THE mother of the youngest British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan says she has placed her life in the hands of the government after going on hunger strike.

Lucy Aldridge, of Bredenbury, near Bromyard, has told the Hereford Times it is “down to the government”' whether she spends Christmas with her children after not having eaten since one-minute-tomidnight on Sunday.

She claims the hunger strike is her last resort to change government legislation that sees the death-inservice (DIS) payment she received when Rifleman William Aldridge died at the age of 18 in 2009, effectively depriving her £300 a week in benefits.

See today's Hereford Times for the full story.