Campaigning police widows win pension rights

May 25 2008 By Norman Silvester

POLICE widows have won a change in unfair rules that robbed them of their pensions if they found new love.

Women whose officer husbands were killed on duty receive monthly payments for life but they were stopped if they moved in with a new partner or married again.

Christine Fulton, 47, and Eilisa Broadhurst, 28, - backed by the Sunday Mail - have forcedUK ministers to close the loophole.

And widows who lost payments after remarrying will get a lump sum.

Christine's PC husband Lewis, 28, was murdered in 1994 in Gorbals, Glasgow.

The president of the Care of Police Survivors charity would have lost £500 a month if she wed again.

She said: "We are delighted. The old rules were established in the 1920s when it was expected that if a widow remarried, a new husband would take care of her and any children.

"Times have changed and the government has recognised this.

"There are plenty of widows who desperately want to move on with their lives but can't afford to."

Fellow campaigner Eilisa - whose PC husband Ian, 34, was shot dead on duty in Leeds on Boxing Day, 2003 - would have lost £13,000-a-year if she had formed a new relationship.

Eilisa, back living with her parents in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, joined forces with Christine three years ago to fight the rule.

She said: "The loss of a loved one is devastating enough without the threat of losing your pension."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Pensions of the partners of officers killed in the line of duty will be paid for life, regardless of whether they remarry.

"A one-off payment will be given to those who have previously remarried but had pensions withdrawn."

Police union leaders will meet with the government in July to finalise the deal.

Norrie Flowers, of the Scottish Police Federation, said: "It was wrong to discriminate against a woman who has lost her husband in the most tragic of circumstances doing his job."

'Plenty of widows desperately want to move on but can't afford to'

Christine Fulton

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