We would like to thank all those that supported our recent campaign concerning Kia Tubuitamana who was facing a massive bill from the MOD due to errors in his application for education support from the MOD. To make matters worse he then had his pension lump sum taken to repay some of the debt after being medically discharged due to PTSD leaving him without a penny to his name.

After we intervened in the case and engaged with Hon Johnny Mercer and the Hon Dan Jarvis the issue was raised in parliament and we gained significant press coverage.

I am delighted to say we have resolved the issue to everyone’s satisfaction and no further debt is owed. We would like to thank the MOD and in particular the person dealing with it in the MOD Debt management Department who I won’t name but he will know who he is, and his superior who helped bring this to a successful conclusion.

The impact this has had on Kia and his family has been horrendous and to be able to bring the matter to a conclusion means he can now turn the page and move on with his life.

Thank you for all your support we couldn’t have done it without you. Another great win!

PLEASE HELP & SHARE - You all thought the case of Taitusi was bad. Wait till you hear how the MOD claim Kia here owes them £120,000 and then stole £46,000 compensation to repay it. Yes you read that right. 

But first a bit of background. Vilikesa (Kia) Tubuitamana proudly served 18 years. As part of the Royal Regiment Fusiliers he completed 2 tours of Iraq, 2 tours of Afghanistan and was also sent to Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Germany and Canada. Sadly, his service resulted in severe PTSD and he was honourably discharged on medical grounds.

In recognition of his service and the ensuing PTSD, Vilikesa was awarded £46,000 upon his medical discharge, to help him fund his medical needs and new life. Shockingly, however, the MOD then used the money awarded for his PTSD and future life, to settle an administrative mix up, leaving the father of 3 penniless.

The issue goes back to when Vilikesa was posted to Canada and his then wife also took up a job with the MOD, in Saudi Arabia. They were informed that as both parents were working for the MOD, their 3 daughters school fees would be paid 85% by the MOD. After 2 terms, Vilikesa and his wife were informed that the fees shouldn't have been covered because his wife had applied for the MOD job in Saudi, rather than being posted to it. Everyone concerned agreed this had been an administrative error and Vilikesa's Commanding Officer was attempting to have the debt cleared when he was medically discharged but the MOD simply then claimed his £46,000 PTSD award as part payment towards the money spent on fees.

Vilikesa is now left trying to bring up his family on his own, while dealing with his PTSD and without any funds of his own, all over a simple administrative error.

Kia is a proud veteran who served the UK for 18 years and he does not deserve to lose the PTSD payment awarded him because of administrative issues that the Army fully accepts was the result of misunderstanding and error.

PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR MP AND Ben Wallace - [email protected]

If you would like more information, please contact David McMullen at [email protected]

https://twitter.com/cit4sol/status/1635370957031501824?s=46&t=lkbSEf_nvQuzLym_TJSFtw

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02Gkf8ALgP7XxKHeLhBRDTY1LvvNKszWXgrBD6rXHMkJkwoZfRqGRQZEu5MhTRNFGdl&id=101501268294053

PRESS RELEASE:

PLEASE SHARE AND REPOST

Citizenship4Soldiers welcomes today's news and recognise the Government has acknowledged our campaign, by introducing a visa fee waiver for those who have served at least six years. However, we remain concerned that families have been excluded and left behind.

Many commonwealth soldiers were recruited from places like Fiji by promises of a better life here in the U.K. for them and their families. Many came expecting better education for their children and sacrificed not being around their extended family and homes. Many were recruited before these horrendous fees were introduced and the goal posts were changed after they came here. 

Families are a massive support for those who have left their homes to protect us, and we believe that they should be included in the fee waiver. When I, and many soldiers served in war zones it was our families holding things together back home and supporting us. How could we repay that by leaving them behind and not campaigning for family members to be included. 

Family members were promised a better life as well and came here to support their partners. To compare that with a soldier meeting someone whilst serving and wanting to bring them here is crazy and simply isn’t the right comparator. They were not promised they could come for better life like Commonwealth Soldiers families were. 

We also wait for clarification on how the fee waiver works for those who have been medically discharged, and if it will be backdated for all those forced to return home. 

Whilst this announcement is a step in the right direction, it shows how much work is to be done - including providing adequate medical facilities for those who have served and returned to their home countries.

