Deepcut

I see the civvies have (rightly so) got very interested in "Deepcut" after the extraordinary amount of "suicides".

Gotta wonder, is it possible to shoot yourself in the head twice with an assault rifle. Surely on single you’d be dead after round 1 and on auto your head would disappear?

Then again, if it was an SA80 Mk1, it probably jammed after the second round.

Any opinions out there?

As an outsider who didn't leave that long ago and suffered 0 actual or attempted suicides (not my own suicide, of course) during my 9 years, I must admit that this looks very, very, very, incredibly suspect.

I foresee interviews with no coffee, no biscuits and a term in the glasshouse following

 

Very interesting to see they're trying to blame the MOD for a cover-up.

Any death under suspicious circumstances in the UK is the responsibility of the coroners office (who usually get the civil police to investigate).

They don't mention that in the papers!!!!

Still, I agree with your comment.....two shots to the head.........

Red Ken

 

Must admit, although I usually venomously defend the Army now that I am in civvie street, this one stinks.

I think a lot of shit will come of this one and it will make all of us think twice about trusting our beloved (!) CO's.

Conspiracy, cover up? Don't know, I find it hard to believe after my time in, but 4 deaths and no charges? That's just unbelievable. Even to me, as a citizen who has earned the right to vote (by the laws of Starship Trooper); this one is a case that does appear to have the requirement to be thoroughly investigated by the Civi Police.

If a cover up is discovered, all concerned should be banged away for life.

 

Groundie, just an observation

The enquiry is still ongoing, so could you please just modify your last post? i.e remove the last line......

Cheers  

 

It may be an ongoing investigation, but there are many areas for question or query - like why so much of the evidence has either been lost or destroyed prior to being handed over to Police.

There are also plenty of questions around the initial handling of the investigations by the RP's and RMP.

Loads of coverage of the story in the Scottish Press, especially the Scotsman:

www.scotsman.com

 

I posted this earlier, the statement made by the guard 2i/c is very interesting.

He found 5 spent cases near the body and there were reports of another person running away or possibly climbing over the fence.

 

It is sad for the famillies, who have no chance of finding out the truth. We hear of Booking Out sheets lost, inability to even guarentee what weapon was used and the fact 17 year old soldiers were allowed to wander around alone with loaded automatic weapons. The MOD has, as usual, closed ranks and the hierachy at Deepcut want to look closely at what regime they run at Princess Royal Bks. On a recent course there I had the view it was a place out of control. Too few Cpls to manage too many soldiers waitng for trade courses. Soldiers waiting to long for placements, getting bored with the inevitable results. If a quarter of the allegations are true then the RLC needs to look at the problems in Deepcut.

 

The heirarchy at Deepcut have known that there are problems for some time, but there seems to be either a reluctance or an inability to get to grips with it. A lot of the JNCOs there seem to have this "it was much tougher in my day" attitude and from what I gather, are focussing on certain individuals there as undesirables and trying to weed them out by beasting them. This in turn permiates an attitude of it being "ok" to meet out a dose of abuse by other recruits. Not only now are some younger recruits at PRB being coming in for a hard time from certain DS, but they get it in the block as well from their fellow recruits trying to get to the top of the food chain by victimising the recruits who are perceived as weak.

Sadly with so many soldiers and comparatively few NCOs and Officers to look after their welfare the environment is ideal for bullying. It will take a strong personality with the ability to impose their will right down the chain of command to break that cycle now.

Whether this is related to the deaths of the young soldiers at Deepcut it is hard to tell. Certainly in the case of the young girl who died there in 95 the army seems to have pre-empted the coroner's enquiry with one of their own that made some disturbing conclusions, most notably that the girl in question committed suicide because she was seeing more than one man at the time and was alleged to have had difficulty handling the relationships. This conclusion was drawn without any hard evidence to support the findings, with even one of the Board members registering objections to the way the enquiry was conducted.

Certainly the army has closed ranks and bungled the enquireis it has made in the hope that by sweeping the issue under the table the scandal will go away. I am not convinced that any of the soldiers committed suicide, but neither am I convinced by the conspiracy theorists who would have us believe they died at the hands of terrorists, a serial killer, a mysterious stalker, or any of the other less than believable ideas to have been given noteriety.

The Army must have a clear policy in place which is endorsed by the police in dealing with the investigation surrounding the unexplained death of a soldier in peace time. This policy, if it is to have any credibility, must hand over the running of the enquiry to the civilian police who are independant of the chain of command, perhaps inviting in investigating officers from a neighbouring constabulary to conduct the investigation and search for evidence.

 

Modified as requested.

 

What everyone fails to mention is that it is a fact that young men in the 18 -25 age group make up over 80% of all worldwide suicide cases.  That age group makes up a large portion of the current field Army and when you add firearms to the equation, we are giving the means to do so, to the highest risk group.

