THE plight of the widow at the centre of a landmark Gulf War judgement will be made public in the House Of Lords today.

Carole Avison has lost everything since her husband, Huddersfield man Maj Ian Hill, 54, became terminally ill and died after serving in the Gulf in 1991.

He was the first Gulf War veteran to be officially classed as dying from a Gulf War-related illness by a coroner.

He and his wife, who is 56, used to run a nursing home in Hale, Cheshire.

But now she is living in a council house on the Ashenhurst estate in Newsome with her 14-year-old daughter, Laura, existing on her £144-a-week war widow's pension and disability benefits.

The house is in desperate need of redecoration.

Former nurse Carole is registered disabled with a crumbling spine, and so struggles to do any decorating.

She says the house has several steps leading to it and is totally unsuitable for a disabled person - but it was either move there or remain in a homeless unit.

Her plight will be raised in the Lords today by Labour peer Lord Morris of Manchester.

He will ask what response the Defence Ministry will make to a coroner's ruling last November that Maj Hill, a Territorial Army reservist, died from health problems he developed in the 1991 war.

This was the first time a British court had linked illnesses suffered by Gulf veterans to their subsequent death.

It was regarded as a landmark ruling for veterans who had suffered ill-health since the conflict.