuite (1993) 29 ALD 609
Repatriation Commission v Hancock [2003] FCA 711 (16 July 2003)
Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1998) 83 FCR 82
Byrnes v Repatriation Commission (1993) 177 CLR 564
Lees v Repatriation Commission (2002) 125 FCR 331
Re Robertson and Repatriation Commission (1998) 50 ALD 668
Bull v Repatriation Commission [2001] FCA 1832
McLean v Repatriation Comission [2001] FCA 1505,
REASONS FOR DECISION
29 September 2005 Senior Member, Mrs Josephine Kelly and Dr John Campbell, Member Background
1. Mr Robert Beith (“Mr Beith”) served full-time in the Royal Australian Air Force (“RAAF”) from 2 January 1945 to 29 January 1946. This included service outside Australia from 9 August to 18 October 1945 (T3 p11 and T4 p30). All his RAAF service was “operational service” pursuant to s 6A(1) the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 (the “Act”).
2. Mr Beith died on 8 February 2003. The death certificate records the causes of death as being (T4 p29):
(a) Cardiac failure, sudden
(b) Cardiomyopathy, 8 years
3. Mrs Betty Beith (“Mrs Beith”) married Mr Beith on 11 March 1951 (T4 p35). She has applied to the Tribunal pursuant to s 175(1) of the Act, for a review of the decision made by the Repatriation Commission (“the Commission”) on 22 April 2003 to refuse her claim for pension in respect of the death of her husband.
4. It is agreed that the relevant Statement of Principles determined pursuant to s 196B(2) of the Act in respect of cardiomyopathy is Instrument No 19 of 1998, as amended by Instrument No 22 of 2002 which is found at T11 p 58. The factor relied on in Mrs Beith’s case is Factor 5(b):
5(b) for men, drinking at least 250kg of alcohol (contained within alcohol drinks) within any 10 year period before the clinical onset of secondary cardiomyopathy; .…
Some relevant definitions in the SoP are:
2(b) For the purposes of this Statement of Principles, “cardiomyopathy” means a non-inflammatory disorder or heart muscle, other than ischaemic or hypertensive disease, being described as dilated, restrictive or hypertensive disease, being described as dilated, restrictive or hypertrophic in type, in which the pathological process involves solely the myocardium, or the myocardium and the endocardium, including primary and secondary forms, attracting ICD code 086.0 or 425.
“alcohol (contained within alcoholic drinks)” is measured by the alcohol consumption calculations using the Australian Standard of 10 grams of alcohol per standard alcohol drink;…
“secondary cardiomyopathy” means a non-inflammatory disorder of the heart muscle, being described as dilated, restrictive or hypertrophic in type, in which the pathological process involves solely the myocardium, or myocardium and the endocardium, and which is the result of a known agent, disease process or condition …
5. Mrs Beith’s case depends on an hypothesis that:
(a) Mr Beith’s drinking habit developed during and was relevantly related to, his war service, and
(b) his consumption of alcohol satisfied the requirements of the SoP.
6. Mr Bunn who appeared for the Commission argued that the suggested relationship between Mr Beith’s drinking habit and his service was fanciful or so tenuous so as not to be sufficient to answer the description “arising out of” in s 8(1)(b) of the Act (see Repatriation Commission vLaw (1980) 31 ALR 140 at 151). Implicitly he also argued that the relationship did not satisfy the description “attributable to” in s 8(1)(b).
7. However, Mr Bunn conceded that if the Tribunal was satisfied that there was the required relationship, an hypothesis was raised by the material before it which satisfied the SoP, and he could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Beith’s death was not war-caused. That concession is of course not conclusive. The Tribunal must come to its own decision.
Issues
8. The issue between the parties was therefore whether the material before the Tribunal pointed to that part of the hypothesis that Mr Beith’s drinking habit developed during his war service and was relevantly related to that service.
