THE Ministry of Defence is to pay pensions to the unmarried partners of soldiers killed in the line of duty, in the wake of the scandal highlighted by the partner of North Yorkshire SAS hero Brad Tinnion.

Bombardier Tinnion, whose family are from Harrogate, was killed rescuing British hostages in Sierra Leone.

He had lived with Anna Homsi for seven years and she was pregnant with their daughter, Georgia, when he died.

But Ms Homsi was denied a war pension because she was not married to Bombardier Tinnion.

The case provoked outrage and the MoD eventually offered Ms Homsi a special payment of £250,000 - but officials refused to state if this would be the policy for future cases.

But now the MoD has agreed girlfriends and their children should receive pension payments in the future.

The change in the MoD position was announced in a written response to a parliamentary written question from Paul Keetch, Liberal Democrat defence spokesman and MP for Hereford, where the SAS is based.

Adam Ingram, Defence Minister, said that following "a series of focus

groups across the armed forces, consideration is being given to introducing pension benefits for unmarried partners".

The MoD was also considering "extending benefits for attributable deaths to unmarried partners" and aimed to finalise approval of the scheme by the new year.

Earlier this year, the Defence Select Committee attacked the MoD for failing to resolve the issue, saying: "The issue of unmarried partners is one which the Armed Forces can no longer ignore and which should have been dealt with as part of the original reviews."

Updated: 11:39 Thursday, November 07, 2002