WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2004 (AFTERNOON)

MR DES JAMES, MRS DOREEN JAMES, MR JAMES COLLINSON, MRS YVONNE COLLINSON, MR GEOFF GRAY AND MRS DIANE GRAY

  Q1160  Mr Jones: You were never given a name of anyone you could speak to?

  Mr James: No.

  Mrs James: One person left a card in the funeral and that was the last time we had any correspondence or could even speak to him because he had been posted elsewhere.

  Mr James: He left a card and said, "Mr James, if there is anything at all you want," and he put it in my hand with such incredible compassion, but every time I rang him he had gone; I could not get hold of him at all.

  Q1161  Mr Jones: So if you had concerns about your children's welfare, were you aware of any mechanism that you could have used as parents to raise those concerns?

  Mrs James: None whatsoever.

  Q1162  Mr Jones: None at all?

  Mrs James: No.

  Q1163  Mr Hancock: Can I take us back to where we have been already, and that was the movement between the initial training into the second phase, and we heard this morning in graphic detail where every single parent, all four of them, spoke about the distinct changes that they saw come over their children during that period of time, and the attitudes when they were at home and that their relationships changed quite considerably. All three of you have made glowing comments about your children when they passed out of the initial recruitment. What was happening in the next phase of that? We have heard that Cheryl was only eight days at Deepcut; do you know anything at all about her moods or her attitude to what was happening during that movement from the initial training to the next phase?

  Mr James: As I said, as far as we were aware there were no issues at Pirbright; there were no issues at Leconfield with her, as far as we are aware, and all we know is that she was at Deepcut for eight days, and apart from a phone call to my wife a couple of days before her death there was no contact of course.

  Q1164  Mr Hancock: Doreen, how was she then?

  Mrs James: She phoned me on the Friday afternoon at about 2 o'clock, and she was supposed to be coming home that weekend but said she could not manage it because she was on guard duty. But obviously this conversation has gone through my head hundreds and hundreds of times. I could not pick out any distress or any reason why it was a call for help; it was just a phone call saying that she could not make it. She was on about Christmas shopping and different things. It seems strange that it is just a couple of days before.

  Q1165  Mr Hancock: Jim?

  Mr Collinson: James phoned me up on the Thursday. He passed away on the Saturday, but on the Thursday when he phoned me he was over the moon. As I said, he had not long passed his driving test; he was discussing various cars that he was looking to save up to buy. He was asking my advice whether he should buy one down south or maybe buy one up in Scotland. I reminded him, "You have just passed your test and it would be safer if you bought a car down south so you do not have to drive down numerous motorways." He was happy and he was looking forward to coming up to Scotland. He was looking forward to seeing his little sister—it was going to be her birthday—and we had about 20 minutes' conversation on the phone, and he was okay. There was nothing wrong with him whatsoever.

  Q1166  Mr Hancock: But neither of you noticed any change until Phase 2 of his training?

  Mr Collinson: There was no change. James came home from Pirbright after his passing out parade, and he was great; we saw the change in him, he was muscular, he was a mature young man. He had no worries at all. He was with you [Yvonne Collinson] on the Friday.

  Mrs Collinson: He spent the last night in my house actually, and we dropped him off at the camp on the day he died. He seemed happy and I remember him ironing his combat gear because he was going to do an extra guard duty as a favour for another colleague—I believe he "bought a guard" or something, I think the term was—and he was to be paid some extra money for doing this for someone else. He said that if he was the smartest on parade that night then he would be excused guard duty but would still be paid for it, and I think it was just their way of making sure that they all put in the effort, and he stood for a couple of hours ironing his stuff. And, as Jim says, he was talking about buying a car and he seemed quite happy. The only change I would say different from Pirbright was he was always much more tired, and I never knew why that was. He just said, "It is hard going, Mum."

  Mr Gray: The only concern that Geoff said was that he was there at the time of 11 September attack and he said that the guard duties had been doubled. It was said in the Coroner's Court that he had had a whine and a whinge about doing so many guard duties—they were doing two hours on and two hours off for a stint of 12 hours—and that was his only real whinge there. But the night that Geoff died it was supposed to be his last day at Deepcut and he was supposed to go off to Leconfield to do his HGV the following day.

  Q1167  Mr Hancock: The suggestion that has been made to us in other evidence is that the Phase 2 training is a critical time because there is a lot of time on their hands, trying to find things to fill the time of people who have been fighting to get fit and learning about the Army and picking up the ethos and what have you in that 12 weeks, and then all of a sudden it goes flat. That seems to have been suggested as an effect it has on some recruits, but none of you have really suggested that that occurred.

