War widow promised pension - if she divorces her second husband

Updated
Susan Rimmer with her husband.
Susan Rimmer with her husband.



David Cameron has said he's unlikely to intervene in the case of a woman who's been told she must divorce and remarry her husband if she wants to receive a military pension.

Susan Rimmer, from Otley, West Yorkshire, lost her first husband, Private Jim Lee, to a terrorist bomb in Northern Ireland in 1972. And when she married David Rimmer in 1989, she was aware that she would lose her first husband's pension on remarriage.

However, in 2014, the government changed the rules, announcing that from April 2015, it was agreed that those who remarry, cohabit or form a civil partnership could keep their pension for life.

But Mrs Rimmer, 62, was disappointed to discover that the change only applied to widows and widowers who remarried after 2005 - meaning she was entitled to nothing.

Ironically, though, there's one way she could receive the money - by divorcing Mr Rimmer and then remarrying him, so that the wedding falls after the crucial date.

"Absurdly Susan has been told, in writing by Ministers, that she can only get compensation reinstated if she divorces her second husband, but can keep it if she then marries him again straight afterwards!" says Greg Mulholland, Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West.

"This is clearly ludicrous but also offensive to her current marriage and a slap in the face of people who have gone through the heartbreak of the loss of a spouse serving their country."

David Cameron has now promised to examine the issue. But, he added, "At the moment we are of the view, of the longstanding policy of successive governments, that we shouldn't make these changes and apply them retrospectively."

Around 1,000 other widows and widowers are believed to be affected. They include Eileen Johnston, whose first husband, Corporal David Graham, was killed by the IRA in 1977.

She, too, was told by the MoD that her pension wouldn't be reinstated unless she split up with her second husband. "If that happens the pension can be restored and, once restored, the pension would remain for life," it explained.

Most of the affected spouses would only receive £3,000 or less. And they've earned it, say campaigners, as the nature of their husbands' jobs meant they had very little opportunity to build a career themselves.

A petition calling on the Ministry of Defence to change the rules has now attracted more than 1,600 signatures.

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