Date of Effect
9. If Mrs Beith is successful in her claim, the date of effect would be 1 September 2003.
Evidence
10. The evidence before the Tribunal included the bundle of documents filed pursuant to section 37 of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (“the T Documents”). The Tribunal also had statements from Mrs Beith (Exhibit A1) and Jane James (“Mrs James”) (Exhibit A2). Mrs James is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Beith. Two reports from an historian, Mr Brendon O’Keefe were in evidence. They were dated 1 February 2005 (Exhibit A3) and a supplementary report dated 22 July 2005 (Exhibit A5). The Applicant also submitted a report of Associate Professor David Richards dated 13 April 2005 (Exhibit A4) and a fact sheet from the Department of Health and Ageing entitled ‘What is a Standard drink’ (Exhibit A6). The respondent submitted a medical report from Professor M. O’Rourke dated 14 March 2005 (Exhibit R1). The Tribunal also had the benefit of oral evidence of Mrs James and telephone evidence from Mr O’Keefe.
The material before the Tribunal
11. The following is a summary of the material before the Tribunal and does not include any findings of fact.
12. In his application for aircrew dated 4 August 1944, Mr Beith stated that he did not have an alcohol habit (T3 p14). He entered the RAAF only a few weeks after he left school, where his conduct had been described as very satisfactory in every way (reference attached to Exhibit A3).
Evidence of Mrs Beith
13. Mrs Beith said that she and Mr Beith grew up in Uralla, a small country community in New South Wales and that when Mr Beith was discharged from the services in 1946 she was aware that he had developed a drinking habit. She said: “throughout his lifetime, Robert consistently drank at least 5 schooners of beer per day, maintaining this level of drinking up to the time of his death in 2003” (Exhibit A1). He often would drink alone. He avoided talking about his war service and never attended any ANZAC marches. He never talked in depth about his drinking or why he started drinking.
Evidence of Mrs James
14. Mrs James in her oral evidence stated that the first memory of her father’s drinking was when she was 8 in the late 1950s. He drank at the Gentleman’s Club in Grafton during the week after he finished work at 5 pm and would be home by 7pm for dinner. On the weekends he did not go to the club but instead he had his beers at home. Mrs James felt that Friday nights were the worst as he always came home intoxicated. He was not visibly intoxicated from Monday to Thursday.
15. She thought that that drinking pattern did not change from the late 1950s until the 1990s except that in the 1990s he would drink light beer occasionally. On an average day Mrs James thought that he drank half a dozen large glasses or schooners of beer. She also thought that her father drank more during his working life compared to after his retirement in 1992, when he drank more at home and less at the club. Mrs James could not give precise figures as to how much or how often he drank.
16. Mrs James left Australia in 1978 and moved to Indonesia with her husband. When her father visited her or was with her from that time, she tried to ration his beer to one a day, however she was not very successful.
17. Mrs James also said that her father rarely talked about his experiences during the war and never went into much detail. He never spoke “about the stress of his service” (Exhibit A2). Her evidence before the VRB was that her father’s drinking was his way of dealing with anything emotional or difficult to deal with (T8 p 53).
Evidence of Mr O’Keefe
18. In his report of 1 February 2005 (Exhibit A3), Mr O’Keefe provides a summary of Mr Beith’s RAAF Personal Record of Service. When Mr Beith joined in January 1945, he began at the No. 2 Initial Training School and on 20 May 1945 was posted to RAAF Command Headquarters. On 4 August 1945 he joined No. 1 Wireless Unit at Strathpine, becoming part of the advance party which departed on 9 August 1945 bound for Manila in the Philippines. The Japanese government surrendered on 15 August 1945. The advance party was then off-loaded to Morotai. There is no record of when they arrived at Morotai, however Mr Beith arrived back in Australia on 18 October 1945 and the No. 1 Wireless Unit was disbanded on 31 October 1945. He spent the remainder of his time with the RAAF at No. 2 Training Group Headquarters.
19. Mr O’Keefe records that the Operations Record Book for No. 1 Wireless Unit suggests that “the advance party had little to do there”. Mr O’Keefe speculated that Mr Beith would have been very bored in Morotai. The operation record book is sparse as far as operational matters are concerned. In cross-examination, Mr O’Keefe did concede that activities for the soldiers could have been arranged which may have included activities such as cricket matches. The parent part of Mr Beith’s unit was back in Townsville.
