A disgraced Army major has been stripped of his MBE after falsely claiming £12,964 of taxpayers' money to send his children to private school. 

Lloyd Hamilton, 52, who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, was awarded an MBE in 2011 after setting up a charity which gave wounded soldiers a chance to take part in sailing races. 

But a decade later he was dismissed from the armed forces after it was discovered that he illegally took an allowance to pay for his two children to attend the £50,000-a-year Queen Ethelburga's boarding school in North Yorkshire.

The ex-royal engineer, who was based in Cyprus at the time, would have been able to claim the money if he and his wife were living abroad - but by then the couple had separated and she was living in Hampshire on the south coast. 

Hamilton, of Pembrokeshire, west Wales, denied fraud but was convicted of the offence at Bulford Military Court. 

He has now been named as one of nine people to have forfeited their MBE or OBE in the latest Cabinet Office update, alongside former Scotland rugby captain Stuart Hogg. 

The shamed soldier's lawyer David Richards said he had been going through a 'mid-life crisis' when he claimed the £12,964, with his personal life collapsing following a break-up. 

Hamilton was sentenced to three months in prison suspended for 18 months as well as 150 hours of unpaid work. 

When he received his MBE 15 years ago, Hamilton said: 'It was quite a shock. I was absolutely elated when I found out and it still hasn't quite sunk in. 

'It's great because it makes everything we do as volunteers, and all the hard work we put in, mean something.'

During his time in the army, Hamilton received medals for his military service in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. His charity, Toe in the Water, closed in 2016. 

MBEs and OBEs can be removed when the Honours Forfeiture Committee determines that the recipient’s actions have brought the honours system into disrepute. 

Scottish rugby player Hogg saw his honour stripped after admitting to domestically abusing his wife. 

The 33-year-old, who played 100 times for his country, was handed a community order in 2024 after admitting shouting, swearing and acting in an abusive manner towards his partner Gillian.