AN ex-RAF helicopter pilot from Laverstock, condemned as an "exaggerator" when he claimed £750,000 damages over a training accident, has had his compensation hopes boosted by top judges.

Former Flight Lieutenant Paul Willson was put under surveillance by the Ministry of Defence in a bid to prove he had exaggerated and fabricated his symptoms after the accident in a flight simulator.

And the MoD won the day last year when a county court judge awarded him just £1,000, instead of the three-quarters-of-a-million he had sought for the destruction of his career.

However, last week Appeal Court judges overturned that ruling, resurrecting Mr Willson's hopes of winning a massive payout for the injury he says still blights his life.

Allowing the appeal, Lord Justice Tuckey said Judge Simpson, who ruled on the case at the Mayor and City of London County Court in July last year, had failed to properly "engage" with the medical evidence.

Much of that evidence "did not suggest he was deliberately fabricating his symptoms", said the appeal judge, adding several doctors and an RAF medical board had accepted the helicopter pilot's complaints as "genuine".

After viewing secretly-shot surveillance videos, Judge Simpson had found Mr Willson's symptoms cleared up within three months of the accident in August 2000.

Mr Willson, of Laverstock Park, Laverstock, suffered whiplash-type injuries while stationed at RAF Benson, in south Oxfordshire on August 22, 2000, when a helicopter flight simulator went into sudden "motion abort", plunging downward and violently jarring his neck.

At the time, he was wearing a flying helmet with heavy night-vision goggles attached.

The Ministry of Defence admitted liability but hotly disputed the amount of compensation due to Mr Willson.

MoD lawyers presented video evidence of a skiing holiday Mr Wilson took in March 2004, which, they claimed, undermined his disability claims.

They also presented surveillance footage of Mr Willson "shopping and walking" through the centre of Salisbury and taking garden waste to the local dump in May 2005.

Judge Simpson found Mr Willson had "exaggerated his case" in order to "inflate his claim for damages" and awarded him just £1,000.

Overturning that decision, Lord Justice Tuckey said the judge had reached an "extraordinary conclusion" that a man for whom "flying was his life" should have "manufactured the means by which he was prevented from continuing with his RAF career".

Lord Justice Tuckey, sitting with Lord Justice Ward and Lord Justice Wall, also said the findings of exaggeration were at odds with Mr Willson's service colleagues' description of his "exemplary" character.

Agreeing the appeal should be allowed, Lord Justice Ward described as "an embarrassment" the deficiencies in the county court judge's ruling.

Mr Willson, now 49, was initially a pilot in the Army Air Corps, in which he served for 22 years, and was decorated, before later transferring to the RAF.

His compensation claim will now be re-heard before a different judge.