'Thousands of servicemen suffering over ear plugs'

Rikki Drury went on tour to Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland

A former bomb disposal expert says he is partially deaf after setting off explosives while wearing ear plugs which "did not do the job".

Rikki Drury, from Redcar, regularly wore the ear defenders while serving in the Royal Logistics Corp on tour in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.

The 40-year-old now has partial hearing in his right ear and suffers from constant tinnitus, a high-pitched ringing sound.

He has joined thousands of other servicemen in legal action against American firm 3M over defective ear plugs. The company has not responded for comment.

Mr Drury often used high explosives to blow things up and was given protective ear plugs made by 3M.

"We assumed if we were being given this kit it is to the standard it should be," he said.

"Now thousands of British servicemen are suffering all because they sold a product that didn't do the job."

Mr Drury now suffers with partial hearing loss and tinnitus

Mr Drury said he had not completely lost hearing in his right ear but "it is bad".

He said: "More annoying than anything is the tinnitus which is like a high-pitched sound that I have to live with all the time.

"That never goes away."

3M is estimated to have sold up to 400,000 sets of ear plugs to the British military between 2003 and 2023.

The firm has already made a $6bn dollar settlement for supplying ear plugs to the US military but accepted no liability.

Tom Longstaff, from KP Law, believes that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people will have been affected.

He said: "In the relatively short period of time we have launched this claim in the UK we have already had thousands of people contact the firm who think they have been affected by the problem and we expect that number to grow."

The Ministry of Defence said it would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

Additional reporting by Mark Denten.