AN 89-YEAR-OLD war veteran is considering taking legal action against Stroud District Council after the town centre bench he was sitting on collapsed leaving him with a badly bruised back.

Ivor Adams, who took part in the historic D-Day landings, injured himself after the wooden bench in King’s Street gave way under his weight on Friday morning (August 8).

Passers-by and shop assistants who rushed over to help the ex-soldier up told him that a lorry had bumped into the bench the day before and potentially damaged it.

The great-great-grandfather of three, wanted to know if the council had been made aware of the collision and if it had, why the authority had failed to protect public safety by placing a cordon around the bench or removing it from the street completely.

However, just before the SNJ went to print, the district council released a statement saying it had not been informed about the incident involving the lorry and only became aware of the situation after hearing of Mr Adams' accident.

Mr Adams, who was fitted with a pacemaker eighteen months ago, spent several hours in Stroud Hospital following the accident, where he underwent x-rays on his back and multiple examinations by doctors and nurses.

Luckily, the World War Two veteran was able to walk away from the incident with no broken bones but after slamming his back against the metal frame of the bench he believes it could have been a lot worse and is now taking legal advice about a possible claim.

“The crowd who helped me up wanted to call an ambulance but I said ‘No, they’re probably too busy’ so I hobbled down to the Vic and they took me from there to the hospital,” he said.

“I was in shock, I haven’t got over it yet. I shouted out because I hurt my back so much.

"I landed in Normandy and served three years in the Suez Canal, I have been in enough wars so I didn’t expect to get clobbered with this thing.

“As far as I’m concerned if the council had been made aware of the incident they should have moved the bench or at the very least inspected it the same day.”

A spokesman for SDC said: "We first became aware the bench was damaged after we were advised that Mr Adams had fallen from it on Friday morning.

"We went out immediately and removed it as it had been seriously damaged. We understand that people saw a vehicle drive into it the day before although this was not reported to us.

"We would encourage anyone who saw the vehicle drive into the bench to contact us and we will also be checking CCTV footage to see if we can identify it. We also hope that Mr Adams makes a speedy recovery."