CRIPPLED former soldier Peter McCabe has won £150,000 damages for a low blow suffered when he was forced to take part in a boxing bout with a fellow squaddie.

The father-of-two suffered excruciating pain to his right testicle and a botched operation by an Army surgeon days later left permanent damage that ended his sex life.

His condition forced the Gulf War veteran out of the Army and he is unable to work, needs a stick to walk and has seen his marriage collapse.

The Army confirmed it had accepted liability for medical negligence and agreed to pay £150,000 compensation, plus legal costs likely to be about £25,000.

"This has basically destroyed my ambitions, my dreams and much of my life," said Mr McCabe, from Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire.

The settlement marks the end of a lengthy battle for justice by Mr McCabe, 38, who suffered the injury just two weeks after enlisting in April 1990.

In a submission to Middlesbrough County Court, he told how during basic training in Northern Ireland an officer in charge formed the squaddies into a ring and McCabe and another soldier were ordered to put on boxing gloves and fight each other in a practise known as milling.

"There was absolutely no protection," he said. "I was struck by a blow to the right testicle and I hit the deck.

Mr McCabe was in pain for several days and it emerged a sack of fluid, known as a hydroceole, had become twisted around his testicle.

What should have been a relatively simple operation a few days later to remove the hydroceole was botched and a nerve was trapped. The damage is permanent.

In the weeks that followed, he suffered a niggling pain, but completed his basic training and served during the Gulf War.

In December 1996 he was medically discharged.

His wife, Marie, had to give up her job to care for him and the marriage floundered, although the couple are now trying to get back together.

Left to survive on a war pension of just £70 a week, he sought legal redress.

His solicitor, Andrew McDonald, of Thompsons, in Middlesbrough, said: "All he ever wanted to do was serve his country, but this has deprived him of his career."

An Army spokesman said "milling" was no longer standard practice in the Army and if it did take place soldiers were always given protective gear.