Midlands hero soldier Luke Cole to get just £16 a week

A hero Black Country soldier awarded the Military Cross after being wounded in Afghanistan is to receive a military pension of just £851-a-year, it was revealed today. The pension adds up to £16 a week.

The award to Private Luke Cole, of Wolverhampton, has stunned comrades and outraged family and friends. He has still not settled his compensation claim with the Army for the injuries he suffered over three years ago.

Pte Cole was shot twice during the ambush in Afghanistan on September 8 2007. The first bullet hit him in the right leg, shattering the bone.

He crawled back into the line of fire to tend an injured comrade and was hit again two hours later while successfully preventing the Taliban from snatching the body of a dead comrade as a sick "trophy".

The second bullet travelled down his body armour, tore into his hip and exited through his stomach. He has since had 13 operations and still requires treatment.

A regular Army private wounded alongside him in the same terrifying battle is understood to have received a pension worth hundreds of pounds each month.

The alarming discrepancy threatens to cost the 25-year-old - personally decorated by the Queen for his bravery - hundreds of thousands of pounds and may have far-reaching consequences for other soldiers on the front line in similar circumstances.

Wolverhampton South West MP Paul Uppal today vowed to take up the case with Defence Secretary Liam Fox, and said: "I am very concerned about this."

Friends insisted Pte Cole had been told by the medical discharge board in Donnington, Shropshire, last year he would be discharged as a regular soldier and expected to get the full military pension that would have been based on 22 years service.

Pte Cole was serving with the regular army 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (2 Mercian) when wounded, but was still officially a member of 4 Mercian, the regiment's Territorial Army battalion based in Wolverhampton.

He has been treated as a member of the TA despite the fact he was shot during a 12-month tour of duty with the regular army unit he intended to join full time. As a result, his pension was based on two years and 238 days of service covering the time he spent with 2 Mercian in 2007 and with another regular army regiment on a tour in Iraq.

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency in Glasgow announced the decision despite a written warning from an army officer that "a degree of expectation mismanagement" was in danger of turning a "satisfied soldier into a dissatisfied one".

Mr Cole declined to comment today.

The Ministry of Defence said: "We are very grateful for Private Cole's service and the MOD is in discussion with him over his compensation arrangements.

"We do not discuss the financial details of compensation awarded to injured personnel. However, both Regular and Reservist personnel are equally compensated for injuries sustained on operations."

Special Report by John Scott