I wear his medals with pride, but I blame the Army for my son’s death
An ambitious and talented young soldier, Josh Hoole died in sweltering heat on a gruelling training exercise. In this poignant interview, his father, a former sergeant major, tells the Mail:
HIS chest proudly adorned with an array of medals, Phillip Hoole bears the mark of a man with a long and distinguished military career behind him. But among the decorations glinting on his blazer, there are three which weigh especially heavily upon the former sergeant major – the medals awarded to his late son.
Sitting alongside the decorations which chart his own 28 years of service are those awarded to Corporal Josh Hoole, whose career was cut tragically short when he collapsed and died last year during a fitness test.
Cpl Hoole was only 200 yards from finishing a testing eight-mile run when he slumped to the ground on the hottest day of last year.
He had been a fit, ambitious 26-year-old serving in the Rifle Regiment, pushing himself to the limit during the pre-selection process for the highly coveted Platoon Sergeant’s Battle Course.
A soldier since the age of 18, he had a home in the peaceful Dumfriesshire village of Ecclefechan, a loving family and a fiancée to complement the bright future ahead of him in the forces.
Parallels were quickly drawn with the deaths of three soldiers from heat illness during an SAS selection exercise on a similarly swelteringly hot day in 2013, but at the time Mr Hoole insisted he was not interested in playing ‘the blame game’.
Since the initial inquest into his son’s death found Cpl Hoole had been suffering from an undetected heart defect, he has been quietly trying to come to terms with the tragedy, believing that Josh ‘might have dropped down dead any time’.
But a recently published Army Service Inquiry into the young soldier’s death has shattered Mr Hoole’s belief that the loss of his son was entirely due to the long-dormant heart problem.
The official report raised a number of serious doubts over how the Annual Fitness Test (AFT) was carried out that day in the Brecon Beacons, even implying that stopping the exercise on safety grounds would have been ‘appropriate policy’.
IT emerged that temperatures on the day were monitored using mobile phones and car thermometers and no accurate reading from a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) meter was taken before the soldiers set off. Alarmingly, it went on to state that the exercise was allowed to carry on despite two heat casualties being reported by medics and half of those questioned after the exercise citing heat ‘as a factor’ in the high failure rate on the day. Despite this, the report concluded that the exercise ‘did not directly cause’ Cpl Hoole’s death.
Now Mr Hoole is ready to fight one last battle for his son – a battle against the entire military establishment. He said: ‘From its conception and planning to it beginning, that AFT was like the perfect storm. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. If that AFT had not gone ahead, my son would not have died.’
Having vindicated itself of any blame in the death of Cpl Hoole, the questions being asked of the Army by his father will once more provoke uncomfortable comparisons with previous soldiers who have died on training exercises.
In 2013, the MoD came under fierce criticism after three reservists died while attempting a tough selection march over the Brecon Beacons in south Wales.
Lance Corporal Craig Roberts, 24, Trooper Edward Maher, 31, and Corporal James Dunsby, 31, all died after collapsing during the test, held on a day when temperatures soared above 31C (87F).
A 2015 inquest into the deaths delivered a damning verdict on the way the exercise was conducted, describing ‘very serious mistakes’ before and during the march.
Coroner Louise Hunt said parts of the planning and conduct of the march were inadequate or not fit for purpose, adding that inadequate water supplies contributed to one of the deaths.
The trio were among 37 reservists trying out for the SAS reserve units at the same time as 41 regulars were trying out for the Signal Regiment.
Last year, a Defence Safety Authority (DSA) inquiry into the tragedy warned reservists ‘remain vulnerable to a further incident’ because commanders incorrectly view the tests as routine.
The Health and Safety Executive later administered a Crown censure to the MoD after finding there was a failure to plan, assess and manage the temperature risks.
It is an incident that continues to haunt the military.
The two training officers in charge of the 16-mile march were recently charged by the Service Prosecuting Authority with negligent performance of duty, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of two years if the soldiers are convicted in a military court.
The Army’s attitude to soldiers suffering heat injuries was previously brought into question during an inquest into the death of Private Jason Smith, who died of heatstroke while serving in Iraq.
The 32-year-old, from Hawick, Roxburghshire, had repeatedly told medical staff he was feeling unwell after being deployed to Iraq in June 2003.
He collapsed two months later with a body temperature of 41.4C (106F). He was taken to hospital but suffered a cardiac arrest and could not be saved.
An inquest was held in 2006 but a second was ordered by the Supreme Court after Pte Smith’s mother successfully applied for a new public hearing, complying with the European Convention on Human Rights. The hearing prompted the MoD to issue a formal apology to the soldier’s family. Mr Hoole now believes similar mistakes were made during last year’s fitness test.