20. Mr O’Keefe stated in his report that “in 1944, the RAAF introduced a weekly ration of two bottles of beer per man per week for its servicemen serving in New Guinea and the other Pacific Islands”. He continued, stating that these bottles were given to the soldiers with their tops removed so that they could not trade their beer with American service personnel. Free issues may also have occurred to celebrate the Japanese surrender. Mr O’Keefe reports that these men were entitled to a beer ration because they were north of a certain parallel.
21. Mr O’Keefe wrote that Mr Beith was the son of a doctor and attended the King’s School as a boarder. He did well in both the academic and sporting fields. From this background, Mr O’Keefe concluded that “it is most unlikely that he would have had much opportunity to consume alcohol.” Mr O’Keefe supported this conclusion in his oral evidence.
22. Mr Beith first applied to the RAAF in July 1944 as he wanted to be a fighter pilot. It was recommended that he be accepted but the President of the Board of Enlistment to the RAAF determined that he was not to be enlisted until after he finished school. He was initially trained for aircrew but his squadron commander found him to be a “hopeless failure at signals”. Mr Beith was tested and found acceptable for re-mustering as a Driver Motor Transport. However, instead he managed to get himself re-mustered to a Recorder Wireless job. Mr O’Keefe speculated that this position as a Recorder Wireless may have been obtained through his father’s influence. Mr O’Keefe concludes that “it seems likely that he sought and accepted this mustering as a means of seeing some active service overseas with No. 1 Wireless Unit which was about to depart to the Philippines”.
23. Mr O’Keefe found that the RAAF reports indicate that Mr Beith was keen to serve as aircrew but he failed to make the grade in spite of his educational achievements. Mr O’Keefe feels that Mr Beith would have been disappointed that he did not qualify for air crew and that further disappointment would have occurred as he did not make any significant contribution to the war effort through his active service overseas. In summary, Mr O’Keefe stated that “Mr Beith may also have felt that, with his eminent family background and his school record, he was something of a failure in the RAAF. Moreover, as a youth just out of school, and a private school at that, he may have felt the need to fit in with his colleagues in No. 1 Wireless Unit”.
24. Mr O’Keefe’s conclusion is that “Although it is somewhat speculative, it is not difficult to imagine that a combination of the factors mentioned above – disappointment, boredom with little to do on Morotai, peer group pressure – may have led Mr Beith to take up drinking while he was based on Morotai”.
25. In his supplementary report (Exhibit A5) Mr O’Keefe describes how the issue of beer to Australian soldiers came about and how Australian soldiers used to brew ‘jungle juice’ to have excess alcohol supply. He reported that most of the commanding officers turned a blind eye to the jungle juice brewing. Mr O’Keefe provided the following extract in relation to the army that indicates that drinking increased:
We were there: Australian Soldiers of World War II tell their stories. A survey in the mid 1980s of 3,700 World War II veterans produced the following figures –
Prior to enlistment Following service
Teetotal 32% 13%
Light drinkers 47% 38%
Moderate drinkers 20% 40%
Heavy drinkers 0.7% 8%
26. Mr O’Keefe assumed that the increase in drinking would be in the same proportions for the army as well as the RAAF. It was contended on behalf of the Commission that there is no comparison between soldiers and non-soldiers in the table above. The table only shows that young Australians drank more after enlistment which would be true for the majority of the Australian population
27. In his oral evidence Mr O’Keefe said that the climate that Mr Beith was in was that of Australian males attempting to drink heroic quantities of beer and those who did not participate in that activity being ostracised.
Evidence of Associate Professor Richards
28. A medical report of Associate Professor Richards, cardiologist, was submitted into evidence (Exhibit A4). This report focuses on the issue of whether the death of Mr Beith was war caused through alcohol consumption leading to cardiomyopathy. He reported a record of severe cardiomyopathy by Dr C van Gend in his notes dated 16 November 1995.
