Death of Army girl dismissed as suicide by police within 90 minutes

A YOUNG Army recruit’s death was dismissed as suicide by police within just 90 minutes of her body being found, an inquest has heard.

Cheryl James, 18 – pictured – was discovered with a single shot to the head after she was posted to guard duty alone with an SA80 rifle at the Deepcut Army base in Surrey in November 1995. Failings by Surrey Police at the time mean it may never be known exactly what happened to the recruit from north Wales.

Yesterday a retired inspector personally apologised to the teenager’s family for failing to investigate her death properly.

Michael Day, who had been the duty inspector in charge of the scene, told a fresh inquest he had made a crucial error based on ‘ assumptions’ made on the ground.

Within just 90 minutes of her body being found, her death was dismissed as suicide and the case handed over to the military police and coroner.

As a result, no fingerprints were taken from Pte James’ weapon, no swabs taken from her wound or hands, no fingertip search was conducted and her rifle was immediately put back into service.

The court heard the decision to hand over the case to the military police was against the law which states the civilian force must retain primacy in such an event. The retired officer admitted he had not been aware of that and that he had no experience of suspicious deaths.

Apologising to Pte James’ family, he added: ‘If I had to make that decision again I would have without a doubt taken a different course of action.’ It also emerged that Surrey Police withheld letters written by Pte James from her family because they contained ‘sexual references’.

Pte James was the second of four recruits to die in shootings at Deepcut – amid claims of bullying, abuse and a cover-up – over a period of seven years.

The inquest continues.