A 38-year-old soldier who sued the State for up to £30,000 in damages for alleged hearing loss and tinnitus lost his case yesterday after a judge held his evidence was "untrustworthy".
Judge Liam Devally dismissed the claim of Mr Robert Ogle, Croftswood, Ballyfermot, Dublin, who claimed he had lived through "three months of hell" while serving in Somalia where, he claimed, he had continuous ringing in his ears.
Mr Ogle said his hearing loss was such that he now had to turn the television up loud in his home and listen with his right ear close to it. He was driven mad if he was near a performing band.
Judge Devally, in a reserved judgment, agreed with Mr Roughan Banim, counsel for the State, that Mr Ogle, although having complained of problems while in Somalia, had never sought to be repatriated and had completed his tour of duty. He had not sought treatment when he returned to Ireland.
In cross-examination, he had agreed that in August 1994 tests had revealed his speech discrimination was nearly 100 per cent in one ear and 96 per cent in the other.
The judge noted that Mr Banim had put to Mr Ogle that a possible reason for differences in audio-gram tests could have been due to his having discussed audio-grams and hearing loss claims with some of his colleagues. He had denied this.
He said Mr Ogle had been exposed to noise from a wide range of weapons quite frequently without any hearing protection but had never sought treatment for tinnitus until he had seen his ear specialist, Mr Donald McShane, in December 1996, 10 months after he had issued his statement of claim.
When Mr Ogle had been seen by an ear specialist for the State in January 1998, he had complained of tinnitus lasting for periods of 30 minutes on a nightly basis but had been found to have fairly normal hearing on all frequencies.
"I find that Mr Ogle's evidence of tinnitus was untrustworthy," Judge Devally said. "It had not been mentioned in his statement of claim and he had agreed in cross-examination by Mr Banim that he had not told his solicitors about it."