The LGBT veteran getting his medals back today
Joe Ousalice’s 27-year fight for the return of his Navy medals has opened the door for other LGBT veterans, finds Katie Russell
Today, 27 years after he was forced to leave the Royal Navy because of his bisexuality, Falklands veteran Joe Ousalice will have medals that were confiscated – one literally cut off with scissors while he was wearing it – returned.
After taking the Ministry of Defence to court in December, Ousalice was granted the return of two medals and three badges, as well as a verbal and written apology. These will be delivered today by a rear-admiral, in a move that Ousalice has been fighting for since the day he was dismissed.
“I said to my captain, ‘You discharge me, you won’t hear the last of me because I’ll fight my case right to the last dying breath.’ And that is exactly what I have done,” says the 67-year-old, who had an 18-year naval career, serving in the Falklands war and the Middle East, as well as six tours of Northern Ireland.
Until 2000, there was a blanket ban on LGBT people in the Armed Forces. While it is unclear how many were dismissed, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell estimates there were between 100 and 300 every year.
Not everyone had their medals taken away, however. “The confiscation of medals was not regularly done – it was a little bit unusual,” says retired Lt-cdr Craig Jones MBE, chief executive of Fighting With Pride, an LGBT+ military organisation. Good Conduct badges and the Long Service and
Good Conduct Medal “could be removed if you were subject to military law”, Jones says, adding that campaign medals were unlikely to be taken.
“Medals would only normally be forfeited following due judicial process, whether as a sentence of the court, or as a consequence of another punishment,” explains an MOD spokesman. “For instance, a reduction in rank would have automatically resulted in the loss of a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, whether or not that was a sentence of the court.”
Ousalice lost both after he was allegedly caught in bed with someone from the Navy. He still maintains it was a “trumped-up charge”.
None the less, he was disrated (effectively demoted) and dismissed, and his medals taken away. One was cut off him as soon as the court martial was completed.
Following his dismissal, in 1993, he tried to take his own life. “I was just in a huge black bubble,” he says. “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. In the end I thought, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I can’t cope’, and I decided to go and jump off the Tamar bridge.”
A phone call from a friend calmed him down and saved his life. Due to this emotional distress, however, Ousalice is considering further action.
“Once I get my medals back, I’d like compensation. It sounds like I’m a greedy person who wants money. But I look back over these last few years and I think what they’ve put me through
– I lost my home in the West Country because of them, I lost a girlfriend because of them. And yet they can just walk away from it with an apology.”
Aside from distress, he feels he is entitled to compensation because of the impact of his dismissal on his pension. Before being discharged, he was disrated from a leading radio operator to a radio operator. Emma Norton, a lawyer at Liberty, explains: “So when they calculated his pension, it was at a much lower rate than he should have been entitled to.”
Norton adds that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of people who took their own lives because of this policy, but adds: “Those figures won’t be recorded anywhere – at the time, nobody will have been chalking those deaths up to this discriminatory policy.”
Liberty is calling for the MOD to set up an ex gratia compensation scheme for veterans like Ousalice.
The Armed Forces celebrated the 20-year anniversary of the lifting of the LGBT ban earlier this month, and the MOD has apologised. However, Norton says “words are cheap, and if they are serious about supporting this entire generation of LGBT veterans, that they now admit suffered terribly under this policy, they will do something financially about it as well”.
Ousalice describes the apology issued to him as “very feeble” in comparison to how he was treated.
In an official statement, an MOD spokesman said: “Back in 1993, because of his sexuality, Mr Ousalice was treated in a way that would not be acceptable today and for that we apologise. In Mr Ousalice’s case, he was a former radio operator who served his country in the Falklands war and the Middle East, as well as six tours of Northern Ireland and was awarded
‘I said to my captain, I’d fight my case right to the last dying breath’
a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1991, which we will now return to him in person.
“We accept our policy in respect of serving homosexuals in the military was wrong, discriminatory and unjust to the individuals involved.”
The Daily Telegraph understands the MOD is setting up a scheme to return medals to other veterans similarly dismissed. “Work is ongoing in this area,” an MOD spokesman explains. “The scheme will be advertised and affected individuals will be invited to apply for the restoration of their awards.”
Ousalice has paved the way for more people to be given back the medals they earned. Among these are likely to be Navy veteran James Lindsay, who served from 1977 until 1982, and was on a fast-track course to becoming an officer before he was “outed” by someone in the Navy whom he had met in Heaven nightclub in 1981. When he read about Ousalice’s court case in the news, he stepped forward to be a witness.
Ousalice says: “It makes me feel that it’s been worth it, to a certain extent, because I’ve not just fought for myself but for all these others.”