Friendly fire death soldier ‘has blood on his hands’

A SOLDIER who fatally shot a comrade in a ‘friendly fire’ incident on an Afghan battlefield will forever have ‘blood on his hands’, the dead man’s family said yesterday.

They spoke out after a coroner criticised Lance Corporal of Horse Mark Kelly for ‘failing to take sufficient care’ before shooting Lance Corporal James Brynin, pictured.

Intelligence expert L/Cpl Brynin, 22, of the 1 th Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare), was killed during combat with Taliban fighters in Helmand Province on October 15, 2013. After shooting him, LCoH Kelly shouted: ‘****! There’s one!’

At the inquest in Arundel, West Sussex, coroner Penelope Schofield ruled that L/Cpl Brynin was not unlawfully killed.

Recording a narrative verdict, she said LCoH Kelly ‘reasonably’ believed he was firing at Taliban insurgents. But she said he ‘failed to have sufficient situational awareness’ of the location of the unit that L/Cpl Brynin was attached to and fired in the wrong direction.

‘This soldier did not take sufficient care and fired in rapid succession, whilst resting his gun on the helmet of another soldier,’ she said.

The inquest into the death of L/Cpl Brynin, from Pulborough, West Sussex, was halted ten months ago, so a decision could be made over whether LCoH Kelly should face homicide charges. But it emerged yesterday, when the inquest resumed, that following an investigation by service police LCoH Kelly will not face any further action.

Afterwards, L/Cpl Brynin’s father Efrem Brynin said the family were ‘upset and disappointed’ that LCoH Kelly was not charged or punished. ‘The simple fact remains that his errors led directly to our son’s death,’ he said. ‘He has, and will forever have, James’s blood on his hands.’

During the hearing last year, LCoH Kelly turned to L/Cpl Brynin’s family and said he was ‘terribly sorry’ for what had happened.