The announcement on Friday March 19th that, following the deaths of four young soldiers at the Deepcut barracks in Surrey, a committee of MPs is to investigate the ‘duty of care’ regime of all three armed services towards their recruits will ensure that the soldiers families struggle for a full Public Enquiry continues.
This follows the statement by the chairman of the Commons defence select committee Bruce George that MPs would not be investigating individual deaths. This means that the families and friends of Sean Benton, Cheryl James, Geoff Grey and James Collinson will have to remain dissatisfied with the army’s verdict that they committed suicide caused by gunshot wounds.
The father of Geoff Grey, also called Geoff, said that the families were determined to “get to the truth” which could only be arrived at by “a full Public Enquiry” when all the evidence could be examined.
Mr Grey said that his son had always wanted to join the army; “it was army, army.” He “decided to join at about the age of 12” and then “he joined on his 17th birthday on January 28th 2001.” He had been an excellent runner, and had run the 100 metres at just 11.5 seconds when he was fifteen. Mr Grey does not believe his son committed suicide. “He was murdered.”
“My son had lots of close friends, he phoned them all the time” said Diane Grey and “he was fun loving boy, with lots to live for.” So “why would he kill himself?” Neither of them can recall their son making any comment that would indicate he was unhappy with his life as a soldier. They certainly had no indication that he was being bullied and as a psychological profile after he died showed he was far from being suicidal.
Yet according to the army Geoff Gray shot himself at 1.15am on September 17th 2001 which makes his behaviour only hours beforehand unusual in that he had telephoned an ex-girlfriend to make arrangements to meet her a few weeks later.
According to Diane Grey all those on duty that night said at the Coroners court that they had started work at seven o’clock that evening, with two hours on and two hours off. This would have meant that Geoff Grey was on shift between 7 and 9, off between 9 and 11, back on from 11.00pm to 1.00am and off duty at 1.00am, yet he apparently killed himself whilst on duty at 1.15am. “They all had to say they had made a mistake and that they were wrong.” said Diane.
The Army produced a log sheet at the Coroners Court which was undated and in the remarks column there were no comments about Diane Grey’s son’s death.
On the night of his death Geoff Grey had as required signed for his gun, a SA80, which had a serial number painted on it. “That gun is identified as having been given to Geoff” said his father but the night he died “the adjutant of the camp, who is in charge of discipline went down to the armoury, removed the log sheet with details of Geoff’s gun and put it in his file.
Three weeks later, that same adjutant removed that log sheet and shredded it.”
This makes it impossible to say which of the twenty guns issued that night fired the fateful shots, it may have been Geoff Grey’s gun, but equally it could have been one of the other nineteen issued. Meanwhile, no fingerprint examination of the guns was ever carried out.
There were no bullets ever recovered in the case of Geoff Grey, the army claims that he shot himself twice but his father says that the angle of the bullet wounds makes it “impossible that Geoff could have shot himself twice, just impossible.”
Earlier in the evening Geoff Grey had refused access to the officer’s mess a civilian living on the barracks. The man claimed to be a firefighter. “We have asked questions in the House of Commons and found out that this man is the only civilian firefighter living on an army barracks anywhere in Britain.”
Geoff Grey’s parents asked Surrey police to question the man and were told that they had been and ‘spoken to him.’ According to them they didn’t appear interested.
Three shots were reported at quarter past one in the morning yet it took over an hour to find Geoff Grey’s body, at twenty past two. According to his parents no-one came out of the sleeping quarters. “No-one also came out when James Collinson died” said Diane Grey.
It was only on the fourth search round the perimeter that Geoff Grey’s body was found a few inches from the fence. At the coroners court a solider said that they had gone round the perimeter fence at a distance of no more than “a few metres apart.” Three of the soldiers also reported they heard a person running away.
“Deepcut is so flat that” that on any search “they couldn’t have missed him” according to Geoff Grey’s mother. On the night itself, however, no one from the army bothered to take statements from those that had been on duty, and there was no attempt to secure the area in and around where Grey had been found. Any evidence that his death was anything but suicide was ignored and the scene of the incident altered, making a proper examination subsequently extremely difficult.
Geoff Grey’s uniform was also destroyed by the army on the day he died.
Six months after Geoff Grey’s death and less than 100 yards away another young man, James Collinson was found dead. Collinson’s death occurred only 3 days after the Inquest into Geoff Grey’s death. Strangely, on the nights of their deaths both young men had lost, or had removed, the badges from their caps. Neither have ever been located.
“Surrey police employed a German company called B.T.A who did forensic tests and they also got the forensic science service here to look into Geoff’s death, neither of them could conclude that my son’s death was suicide” said his father.
