A FORMER soldier today (Monday, July 27) described how a car accident triggered memories of an IRA bomb blast he survived.

David Sutherland has admitted fraudulently claiming more than £85,000 in benefits since his medical discharge from the Army.

However, he denies a similar charge involving £42,000 which he says was due to further injuries received while working as a civilian driver for Durham Police.

The veteran of six Northern Ireland tours, suffered hearing loss, and other injuries, including post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), in the IRA bombing which claimed the lives of two members of his regiment at the Sandes Soldiers’ Home, in Ballykinler, in October 1974.

He told Durham Crown Court that the 1996 car accident he was involved in had triggered a relapse of his ptsd.

“I remember looking up, I remember the smoke coming out of the engine and straightaway I wasn’t in an accident I was in Sandes Home," he said.

“I know it sounds weird, but’s that where I was. I wasn’t in the car, I was in the bomb explosion and Sandes Home. I could hear all the screaming, the smells again. . . “

Sutherland added that when he looked up at a woman who had come to help, he did not see her, but the face of someone he knew in the terrorist bomb explosion.

Following the crash Sutherland applied for supplementary benefit on the basis that the accident had brought about a relapse of his ptsd.

But the prosecution argues it wasn’t his Army service that caused his ptsd to worsen, rendering him unfit for work – it was the road accident.

Giving evidence, Sutherland said: “I was diagnosed with ptsd. I call it the devil because that is what it is to me. It just totally takes over your life. I am frightened to go to bed at night if I do not get myself tired.”

He did not wish to talk about the bomb blast. But earlier the jury heard an account he gave benefit claim investigators.

“One moment I am standing up and the next I am completely buried under the rubble. I was trapped with Taffy and Swanny to the left and right of me. Taffy was on fire.

“I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t put him out because I couldn’t move.”

Sutherland, 62, of Witton Close, Woodham Village, Newton Aycliffe, admits four counts relating to fraudulent claims, but denies two.

The trial continues.