Mother of solider who died at Deepcut to continue her fight for public inquiry

MARTHA VAUGHAN

James Collinson was found dead at Deepcut.

Collinson have maintained that they were either pushed into taking their own lives by “a culture of bullying” or possibly murdered and are campaigning for a full investigation.

Mrs Collinson-Heath said: “I wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to me. I never, ever believed there’d be any kind of collusion or cover-up and then the more and more I learn,

for example Hillsborough, the more and more convinced I am that that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Asked if she wanted a public inquiry she said: “Absolutely, for one I want to find out how James died, why he died.”

Speaking about her son’s death she said: “They found him with someone else’s gun lying across his chest. It wasn’t fingerprinted, they didn’t do anything about it.

“Everything was so lackadaisical, it was unbelievable. You don’t expect that of the British Army.

“I’ve gone over that visit a million times in my mind, thinking did I miss something, was there something wrong? I can’t find anything, he was just his normal self.

“I still can’t believe it, sometimes, if I see a group of soldiers I still, kinda, have a little look, it just seems so unreal that he’s just not here any more.”

Mrs Collinson-Heath said she did not feel official apologies went far enough and commented: “We’ve heard it all before, it’s all talk, it’s always ‘lessons have been learned, we’re thinking of the families at this time’.

“They roll out the same statements over and over again, they’ve done it for 15 years now, we need less talk and more action.”