If you took a sample of 100,000 university students and looked at the number of recorded suicides the numbers are not disimilar to those suffered by the MOD.  Another interesting statistical fact is that suicides do occur in clusters.  Where there have been more than two suicides there is a kind of 'permission giving' to others who are a suicide risk.

It is very easy to shoot yourself with an automatic rifle on automatic and end up with upto 5 wounds.  If you sit on a chair lean over the rifle with it in your mounth with the butt between your feet.  Your head is not blown off as suggested in an earlier mail.  The rouind will pass through your skull or may be even deflected by bone.  the weight opf your body falls forward, thus retaining your finger pressure on the trigger nad further rounds enter your body until it slumps sidewords or backwards

Let's not get carried away.  All the deaths were tragic, but talk of conspiracy and coverup are not true.  I personally cannot wait for a Public Enquiry to exonerate both the MOD and RMP.

The RMP do not investigate deaths in the UK.  That is the job of the Civil Police.

The Army do not record Suicide verdicts, that is the job of HM Coroner.  Exhibits and evidence can only be destroyed on the authority of the Coroner and the Civil Poice and so anything destroyed was done with their full agreement.

All of the deaths were investigated by the Surrey Police, but they have done their damdest to apportion blame elsewhere.  It has also taken a lot of heat off the Milly Dowler enquiry

I cannot really say anything more until the truth is outed.

 

Branchman..all very fair comments, however a public enquiry will force the MoD to face up to certain issues such as:

* The issue of the alleged rape of one of the victims:
* The issue of bullying and intimidation:
* Poor morale in general at Deepcut
* The systems and processes in place to identify incidents of bullying and how good they were at the time and whether they were imlpemented/followed:
* How bullying of a physical and sexual nature was allowed to happen:
* Whether the experience of the training team was suficient given the undertones of the camp:
What can/will be done to address these issues.

Agreed that rumours of conspiracy are grossly exaggerated, however there are lessons to be learned that I do not believe have been investigated and implemented.

 

I am sorry Branchman but may I suggest that you are something to do with our beloved RMP? BRANCHMAN as in Special Branchman There for will defend anything against the way this been handled by the Military ( only speculation on my part) Appologies if I am way off the mark

As for the whole incident, it is at the moment a very sensitive matter, mainly because of the recent press coverage.....

But for the PR Staff Officer to turn round on national Television and catagorically state that Deepcut did not have bullying problem shows how inept the Army is at recognising the problem...

 

Its a hard fact that since the falklands conflict more servicemen who served there have commited suicide than the total number killed fighting it.

The MOD claims that counselling is given and that it "cares" for serving and ex-service persons.

25% of homless are - ex -service.

I have unfortunately been involved with a number of suicides and attempted suicides, all on active service.  The usual cause, but by no means definative, was "trouble" at home.

Even with the best officers and NCO, soldiers slip through the net and we miss the vital signs that something is wrong, until too late.


Regardless of statistics - suicide is a real problem in the services.  Robust investigation of its causes is the only way to attempt to reduce it.

The MOD in all of the "Deepcut" cases have in my opinion failed the soldiers, the parents and society by its failure to properly pursue these and other "suicide" cases.

The Coroner in at least two cases issued an open verdict, this should have caused alarm bells to ring and for Deepcut to be swamped with enquiring minds.

 

Much has been said about the organisation and manning at Deepcut as a contributory factor to the ongoing investigation within PRB.  If this is a contributory factor please look carefully at the powers that be in controling the manning within PRB.  Remember as a Phase 2 and 3 training establishment it is not within the remit of the RLC (DRLC) to set the manning levels.  The Staffing was at the time of all of these incidents an ATRA responsibility and with them running all Phase One and 2/3 Training establishements they have suffered from an overstretched budget hence a reluctance to increase manning levels.  

Yes Deepcut has had extra-ordinary troop sizes (up to 1000) in holding Sqn with only 1 junior Officer, 1 SNCO and a handful of Cpls.  Yes there have been 4 deaths in a 6 year window.  Yes 23,000 personnel rotate through Deepcut annually.  Statistics can prove whatever people want but if you crunch the numbers you would say 4 deaths in which the Coroner records open vedicts caveated with the phrase that they believe no-one else should be looked for was not excessive for the population at risk.  That the Coroner has repeated used this phrase is of concern because it highlights a grey area in verdicts and is likely to be linked to sensitivity over the recording of Suicide verdicts in some cases.  If it is truly an open verdict then say so and let the Surry Police do their job.  

It is without doubt a shdow hanging over the RLC and the sooner it is all out in the open the sooner the RLC can progress.  A public enquiry will solve nothing whilst police investigations are ongoing as there is potential for one to jeapordise the other.  Let us wait and see what Surrey Police find and then if there are grounds resulting from that hold an Inquiry.

As to the issue of the ownerhip and destrucion of evidence it is clearly a matter for HM Coroner and never has it been taken upon by any individual within PRB to wantonly dispose of anything, remeber this is where they teach that Stores are for Storing!!