Darren Stoddart is suing the Ministry of Defence for negligence, claiming more than £200,000 over a lasting cold injury he says he suffered during a six-week training exercise on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
The 40-year-old Army squadron commander says the injury began between February and March 2022 while he was acting as a vehicle commander and giving tactical training to his squadron during the deployment. Court papers say he later developed a mild non-freezing cold injury after repeated exposure to wet, freezing conditions in an open vehicle.
Stoddart says his hands became increasingly cold-chapped and numbed as he drove around the training area, leaving them, in his words, like they had “thousands of tiny cuts all over them.” His barrister, Thomas Banks, said the exercise involved open-architecture vehicles with no cover from the elements, and that Stoddart became wet and cold after being forced to carry on in torrential rain and wind-chill.
That detail matters because the claim is not about an ordinary training discomfort but about what Stoddart says was a preventable injury during winter manoeuvres. Banks said the claimant spent the first stages of the exercise conducting tactical training with his squadron from his vehicle, and later became so soaked that he had to drive on in wet clothing to another part of the training area.
The claim says the conditions worsened during the exercise when a simulated attack took place in torrential rain. Stoddart says he was issued standard kit, including everyday gloves, but that they were ineffective in cold weather. He says they soaked up water and offered little or no thermal protection, and that he was not issued mittens even though mittens were in use by the British Army at the time.
His symptoms did not disappear when the exercise ended. Stoddart says they never fully resolved after he returned to normal duties, and that he became hypersensitive to both heat and cold. The court documents describe the injury as a mild non-freezing cold injury, a condition that can follow prolonged exposure to cold and wet conditions.
The claim adds a pointed challenge to the ministry’s handling of the deployment. It says the weather during the training course was unusually cold and wet, and that no warning was issued about the need for extra weather protection. Banks said the vehicles were “open-architecture” and therefore gave no cover from the elements, leaving Stoddart wet, cold and eventually numb while the exercise continued.
The Ministry of Defence has been accused of negligence over the protective clothing provided for the winter manoeuvres, with the case now turning on whether the kit and planning were enough for the conditions troops faced. For Stoddart, the issue is no longer the exercise itself but the injury he says it left behind, and the cost of living with it now.
