The deaths at Deepcut Barracks is a series of incidents that took place involving the deaths in obscure circumstances of five British Army trainee soldiers at the Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut in the county of Surrey, between 1995 and 2002.
The most recent inquests took place at Woking Coroners Court from 2016 to 2019. General Lord Dannatt, a former Chief of the General Staff, in 2016 stated on BBC Newsnight to Emily Maitlis that it was his view that "there should be a public inquiry into the Deepcut Barracks deaths which would be practical and reasonable". A fourth inquest for one of the recruits, James Collinson, initially due in 2020-21, was halted in 2019. His death remains a mystery and an open verdict.
In June 2021, it was revealed on BBC Newsnight that a fifth recruit, Anthony Bartlett, had died at the barracks in July 2001 from an alleged drug overdose.
The original legal investigations concluded that the fatal shootings were self-inflicted. However the circumstances around the deaths and the fact the recruits died in similar circumstances at the same facility, in a comparatively limited period of time, drew substantial media attention and became an extended legal contest between the families of the trainee soldiers concerned and the legal authorities involved as to what had actually occurred. This culminated in the original inquests being repeated, in one case 20 years after the first inquest was conducted.
This lengthy legal contest compelled Surrey Police authorities to investigate further and created a pressure to reveal camp life and its organisation for recruits. The details that emerged over nearly two decades of Police and media investigation, interviews with recruits, television documentaries, and a legal review, illustrated a plethora of changes required for the Army, especially the Royal Logistic Corps, to make changes to how it recruited and treated military trainees. Senior army officers presided over a 'catastrophic' failure in their duty of care towards recruits, an influential Commons committee revealed in 2005.
Background The trainees were in Phase 2 of the British Army's training syllabus with its Royal Logistic Corps at the Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut, in Surrey, when they lost their lives through rifle-fire in a series of similar incidents over a six-year period from 1995-2002.
The trainees The four deaths were:
On 9 June 1995, Private Sean Benton (20 years of age), from Hastings, East Sussex, England, died from five bullet wounds in his chest after going on an unauthorized lone patrol of the Barracks' perimeter. On 27 November 1995, Private Cheryl James (18) from Froncysyllte, Llangollen, Wales, died from a single bullet wound in her head, her body was found in a wood not far from her abandoned guard post. On 17 September 2001, Private Geoff Gray (17) from Seaham, County Durham, England, died from two gunshot wounds in his head whilst on guard duty, having left colleagues to carry out a lone prowler patrol in contravention of the routine Barracks' guard-duty procedure. On 23 March 2002, Private James Collinson (17) from Perth, Scotland, died from a single gunshot wound in his head whilst performing guard duty, his body being found near the Barracks' perimeter fence.
First inquests In the original public inquests, held after each individual death, the Coroners' accepted investigations by the Royal Military Police and Surrey Police, and concluded one of suicide in the case of one of the recruits (Sean Benton), with the other three deaths receiving open verdicts.
Over the course of several years the families of the trainees challenged the original investigations and began a sustained legal campaign to have the circumstances of the deaths publicly re-examined. The British press also gathered further accounts from other recruit soldiers who had been at the barracks at the time the shootings occurred, uncovering a disturbing picture of abuse of trainees in the facility by elements among its training staff, and criticised the original investigations into the incidents for a lack of a forensic examination of evidence. Parliamentary criticism followed and a reconsideration of the scope of the investigations and scrutiny of training within the Ministry of Defence.
A later review/re-investigation by Surrey Police treated the four deaths as potentially related. An investigation consequent to this finding, also by Surrey Police, identified a number of failures of the Army's duty of care at the barracks, leaving the opportunity and motive for suicide available. Its findings were rejected by most members of the families. The findings led to media and families' criticism of the army investigations of the deaths over record keeping, transparency and particularly maintenance of evidence and forensic material.
Questions in Parliament After questions in the House of Commons during 2003 and 2004, three Lords asked the government for a public inquiry in November 2004. A response was issued through its whip in the Lords Baroness Crawley:
The Ministry of Defence in 2004 expanded its relationship with the 'Adult Learning Inspectorate' to provide independent oversight of all British Armed forces training.
Blake Report In December 2004 a military law QC, Nicholas Blake of Matrix Chambers, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence to independently review the cases with the voluntary co-operation of involved parties. In March 2006 he published a 397-page report entitled 'The Deepcut Review' with his findings, which concluded that it was probable that the deaths were self-inflicted but criticised a number of aspects of the Deepcut Barracks training centre at the time of the deaths, which the Report suggested could be construed as having played a role in the suicides.
