3 wheels on my wagon... Del Boy’s back in driving seat
EXCLUSIVE
A FALKLANDS veteran vowed to battle on for his comrades yesterday after being re-awarded service medals he was stripped of for being bisexual.
Joe Ousalice said he would continue his fight for hundreds of other servicemen and women who fell victim to appalling discrimination by defence chiefs.
The 68-year-old said: “I’m over the moon. It’s just such a shame it’s taken 27 years to get it.
“I’m not fighting this just for myself but for hundreds of others who have been treated not too dissimilar to myself.”
The Ministry of Defence humiliated Joe in 1993 by discharging him from the Royal Navy and taking away his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal which he had been awarded two years earlier.
It was literally cut from his chest after he was forced to reveal his sexuality at a court martial.
Depressed
But Defence Secretary Ben Wallace returned his honours at a presentation aboard HMS Excellent in Portsmouth onWednesday.
The former radio operator – who also completed six tours of Northern Ireland and served in the Middle East – successfully sued the department.
Joe, from Southampton, said he once considered taking his own life after finding himself depressed and unable to work.
He said: “I was just in a huge black bubble. I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know which way to turn. I had no money in the bank.
“Red letters were coming through the mail every single day. And in the end I was just panicking.
“And in the end I thought, you know, all right, I’ve had enough of this, I can’t cope.”
Joe’s case echoes that of war-time Enigma Code breaker Alan Turing, who killed himself in 1954 after he was convicted of “gross indecency” with another man. The mathematician had agreed to be chemically castrated to avoid a prison term.
The Queen granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013 and a law pardoning men convicted of “homosexual acts” was named after him.
Because Turing’s law only covers people dismissed before 1967 – when homosexuality was decriminalised – Joe had to pursue his case separately.
At the 1993 court martial, he was cleared of accusations of indecent assault but found guilty of being in bed with another sailor – a charge he has always denied.
He was dismissed on the grounds that his conduct was prejudicial to good order and naval discipline.
An officer wrote: “He may attempt to corrupt others in the future” and added: “The needs of the service must come first”.
But Joe said: “I should have always been judged on the basis of my exceptional service and not my sexuality.”
The MoD said Joe had been “treated in a way that would not be acceptable today”.
A spokesman said: “We accept our policy in respect of serving homosexuals in the military was wrong, discriminatory and unjust to the individuals involved.”
THIS is the moment Peckham’s best-known wheeler-dealer was reunited with his famous three-wheel van.
As Del Boy Trotter in BBC’s Only Fools And Horses Sir David Jason would have come out with his catchphrase “lovely jubbly”.
But being reacquainted with the design classic for his new four-part TV series, Great British Inventions, the actor said of the vehicle: “It’s a symbol of great British eccentricity”. The dilapidated yellow Reliant Regal Supervan is emblazoned with the words Trotters Independent Trading Co, New York, Paris, Peckham.
It is one of several famous film and TV vehicles with celebrity status on show at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu in the New Forest in Hampshire.
● Great British Inventions is on More4 on Tuesday at 9pm.