29. He stated that:
“It is my opinion that a reasonable hypothesis exists that Mr. Beith developed a habit of alcohol consumption related to operational service which led to regular consumption of more than 70g of alcohol daily for more than 10 years prior to the diagnosis of alcoholic cardiomyopathy in 1995.”
…
“It is my view that Factor 5(b) of instrument No.19 of 1998, as amended by No.22 of 2004 is fulfilled.”
Evidence of Professor O’Rourke
30. In his report, (Exhibit R1), Professor O’Rourke, cardiologist, reported a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy by Dr van Gend in 1993. He said:
“I agree that Mr Beith died from cardiomyopathy with terminal cardiac arrhythmia. I believe that this was related to alcohol but was also related to thyrotoxicosis. I cannot be convinced from the material available that Mr Beith met the Statement of Principles of drinking at least 250kg of alcohol within a ten year period (which corresponds to seven standard drinks per day every day for ten years)”.
…
“I cannot see any link between war service, alcohol consumption and death from cardiomyopathy. I believe that war service was not a factor in Mr Beith’s death on the 8th February 2003 at the age of 77 from cardiac failure”.
31. He concluded: “Mr Beith died from secondary cardiomyopathy – related to thyrotoxicosis, ultimately treated successfully and from excessive alcohol consumption.” However he did not consider that any factor in the SoP is satisfied.
The Law
32. A war-caused death is defined in s 8 of the Act which provides relevantly:
(1) Subject to this section and section 9A, for the purposes of this Act, the death of a veteran shall be taken to have been war-caused if: …
(b) the death of the veteran arose out of, or was attributable to, any eligible war service rendered by the veteran;
33. In Repatriation Commission v Law (1980) 31 ALR 140 at 150, the Full Court of the Federal Court unanimously held:
The Act does not say death which is "caused by" or "results from" his war service - phrases which might connote a proximate causal relationship. The expression "arisen out of" is satisfied if some less proximate causal relationship is established. Of course, a suggested relationship which is fanciful is not sufficient; and a suggested relationship may be so tenuous as to preclude its consideration as answering the description "arising out of".
…
It seems clear that the expression "attributable to" in each case involves an element of causation. The cause need not be the sole or dominant cause: it is sufficient to show "attributability" if the cause is one of a number of causes provided it is a contributing cause. Under s.101(1)(b), it is sufficient to show "attributability" if a member's war service is a contributing cause to the incapacity or death in respect of which the claim is made.
34. In Repatriation Commission v Tuite (1993) 29 ALD 609 at 614 the full federal court found that, the Tribunal found that features of camp life contributed to the commencement of smoking. Justices Burchett and Einfeld of the full federal court said:
The Tribunal found that the respondent, at the age of 24, had not smoked before going into camp in the army, but by the end of his period in camp was smoking about 20 cigarettes a day. The Tribunal noted that it was not sufficient simply to find a temporal connection; what was required was "something within the applicant's military service which has caused him to start smoking". It accepted his evidence that he had not smoked before, "and that it was the circumstances whilst he was in camp that caused him to start to smoke". The Tribunal added: "Some of those circumstances were that cigarettes were cheap, other people were smoking, and a certain degree of apprehension as regards his future in the military." The Tribunal pointed out that the respondent "was in a milieu totally different to that which he had experienced before his call-up". (It appears that he was actually a volunteer.)
We are unable to find anything suggestive of error in this reasoning. It was for the Tribunal to decide whether it accepted the evidence of the respondent. Nothing seems to have been put before it to contradict that evidence, nor was the respondent seriously challenged in cross examination.
35. Justice Selway held in Repatriation Commission v Hancock [2003] FCA 711 (16 July 2003) that two preconditions other than causation must be dealt with before step one of the methodology set out in Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1998) 83 FCR 82, is followed. There is no dispute in this case that Mr Beith was a veteran who has died and Mrs Beith is his widow.
36. The next pre-condition is to identify, on the balance of probabilities, the “kind of death” the veteran suffered. There can be multiple medical conditions that contribute to a particular death in the sense of a medical cause that expedited the death. If a medical condition contributed to the death and is relevantly related to service then that is sufficient to establish entitlement to pension (see Hancock [2003] FCA 711 at [8]-[9]). Again, it is not in dispute that the kind of death Mr Beith suffered was cardiomyopathy.