  Mr Collinson: Unfortunately James was not there long enough before he died; he was only at Deepcut for six weeks.

  Q1168  Mr Hancock: And Cheryl was there even shorter.

  Mr James: We have heard that as well and that Phase 2 training, as far as our interpretation, that it was Leconfield. So Phase 1 training was Pirbright; Phase 2 was Leconfield. Deepcut actually is a holding camp, waiting for a post, and Cheryl's posting came on the day she died. So the boredom and the time on their hands is because there is not any training, they are just messing around with guard duties.

  Mrs James: And painting fences.

  Q1169  Mr Hancock: Can I ask the same question at this stage as I did this morning? Have any of you requested to see your children's Army records, formally?

  Mr James: No.

  Mrs Gray: No, but five months after Geoff died some Army records arrived at the door, some certificates from a rifle range. He had done some exercise and the certificates arrived at the door saying how well he had done.

  Q1170  Mr Hancock: So you got stuff unsolicited and parents this morning asked for it and did not get it. But none of you have formally asked to see your children's Army records?

  Mr James: No.

  Mr Collinson: I did not think we were entitled to them.

  Chairman: We should try to find out what the official ruling is on return of Army records.

  Mr Hancock: And on the return of letters, maybe, Chairman.

  Chairman: Yes. As we said earlier, Mike, I think the procedure is that all personal effects are returned to next of kin, so that should include letters, so we will try and find that out. Mike Gapes, please.

  Q1171  Mike Gapes: I think some of the questions I am going to ask have already been covered, but these tragic events took place in a period in the 1990s and up to 2002. We have subsequently had various publications and the duty of care report from the MoD, which recommends That, "In provision of aftercare and advice for bereaved relatives, or in cases of unusual incidents or serious injury involving trainees, the Commander should be directly engaged with families." Can you confirm, all of you, whether the Commander at the time of these events was in any way directly engaged with you?

  Mrs James: No.

  Mr James: We did not even know who he was until 2002, so I think that is as clear as we can make it really.

  Q1172  Mike Gapes: Jim?

  Mr Collinson: No, the person who informed me that my son had died—

  Mrs Collinson: We got a letter from the Commanding Officer.

  Mr Collinson: I got a letter, yes, but the person who informed me that James had died was a TA; he was a Major, an ex-Major from Deepcut who then was a TA instructor at Dunfermline, who came and informed me at quarter to eight on Sunday morning that my son had passed away.

  Mr Gray: The only contact we had with any sort of permanent staff from Deepcut was the Padre, who came to inform us of Geoff's death, and very strangely said, "I do not think we will ever find out what happened." And also the Adjutant, who we met the following day when we went down to identify Geoff's body, and that was it, that was as far as it went.

  Q1173  Mike Gapes: Is it your impression that the MoD, the Army have changed their approach over the recent past?

  Mr Gray: I do not, and talking to different people who we have met through the Deepcut and Beyond campaign, I do not think it has changed. We are still getting the same stories where belongings are coming back in cardboard boxes, where families are not being informed of what is going on.

  Mr James: We know, do we not, that when Surrey Police produced their fifth report they quoted something like five previous reviews, reports or whatever, all of which, sadly, made little difference. I think we have to accept that unless and until there is a thorough transparent review, judicial review of precisely what has happened here, where witnesses can be called and organisations and individuals can be held to account, we cannot be sure, can we, that anything has changed? Surely there is enough history here now to show that the MoD have over and over and over again told the public and anyone who will listen, "We have changed, we have put our house in order, do not worry." I for one will never accept that. We cannot accept that they can simply tell us they have changed now and then we will all run around looking for evidence that they have. We need to look back in history, look at the real issues, get underneath the issues, find out what happened and then be clear that the corrective actions that are in place are appropriate to prevent a recurrence. Otherwise, I do not think there is any confidence.

  Mrs Gray: I do not feel confident that you are going to help us today because, if I remember rightly, you have already done a review, you have made recommendations, and what has happened? Nothing.

  Q1174  Chairman: Mrs Gray, we have a PhD student from Kings College who has spent over three months in going through all of those past documents to see what the recommendations were, and then following up what happened to them, so I can assure you that we are on the ball there, we really are.

  Mr Jones: We have not made any recommendations yet.

  Chairman: No.

  Mrs Gray: No, from the last time.

  Q1175  Mike Gapes: You are talking about the previous Select Committee reports a few years back?

  Mrs Gray: Yes.

  Q1176  Mike Gapes: That is not this Committee.

