Brigadier apologises to family of Deepcut soldier

THE ARMY has apologised to the family of a young soldier who died at the notorious Deepcut Barracks.

Brigadier Chris Coles told an inquest there were “quite a number of things that could and should have been better” at the time of Private Sean Benton’s death in June 1995.

The 20-year-old was found with five bullets in his chest, shortly after he had been told he was to be discharged from the Army.

He was the first of four young soldiers to die of gunshot wounds at the Surrey barracks between 1995 and 2002.

Giving evidence during a fresh inquest at Woking Coroner’s Court, Brig Coles, head of the Army Personnel Services Group, did so through a statement he made last November.

Beforehand, he addressed Pte Benton’s sister, Tracy Lewis, and twin brother, Tony, saying: “The statement acknowledges quite a number of things that could and should have been better at the time of Sean’s death.”

Brig Coles said: “The set-up of Deepcut and the ratio of instructors and trainees was not as it should have been and not as it would be now, and that led to the risk that people in training in Deepcut ... their welfare was not properly attended to in the way it should have been, and for that I’m very sorry.”

He added: “Linked to that, it came much too late in the day, the policy for arming individual sentries, particularly trainees at Deepcut, it came very late that that system was changed.”

The Brigadier apologised and said: “It is something that I wish was not the case.”

He told the inquest that at the time Pte Benton was at Deepcut, the ratios “meant that there was relatively too little supervision”.

The inquest also heard that junior officers would have issued punishments “informally”.

Brig Coles said that “at times the frequency and severity of the punishments given strayed beyond what was appropriate”.

On Wednesday, the inquest heard that Pte Benton told his sister he had been “shackled” and “humiliated” at the base.

An Army spokesman has already apologised for the “shortcomings” at Deepcut in 1995.