New allegation of Deepcut investigation failings

Thursday, 14 April 2005 12:00 AM

The controversy surrounding the deaths at Deepcut barracks, and the subsequent investigation, has deepened after the father of one of the soldiers who died has claimed the police investigation was "a sham".

Private Geoff Gray, 17, who died of gunshot wounds, was one of four recruits who the army said killed themselves at the Surrey barracks between 1995 and 2002.

Surrey police investigated the suicide claims after the young soldiers' families disputed this verdict, but Pte Gray's father Geoff has now claimed that this was a "sham".

He makes this accusation on the basis of his son's army records, which the family obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

A record dated 30 April 2002 details information received from a retired Major Dalrymple, noting how Surrey police told Mr and Mrs Gray that the investigation into their son's death was being reopened.

"The reason for this was to enable the police to formally present all of the evidence (to include all that evidence previously undisclosed) to the Grays," the note continued.

"Police motive for doing this to end the accusations that the police and or army are covering things up. Police admitted that the investigation will have the same result - suicide."

Mr Gray, of Hackney in London, described the revelation as "beyond belief".

He told the Press Association: "It's quite appalling to think that the investigation outcome was already set before the investigation had started," he said.

"We have had a sham of an investigation that's cost over a million pounds and right from the beginning, they were using the same 'suicide, let's push it under the carpet' principle."

A spokeswoman for Surrey police said that a review of their investigation was currently being carried out by Devon and Cornwall police to look at the "mindset" of the probe and its contacts with the army.

But she added: "There's a huge amount of material in the investigation which demonstrates that we have carried out a thorough and open-minded investigation examining a number of hypotheses."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said it would be inappropriate to comment until the review was completed.

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