We would urge all our supporters to email their local MP, Ben Wallace MP and Priti Patel MP to urge them to include families in the proposal. It’s a step in the right direction but we never leave a man or women behind and that included families!

Please share the below

Links! 

https://twitter.com/cit4sol/status/1496229423930126338?s=21

https://www.facebook.com/101501268294053/posts/521003559677153/?d=n

The only thing standing in the way of these visa fees being stopped is @BWallaceMP @pritipatel. Please tweet and email them your thoughts. Also ask your MP to contact them. We have 48hrs to get this sorted. They fought for us, now we fight for them! #stoptheservicecharge 

[email protected]

[email protected]

Hi everyone,

Many of you will have seen in the news Dan Jarvis MP and Johnny Mercer are proposing an amendment to the upcoming Immigration and Asylum Bill which will see visa fees scrapped for anyone that’s served over five years and their families. This would be a massive win for the campaign if the amendment was passed. The Bill will be read on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Each and everyone of you have been incredible with your support of the campaign but if you can please share the following social media videos. Write to your MP and if you feel comfortable record your own video of support.

Together we will win justice for commonwealth veterans. It’s just a case of when not if!

Please share the following video links across your networks - 

https://fb.watch/9IoFjQPwsg/

https://twitter.com/cit4sol/status/1467461185889050627?s=21

What is your MP doing to ensure fairness for all who serve in the Armed Forces?

Citizenship4Soldiers is calling on you to challenge your local MP and ask them where they stand on Commonwealth veteran fees. Under current rules, veterans face a fee of £2,389 per person to continue to live in the UK. It means that someone with a partner and two children could face a bill of almost £10,000 to stay in Britain following their service.

Labour has tabled an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill - set to return to the Commons on the 23rd June - that would see Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans pay only the cost price of an application (around £250) for Indefinite Leave to Remain, instead of the current eye-watering visa fees of ten times that.

We are calling on you to contact your local MP today via this link:

https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons

and ask them to support the NC7 amendment and do the right thing by Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans who risked their lives for this country and deserve to be treated fairly. 

https://www.facebook.com/Citizenship4Soldiers 

https://twitter.com/Cit4Sol

We are almost there.

URGENT - please complete this very short Government public consultation survey if you think Commonwealth soldiers who have served in the 🇬🇧 Armed Forces shouldn’t have to pay visa fees to stay in the UK.

https://www.surveys.mod.uk/index.php/139793?lang=en

@Cit4Sol

#Citizenship4Soldiers

Can all supporters please complete the questionnaire below on the Armed Forces Bill. It takes 2mins to complete and it’s really important the government here’s your views.
Feel free to share your views on the need for immigration being included if this is what you believe. As if immigration fees for veterans were scrapped this court case would never have had to happen. https://forms.office.com/r/aeNpPi559R

Here is a video of our Campaign Manager giving evidence to Parliament last week. https://youtu.be/znx70ZXxfIg

Dear Supporters, we have been made aware of a Just Giving fundraiser that has been set up to help the men fund their visas. This has not been agreed by any of the men and is not approved by  Commonwealth Neglected Veterans or Help the Commonwealth Veterans 8 or the legal team.  Whilst we are sure it has been set up with the best of intentions this is causing tremendous harm to negotiations taking place behind the scenes with the government and the MOD. We are asking people to wait and not rush into things without engaging with the men involved or the campaign teams.

Regards

CNV and HTCV8

CALLING ALL SUPPORTERS - As many of you know we are off to the High Court Tuesday 1st December. Normally we would have had a demo outside court but it’s being done remotely because of Corona. So can we ask all supporters to post

‘Justice4HTCV8’ 

Hit twitter, hit Facebook any platform you like. Do it as many times as you can particularly Tuesday afternoon. Tag journalists, Tag MP’s whoever you like. Let’s light up social media!

PRESS RELEASE

So today we attempted to hand in a 200,000 signed petition and I made the difficult decision to return my medals to @JohnnyMercerUK and the Office for Veterans Affairs! Unfortunately no one was willing to accept them. So they are still sat on the steps outside! Feel free to write to Johnny Mercer or to your MP if like us you think this is wrong - [email protected]

Absolutely amazing effort! I asked for your help to get to £50,000 at 9.00 this morning and in less than five hours you’ve donated over £2,000. Thank you so much from myself and the rest of the campaign team and the men involved. We are all set for the court case on the 1st! Our amazing legal team are gonna smash it! But we couldn’t do it without all your support!

