COLLEAGUES of the North-East airman who died during secret military chemical warfare tests 50 years ago have suffered a setback in their battle for compensation, after early tests revealed no pattern of ill-health among them.

Medical assessments of 117 former servicemen used as 'guinea pigs' in chemical tests by the Ministry of Defence showed 'no unusual pattern of disease.'

Ronald Maddison, a 20-year-old RAF engineer from Consett, died at the MoD's Porton Down laboratories on Salisbury Plain in May 1953.

A fresh inquest into his death is to be held in September. It follows a ruling last year when the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, quashed the original verdict of misadventure and ordered that a second inquest should be opened into Mr Maddison's death.

The original inquest was held behind closed doors 'for reasons of national security,' but Mr Maddison's family and others have campaigned for decades for the truth to be revealed.

The move had brought fresh optimism to others who claim tests carried out on them at the laboratories had shattered their health.

But the latest findings from the MoD state that levels of sickness in those who volunteered for the tests are normal.

Bryan Lester, 65, a member of the Porton Down Veterans' Support Group, who lives near York, was sent to the labs while on national service in 1956 and has had respiratory problems ever since.

"I think the more research that is done into it the better and the clearer it will become," he said. "At least people might realise what has been going on."

He was a 19-year-old rifleman in Northern Ireland when he was volunteered to take part in what he thought was common cold research.

He added: "I did not really think that authority was going to do something like that, especially at that age when everything that anyone says who is senior to you has got to be right."