The points identified by the report were:
The training environment at Deepcut causing low morale through poor accommodation, limited recreational facilities, and the balance between privacy and dormitory life. Ill-disciplined access to firearms at the barracks. Poor supervision of trainees. A detrimental culture in the barracks had taken root involving ill-discipline, bullying and unofficial punishments. A systemic failure of the means for complaint within the barracks. Low quality instructors on the barracks' staff.
A report issued by the Army Board of Inquiry in response to the Blake Report was due to be published in December 2007, but was delayed by the Ministry of Defence until May 2009. On release it supported the Blake Report's findings and returned open verdicts on the deaths of the recruits.
Press commentary The Deaths at Deepcut Barracks, with their obscure circumstances, with questions being asked as to whether they were suicides or foul play by an unknown third party(ies), have drawn substantial coverage in the British media, both in Fleet Street's tabloid and broadsheet titles, and in television news programmes and documentaries.
2000–2009 In December 2002, the British Broadcasting Corporation's Panorama television current affairs programme broadcast an investigation into the barracks at the time of the deaths, cataloguing an abusive culture towards recruits among elements of the training staff, and naming a particular non-commissioned officer as being a problem in this regard.
In 2009, The Mirror newspaper reported that senior police officers investigating the deaths of the four young soldiers at Deepcut seriously compromised the investigation by briefing army top brass on their findings.
2010–2019 In 2020, articles by journalists Brian Cathcart and Heather Mills critical of the investigations featured in Private Eye, which has been consistently critical of these judgements and supported the families' appeals for further investigation. These criticisms drew on the later investigations to suggest the initial forensic investigations were flawed.Private Eye, 1236, p.27Private Eye, 8 January 2010, 1263, p.29 Cathcart had also been critical of the treatment of the four cases in the media.
In 2011, Devon and Cornwall Police reviewed Surrey Police's investigations and found the force was aware of a number of theories suggesting specific individuals could have killed the soldiers. However, this line of questioning was never followed up.
In January 2016, prior to the start of a new inquest into the death of Cheryl James, The Independent newspaper revealed a culture of bullying, sexual assaults and rape was claimed to be widespread at Deepcut barracks. Almost 60 allegations of such incidents from 1995 were made to Surrey Police by former recruits but had hitherto escaped public attention.
Following the end of Cheryl James's second inquest Friday 3 June, the same day BBC2 broadcast a documentary at 9pm called, 'Deepcut; The Army's Shame'. The documentary was referred to as 'shocking' and indeed during interviews with former recruits it described a 'malevolent culture' of bullying, violence, attempted suicide, rape, male-rape, threats of murder, and racism. A former NCO, Julia Boulton was one of the few female non-commissioned officers, NCOs, at Deepcut in the mid-90s. She believes the base was out of control and she says of her fellow instructors: "A lot of them were actually put there because nobody else wanted them. It sort of had a bit of a reputation of being a dumping ground to get rid of unwanted NCOs."
One recruit who trained with Cheryl James, was interviewed by ITV News following the conclusion of her second inquest. In the interview the recruit said James had a 'bubbly personality' and her suicide didn't 'add up'. He consequently said life at the camp was 'chaotic' and there was 'no structure'. He was the same recruit that appeared on BBC2's documentary and described how he was abused by an instructor and knocked unconscious by a broom handle.
In July the same year, another former recruit who had known Sean Benton was interviewed live on BBC News's Victoria Derbyshire programme. During the interview he described an insidious culture of 'bullying and paranoia' and described how he and three other recruits locked each other inside cupboards to escape from the regime. The cupboards had to be locked with a padlock from the outside and was the 'only place instructors couldn't access'. Following the interview Des James, father of army recruit Cheryl James said that this interview of Deepcut was another sign that there was a culture of bullying at the camp that, "People are starting to realise something was very wrong there." He said he was still pressing for a public inquiry.
In 2017, it was suggested in the media that detectives investigating the deaths of the four soldiers at Deepcut did not properly consider a list of hypothetical suspects, according to a report.
Following Sean Benton's second inquest in 2018, a judge hit out at “incompetent” police and the “toxic” Army base after ruling that the “troubled rookie soldier blasted himself to death with a machine gun.”
In 2019, the parents of Perth soldier James Collinson who died mysteriously at the Barracks said they will drop their fight for a new judicial inquiry. His death remains a mystery.
Further inquests Cheryl James