Deepcut enquiry

There were four deaths at Deepcut army barracks between 1995 and 2002 of trainees in Phase 2 of soldier training: Sean Benton, Cheryl James, Geoff Gray and James Collison. They were each found with gunshot wounds. In each case the Coroner's verdict reached following an investigation by the Royal Military Police and Surrey Police was one of suicide.

Families of the trainees rejected the verdicts. British media gathered further accounts of fellow trainee soldiers and criticised the investigations 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 military law QC collated and published a private independent review between 2004 and March 2006 finding six deficiencies in the training regime of each trainee. Re-opening of the verdicts of each death was the conclusion of a 2009 Inquiry Report by the Army Inquiry Board, supporting the independent review. A second inquest in 2016 into the death of Pte. Cheryl James recorded a suicide verdict, adding "clear answers as to why are not there to be seen" and calls for a public inquiry have continued by the families affected.

The four deaths were:

First investigations of each death were undertaken by Surrey Police and the Royal Military Police, as each was an independent incident and determined in the usual manner for unexpected deaths by a Coroner. Each Coroner's inquest resulted in a verdict of suicide by gunshot wounds.

A later review/re-investigation by Surrey Police treated the four deaths as potentially related, but sustained the coroners' verdicts of suicide. 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 who, following the series, sought and in most cases, still seek a judicial inquiry into the circumstances. 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.

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