Convinced that they had not committed suicide the families of the four Deepcut soldiers employed Frank Swann, an independent investigator, to examine the forensic evidence in the deaths of Sean Benton, Cheryl James, Geoff Gray and James Collinson. He cast doubt on the official explanations of their deaths.
In Sean Benton’s case he agreed with the Surrey Police’s claim that it was possible that two bullet wounds were self-inflicted but “highly unlikely” that three on the torso were. In Collinson’s case Swann accepted that it was possible that bullet wounds to his chin and head were the result of an accident but he thought it “unlikely”. In the cases of James and Gray, aged 18 and 17 years respectively at the times of their deaths, he concluded it was “highly unlikely” that the bullet wounds to their heads were self-inflicted.
According to Diane Grey the doctor pronounced her son dead at 4.00am, but “did not say at what time he died, he should have taken a body temperature as they can then tell how long someone has been dead, he didn’t.” She is convinced that Geoff had died a lot earlier than 1.15am.
“He phoned every Wednesday and every Sunday, yet he never phoned
us on that Sunday.
He had been dead a number of hours. He always rang us.” Strangely the remembrance
book which was opened, by the army, for people to leave messages recorded his
death as September 16th. At the funeral the padre said that he ‘didn’t think
we will ever find out what happened’, an amazing claim.
Diane Grey has had lots of conversations with police officers involved with a number of the cases at Deepcut. One of them, who must remain anonymous; told her that he had left because he ‘wasn’t prepared to lie to the families” and that “he had to get out whilst he could.”
In a nasty twist the Army held on to their son’s letters until January 2003, Diane and Geoff Grey had been told that the Army had destroyed them and when they did finally get them the army excused their actions by stating they thought they wouldn’t want them.
In the case of their son, Geoff Grey, here is a young man killed late at night, on an Army barracks. It is reported that three shots were heard. Yet no-one asleep in the barracks bothers to come out to see what has happened. The soldiers’ body is only found on the fourth search at which time three soldiers report overhearing someone running away. At the Inquest into his death all the soldiers are forced to change their minds about what times they were on duty, it is reported that his uniform was destroyed, the log sheet relating to the gun attributed to him was shredded and no fingerprint examination of the gun or any of the guns used for duty was undertaken. It also took the Army a year to take statements from some of those on duty that evening, something forced on them by the determination of the family to get to the truth about what happened.
Meanwhile there is nothing to indicate that the young man who died had any reason to consider suicide; that he was in fact happy in the army, had lots of friends, a loving family and a future to look forward to. Investigators called in by the police to investigate were unable to conclude that he committed suicide and a forensic expert employed to investigate his, and the others who died at Deepcut barracks, concluded that the bullet wounds to his head were ‘highly unlikely’ to have been self-inflicted.
In their struggle to obtain the truth the Grey’s and the other families have also become aware that they are being monitored by persons unknown. In September 2002 a local neighbour reported that he had seen two men in the Grey’s porch way. When he approached them, at 1.30am, he was told ‘to move along, sir.’ The following morning Geoff Grey went to see the Police, and was assured by them that it had nothing to do with the Police. Later a panic button from Scotland Yard was inserted in their home.
They also report having had lots of problems with their phones; including overhearing voices on their home phone. Yvonne and Jim Collison, parents of James Collinson’s went as far as having their house ‘swept’ for bugs and two devices were found. The Sunday Express reported that the family’s campaign was being monitored by Mi5.
The families were also told by the MOD not to speak to any journalists, but when articles appeared in two national newspapers they received hundreds of letters of support, convincing them that publicity could only help in their campaign to force a Public Enquiry.
They have now launched ‘Deepcut and Beyond’ which is intended to bring together relatives of others that have died in the military in non-combat situations, and who feel the circumstances in their deaths haven’t been properly investigated. Amongst those who could join are the relatives of another young man, name unknown, who is known to have died at Deepcut after reportedly overdosing on his medication only a few months ago.
“The Australian’s are having an enquiry into non-combatant deaths” said Diane Grey, “there should be one here.”
“We also want an Inspectorate of the Army and this must be independent of the Ministry of Defence.” said Geoff and Diane Grey.
More and more people are becoming aware of what has happened at Deepcut. It therefore seems unlikely that the announcement by Bruce George on March 19th that the enquiry by a committee of MPs will be limited to a ‘duty of care’ regime of all three armed services towards their recruits will end the rumbling controversy into what happened to four young soldiers killed there between 1995 and 2002.
Mark Metcalf