Paid leavewanted forfamilies ofwar dead

THE Government is being urged to give grieving relatives of troops killed in action a legal right to paid bereavement leave.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth is being lobbied by South Yorkshire MPs to change the law amid concern relatives’ requests for time off have not always been met with sympathy by employers.

Sheffield Attercliffe MP Clive Betts has written to the minister after Sheffield resident Bill Stewardson revealed he was allowed just one day off after the death of his son, Kingsman Alex Green, 21, in Iraq, three years ago.

Mr Betts said: “I have spoken to Mr Stewardson about his experience. It is particularly disappointing that his request for compassionate leave did not receive the sympathetic response that the circumstances warranted.”

The fight is also being led by Sheffield Hillsborough MP Angela Smith, who has tabled a motion in the House of Commons to get support from other MPs.

Employees currently have the right to take time off after the death of a close relative, but there is no legal right that they should be paid during that period.

They say families of troops should be given special treatment because of the “very difficult and highly emotional nature” of their loss.

Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader in whose constituency Mr Stewardson lives, said it was a “difficult and sensitive matter” and urged employers to show compassion, although he said it “may be complicated” to change the law.

n Two soldiers who died preventing carnage in Afghanistan were honoured yesterday – in Britain and on the front line.

Mourners paid their respects at the funeral of Rifleman James Brown, at his local church at Orpington in Kent, and comrades in Helmand paid tribute to the 18-year-old and Lance Corporal David Kirkness, 24, from Morley, Leeds.

The pair were killed by a pair of suicide bombers at a checkpoint outside a patrol base in Sangin. The bombers were headed for a crowded market.