A soldier driving an ageing armoured vehicle which crashed on a Bosnian mountain road and killed his commanding officer has lost his £100,000 claim for damages against the Army.

The Armoured Fighting Vehicle which Paul Young was driving was built two years before the 26-year-old private was born and, he claimed, it had defective steering and dangerous brakes.

The Green Howards soldier, from Loftus on Teesside, was driving the vehicle when he lost control and it plunged down a 30ft cliff.

Lance Corporal Steven Thirlwell, also 26, died when he was impaled on his own rifle during the crash in November 1996.

Young claimed at Middlesbrough County Court that the AFV, which was steered by two tillers, was in an unsatisfactory condition. But Judge Tony Briggs dismissed the claim saying that Private Young was probably taken by surprise by a hairpin bend.

The judge added in a 45-minute judgement: "Accordingly it is with expression of sympathy to the claimant because if this was an error of judgement it was an understandable one and one in which in any view he has paid a considerable price".

Tim Hartley for the Ministry of Defence said: "Given that he's a serving soldier injured in the service of his country they take the view that it would not be right to apply for costs".

Mr Bowerman gave notice that he would appeal against the decision. Young received multiple injuries including breaking his legs and suffered post traumatic distress syndrome in the crash eight days after arriving in Bosnia.

After the hearing, private Young said: "My lawyers have advised me to make no comment in view of the intention to appeal".

His solicitor John Coxton said: "He is devastated because he feels that the judgement means he is responsible for his commander's death".

Giving judgement in the four-day case Judge Briggs said: "The marks of this accident suggest that it all happened in remarkably quick time. It's easy to see how one could freeze momentarily.

"In the peculiar context of his case, bearing in mind it is the burden of the claimant to establish this case, I have regrettably come to the conclusion, and I have every sympathy with Mr Young, that he has failed to establish that the condition of the brakes and the setting of the left hand lever had anything to do with this particular accident.

"If the claimant had had any significant doubts about whether this vehicle was controllable they would have been raised."