37. For a claim relating to "operational service", made on or after 1 June 1994, the death will be war-caused unless the Tribunal is satisfied to the contrary beyond reasonable doubt (see s 120(1) as qualified by s 120(3) and s120A).
38. There being a relevant SoP, the Tribunal must apply the test prescribed by s120A(3) of the Act, as explained in Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1998) 83 FCR 82 as follows:
“1 The Tribunal must consider all the material which is before it and determine whether that material points to a hypothesis connecting the injury, disease or death with the circumstances of the particular service rendered by the person. No question of fact finding arises at this stage. If no such hypothesis arises, the application must fail.
2 If the material does raise such a hypothesis, the Tribunal must then ascertain whether there is in force an SoP determined by the Authority under s 196B(2) or (11). If no such SoP is in force, the hypothesis will be taken not to be reasonable and, in consequence, the application must fail.
3 If an SoP is in force, the Tribunal must then form the opinion whether the hypothesis raised is a reasonable one. It will do so if the hypothesis fits, that is to say, is consistent with the "template" to be found in the SoP. The hypothesis raised before it must thus contain one or more of the factors which the Authority has determined to be the minimum which must exist, and be related to the person’s service (as required by ss 196B(2)(d) and (e)). If the hypothesis does contain these factors, it could neither be said to be contrary to proved or known scientific facts, nor otherwise fanciful. If the hypothesis fails to fit within the template, it will be deemed not to be “reasonable” and the claim will fail.
4 The Tribunal must then proceed to consider under s 120(1) whether it is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the death was not war-caused, or in the case of a claim for incapacity, that the incapacity did not arise from a war-caused injury. If not so satisfied, the claim must succeed. If the Tribunal is so satisfied, the claim must fail. It is only at this stage of the process that the Tribunal will be required to find facts from the material before it. In so doing, no question of onus of proof or the application of any presumption will be involved.”
39. As Selway J said in Hancock, the second sentence of paragraph 2 of the Federal Court’s prescription in Deledio was obiter, and is not correct. Where no SoP is in force, the veteran’s application will not necessarily fail, and is to be determined in accordance with ss 120(3) and 120(1) of the Act, and in accordance with the approach explained in cases such as Byrnes v Repatriation Commission (1993) 177 CLR 564. However, that is not the case here.
Does the material before the Tribunal point to an hypothesis connecting the death with Mr Beith’s service?
40. We conclude that the material set out above points to an hypothesis relevantly connecting Mr Beith’s death and his service. The hypothesis is as follows.
41. (a) Mr Beith began drinking during service and his drinking “arose out of” or “was attributable” to his war service within the meaning s 8(1)(b) of the Act. In summary, the material going to that aspect is the evidence is:
. Mr Beith’s statement in 1944 that he did not have an alcohol habit;
. he went straight from school to the very different life of the RAAF during wartime;
. the evidence of Mr O’Keefe in relation to boredom on Moratai, the beer ration given to RAAF personnel in certain areas, the culture of Australian males to drink and to ostracise those who did not and Mr Beith’s frustration in failing to enlist in 1944, not getting into air crew and then not seeing action led him to drink;
. Mr Beith did not talk about his service and did not attend ANZAC Day marches;
. He drank to deal with emotional problems;
. Mrs Beith’s evidence that Mr Beith had a drinking habit when he was discharged from service.
42. Mr Bunn argued that that the material is too tenuous to establish a thirty or forty year drinking habit. We do not think that is the issue. The material points to the facts that Mr Beith began drinking during his RAAF service and there was a relevant relationship between the circumstances of his service and his beginning to drink. We do not consider that the cases Mr Bunn relied upon, Bull v Repatriation Commission [2001] FCA 1832 and McLean v Repatriation Comission (2001) FCA 1505, require us to come to a different conclusion.
43. (b) The evidence of Mrs Beith and Mrs James respectively was that he drank 5 or 6 schooners of beer a day until at least the early 1990s. Associate Professor Richards reported a record of severe cardiomyopathy by Dr C van Gend in his notes dated 16 November 1995. Professor O’Rouke reported a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy by Dr van Gend in 1993.