We have eleven days until the next round of the legal fight. Would be amazing if we could get to £50,000 before that date. We are just over £2,000 away. To that end could everyone please give this one last share across social media and donate what you can. Even if it’s a tenner. You’ve all been amazing to date and we thank you for your continued support. 

Help the Commonwealth Veterans 8 release charity music video on Remembrance Day directly calling Boris Johnson and Priti Patel to right the injustice against commonwealth veterans. As we remember the dead we also must remember the living also!

https://youtu.be/e19RH1YG_SY

Hi all,

Many of you will have seen the real surge in coverage over the last few weeks and the support has been amazing. We are now at £44,000 of the £50,000 target.

When we set the target back in June it was to pay for all the expert witnesses and social worker reports. But also to provide a cushion in case we lost any of the claims and Home Office or MOD were awarded costs.

Sadly at the last hearing this happened when the judge declined the written application and managed to read 2000 documents in 2hrs which was impressive. The defence coincidently claimed their expenses to be £12,600, which at the time was just short of the £12,660 we had raised. What a coincidence hey!

The next case goes ahead in December and is an oral case. We are much more hopeful are superb legal team will blow this out of the water but the stakes are much higher and the other sides costs could be huge if we were to lose. All the legal team have been working on this case for the last seven years pro Bono and no one of the campaign team claims any money at all. So any donations will only go to fighting this for the men.

I wanted to write personally to each and everyone of you to thank you for the donations and explain why we are asking for a little bit more. We aren’t being greedy things have just changed slightly since the target was set as explained above.

Due to covid we will be forced to focus the campaign on social media rather than the small socially distanced demos we’ve been doing of late. If you can share posts we put out and write to your local MP and or Johnny Mercer letting them know your thoughts. [email protected]

On behalf of the men, their families and all the campaign team thank you so much for your support.

David McMullen

Campaign Manager 

On behalf of the guys and the campaign team thank you so much for all your donations. We’ve grown £6k in the last 24hrs and have countless reporters and news teams covering the campaign. We are truly overwhelmed by all the support thank you and please keep sharing and liking posts and tweets. If you aren’t already on our social media pls follow us here - 

https://twitter.com/HTCV81

https://facebook.com/HTCV8/

Hi everyone,

Lots of news to tell you all about. This week we launch our week long campaign.

Sunday we held a small socially distanced demo in London. We marched down to Downing Street and had planned to hand in the 155,000 signature petition but Downing Street currently won’t allow petitions.

Monday we went to visit Priti Patels office to give her some history lessons on the amazing things Commonwealth veterans have done for us. We also sent out letters to every MP in the country.

Today I have taken the heavy decision to return my medals in disgust at the way our government is treating our veterans. Particularly how commonwealth soldiers are being treated but also every one of us.

Good Morning Britain have contacted us to say they would like to do an interview. This could be either Thursday, Friday or possibly Monday. But we will keep you updated.

Already the campaign has come on leaps and bounds but we do need to raise more money. All of you are receiving this as you’ve already kindly donated money and I thank you for doing so. If you can take a minute to share the fundraiser across social media I will be forever grateful.

Thank you so much on behalf of all of us on the campaign team. 

Great clip from the demo in Fiji despite attempts by police to prevent it https://youtu.be/4T10R5cHB1c

Please keep sharing and donating! 

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/17/commonwealth-veterans-launch-legal-action-in-immigration-row

Thank you all so much for your donations so far. The team here are amazed thank you. But please keep sharing we still have a long way to go. Here’s a video from Taitusi thanking you all for the support!

https://www.facebook.com/101501268294053/posts/110496614061185/?vh=e&d=n

Thank you so much for everyone that has contributed. We would especially like to thank the person thats donated £1,000. Thats amazing and please get in touch with the page. Thank you also to everyone thats helped support us. It means so much to all those involved.

Thank you all for your support. Please remember to go to the below links and invite all of your friends to like the pages. You don't have to do it individually but its really important you do it. 

https://crowdjustice.com/case/help-the-commonwealth-veterans/…
https://twitter.com/HTCV81

https://facebook.com/HTCV8/

Kind regards

David McMullen

Campaign Coordinator

Well what a fantastic start to the campaign. Thank you so much for all those that have donated. Please, please, please keep sharing this with as many people as possible.