  Mrs Gray: No, no, not this Committee.

  Q1177  Mike Gapes: Can I just carry on then? You have mentioned already some of the things which were badly done with regard to what happened at the time of the bereavement. Are there any specific improvements that you would recommend as to what could be done in the future?

  Mr Gray: I was going to say earlier on, if there is a death on an Army barracks the Army, or whichever Force, needs to get the facts right before they go to visit the parents . . .

  Mr Gray: If there is a death on an Army barracks, the Army or whichever Force needs to get the facts right before they go to visit parents. The Army turned up at our door some eight hours after Geoff died, and told myself and my wife that my son had committed suicide. This was without any investigation whatsoever. The Surrey Police had turned up and scratched their heads, looked at Geoff's body, and said "oh, there is a gun lying next to him; he has committed suicide; just go and tell his parents that". That is what happened. That needs to change. You have got to facts before you can go to a parent and tell them what has happened with their son. Also, we were not aware that Geoff had been shot twice until six months after he died, when we went to the Coroner's court. Again, those facts have got to be given to parents, and they have got to be spot-on before anyone comes and tells you that.

  Mr James: I think the one thing that is common amongst anyone experiencing bereavement is their quest for answers, even the most basic answers in our case. We wanted to know what she was doing on the day before, who she was talking to, what she was talking about; and we will never know that now. I think there is a need for a professional—someone referred to a family liaison officer, and I do not know what we would call that person, but there needs to be a professional person, a single point contact—a key account manager or call it what you will—but one person who is responsible from A to Z for the communication with those parents until they are through that immediate process.

  Mrs James: Certainly with information given to the media, that should be handled very, very carefully, especially before the parents have informed nearest relatives. My mother and father, if they had had the television on, would have heard that their grand-daughter had been shot before we could tell them. We were informed at half past four in the afternoon and it was on the six o'clock news, and they live nearly an hour away—so how can you handle that sort of thing?

  Q1178  Chairman: I have a brief question. As we are exploring the care shown to you or lack of care shown to you after your children died, one of our witnesses this morning spoke of the funeral—"the Army does good funerals"—forgive the rather callous expression. I went to one recently of a young lad killed in Iraq, and it was splendid, bearing in mind the circumstances. Guys were flown in from Basra. At your children's funerals was the level of attendance by officers sufficient to meet your demands, and was the Commanding Officer there? It may be an unfair question, but what was the senior rank of attendees from the Army at your children's funeral?

  Mr Gray: At Geoff's funeral, Geoff's friends were trained up to carry the coffin, so there were eight privates there. There was an adjutant there, a sergeant-major, and the Army Chaplain. I am just thinking about what was said this morning. The funeral itself was splendid—you are quite right; if there is such a thing as a nice funeral, it was a nice funeral! After the funeral we went back obviously and had a bit to eat, and offered the soldiers a drink as well. There was always an officer over the top of a private's shoulder whenever we were talking to them. We were very, very rarely allowed to speak to a private without an officer within earshot. One young soldier did manage to speak to us, and he told us that when they searched for Geoff's body, he was not there. At the time, we did not understand what on earth he was talking about. It was not until the Coroner's court where we heard that the perimeter fence where Geoff was eventually found was checked four times, and he was not there. It was only on the fifth occasion that they found his body. The point is really that these young privates were never allowed to speak with us. We could not go off and sit down and have a decent chat with them and try to comfort them as well, because you know they have lost a friend. We could not do that without an officer being present.

  Mrs Gray: At one point I was not really sure whether these were colleagues of Geoff's or not because they never mentioned his name and they never talked about him, but then I broached the subject to try and mention something to give me proof that they knew Geoff. We were talking about Geoff's clothing, and everybody laughed and said what silly dress sense he had, with his bright pink shorts and everything; and I thought, "that's Geoff they are talking about". Then one boy said—after this boy had said he was not there—another boy said: "You have got to find out what's going on; one of us could be next." With that, the officers were behind them and directed them this way—"get out, now"—and they were taken away.

  Q1179  Chairman: So adjutant was the highest-ranking officer. What about at your son's funeral?

  Mrs Collinson: I cannot recall. I know there was good attendance with lots of people there in uniform and lovely wreaths et cetera.

  Mr Collinson: There were seven friends that had to give up their Easter weekend to be trained to be pallbearers. If I can just add, three days after James's funeral I phoned up the senior officer at Deepcut and asked how the investigation into my son's death was going, and that's when I got the reply on the phone, three days after James's funeral: "There is one body, one bullet; draw your own conclusion." That was three days after James's funeral.