44. Both Associate Professor Richards and Professor O’Rourke agreed that Mr Beith’s cardiomyopathy was related to alcohol, in part at least.
45. It is not disputed that there is a SoP in force.
Is the SoP satisfied?
46. The meaning of “clinical onset” was considered by the Full Court of the Federal Court in Lees v Repatriation Commission (2002) 125 FCR 331. There, the Court referred to the analysis of the Tribunal in Re Robertson and Repatriation Commission (1998) 50 ALD 668, in which Senior Member Dwyer concluded (at 670) that:
“... there is a clinical onset of a disease, either when a person becomes aware of some feature or symptom which enables a doctor to say the disease was present at that time, or when a finding is made on investigation which is indicative to a doctor of the disease being present at that time.”
47. On the material before the Tribunal the clinical onsent of cardiomyopathy was 1993 or 1995.
48. The material before us points to Mr Beith’s drinking in the order of 273 kg or 327 kg of alcohol within any 10 year period before the clinical onset of cardiomyopathy which was a cause of death. The following calculations give those quantities.
49. A schooner of beer is approximately 1.5 times larger than a middy and accordingly has approximately 15 g of alcohol. It follows that:
·5 schooners a day for 7 days a week for 10 years = 15 x 5 x 7 x 52 x 10 = 273,000 g of alcohol over 10 years or 273kg.
·6 schooners a day for 7 days a week for 10 years = 15 x 6 x 7 x 52 x 10 = 327,600 g of alcohol over 10 years or 327kg.
50. We are satisfied in accordance with the third step in Deledio, that the hypothesis is reasonable as it is consistent with the “template” found within the SoP. That is, Mr Beith suffered “death from cardiomyopathy” which was related to his alcohol intake. His drinking began during his service and was relevantly connected with the circumstances of his service. He drank heavily from 1946 onwards until at least 1993 and possibly longer, a period of more about 50 years. He drank at least 250 kg of alcohol within a 10 year period before clinical onset.. Factor 5(b) of the SoP is satisfied.
51. It follows that pursuant to s 120A(3) of the Act, the hypothesis connecting Mr Beith’s cardiomyopathy with the circumstances of his operational service is reasonable.
52. The Tribunal now turns to the fourth step of Deledio. This involves making findings of fact from the material before us, bearing in mind that the claim will succeed unless we are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there is no sufficient ground for determining that Mr Beith’s death war-caused as provided by s 120(1). In Byrnes v Repatriation Commission (1993) 177 CLR 564 at [13], Mason CJ, Gaudron and McHugh JJ said:
“If a reasonable hypothesis is established, sub-s.(1) of s.120 is applied. The claim will succeed unless:
(a)one or more of the facts necessary to support the hypothesis are disproved beyond reasonable doubt; or
(b)the truth of another fact in the material is inconsistent with the hypothesis, is proved beyond reasonable doubt,
thus disproving, beyond reasonable doubt, the hypothesis.”
Conclusion
53. There is a reasonable hypothesis established and none of the facts necessary to support the hypothesis as set out above has been disproved beyond reasonable doubt. Further, no fact inconsistent with the hypothesis has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. We find that the evidence does not satisfy us beyond reasonable doubt that there is no sufficient ground for determining that Mr Beith’s death from cardiomyopathy was war-caused. Accordingly, we find pursuant to s 120(1) that Mr Beith’s death was war-caused.
Decision
54. For the above reasons, the decision under review is set aside and substituted for that decision is that the decision that Mr Beith’s death was war-caused.
I certify that the 54 preceding paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of Senior Member, Mrs Josephine Kelly and Dr John Campbell, Member
Signed: Miss Sacha Keady
AssociateDate/s of Hearing 29 July 2005
Date of Decision 29 September 2005
Counsel for the Applicant Mr C. Colborne
Solicitor for the Applicant Dibbs Abbott Stillman
Advocate for the Respondent Mr N. Bunn
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