Driven to despair by what he believes is a ‘disparity’ between the findings of the report and its conclusion, he used his sleepless nights to compile his own 19-page report into his son’s death.
MR Hoole has submitted his report to the Powys coroner, along with a request to reopen the inquest into his son’s death. The report has also been sent to the director general of the DSA and the Defence Prosecution Authority.
Having dedicated such a large portion of his life to the military, it is evident it is with a heavy heart that Mr Hoole is speaking out against the Army. A veteran of Northern Ireland and Iraq with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, it is only 11 years since he left the forces.
But submitting the report is a move he hopes will vindicate his belief that his son would still be alive if the fitness test had not taken place on July 19 last year – and that the Army to which he dedicated so much of his life is culpable for his death.
Speaking from his flat in a converted mill in Carlisle, he explained that the findings of the official Army report reopened wounds that had barely started to heal.
He said: ‘When I first started reading that report I was heartbroken. I had to take time off with anxiety and stress.
‘I did not sleep properly because
I kept getting up to read it and gather evidence. Until I wrote my report, I couldn’t settle again.’
Describing the day of his son’s death as ‘a perfect storm’, he says his chief concerns lie in the fact that the AFT was allowed to set off without an accurate temperature reading being taken and that the exercise was allowed to continue despite two heat casualties being reported.
Due to a forecast of high temperatures on July 19 last year, the start of the exercise was moved forward from 11am to 7am.
The men set off as scheduled at 7am but an official temperature reading was not taken until five minutes after they had left.
The official report said it found no evidence that the company sergeant major had either requested or made any other provision for a formal temperature reading to be taken prior to the men setting off.
It also found that he only asked for an accurate temperature reading at the end of the march and that the temperature checks conducted before and during were taken from a car thermometer and a mobile phone.
Only a member of the directing staff appeared to be aware that a reading from a WGBT was required, but he was unable to obtain one from the headquarters ten miles away because it was off site being recalibrated.
Mr Hoole also believes the commanding officer had adequate grounds to halt the exercise after two men dropped out with heat injuries before his son’s collapse.
The 7.05am reading showed that the soldiers set off in 17C (62F) heat. The maximum temperature permitted for such activities in the Ministry of Defence’s official guidelines is 25C (77F) for men acclimatised to warmer weather.
WITHIn an hour, one soldier had collapsed in a hedge and was initially treated as a heat injury after medics described him as being pale, disorientated and sweating profusely.
After being taken aboard the safety vehicle, a medic then decided he was no longer a heat casualty and that he was, in fact, suffering from exhaustion.
Another soldier was assessed as a heat casualty 40 minutes later and was evacuated to the training camp’s medical centre.
The report found that commonly reported factors among those who took part in the test were lack of air flow, increased humidity in the narrow lanes and the impact of direct sunlight during a tough uphill climb between the second and third water stops.
With regard to heat injuries during exercises, Ministry of Defence guidance states: ‘A single case is a warning that other personnel are at risk. The commander should carry out a dynamic risk assessment of the activity, check for other heat casualties and consider other control measures including stopping the activity.’
Only 12 minutes after the second heat casualty was identified, Cpl Hoole collapsed.
He was immediately attended to by the medic, who noted that his airway was blocked by a build-up of fluid and that he had no pulse. Both Army medics and civilian paramedics attempted to revive him using both automatic and manual defibrillators, adrenaline, an automatic chest compressor and a chest drain.
But less than 40 minutes after collapsing, Cpl Hoole was pronounced dead by an air ambulance doctor.
The report concluded that the cause of his death was an underlying heart condition known as Sudden Arrhythmogenic Death Syndrome (SADS).
Though it accepts that ‘several factors associated with triggering SADS, including physical exercise, heat, dehydration’ were present during the exercise, ‘Cpl Hoole’s medical condition might have manifested itself similarly at any time if what he was doing caused the trigger factors to prompt SADS’.
The MoD says it shares the Hoole family’s pain at the loss of their son but maintains that his death was not caused by the Army.
A spokesman said: ‘It is of absolutely no comfort whatsoever to us, or to Cpl Hoole’s family, that the Service Inquiry’s finding is that the Army did not cause the death of Cpl Hoole.
On that fateful morning in Brecon on July 19, 2016, we lost a determined and experienced infantry soldier as a result of an underlying medical condition, which even Cpl Hoole was unaware of.
‘Cpl Hoole knew what he was doing and why: the course he was on was preparing him for the Platoon Sergeant’s Battle Course. Both are arduous by design and an essential part of ensuring the British Army’s infantry soldiers are combat ready. Cpl Hoole had the courage, commitment and professionalism to step forward and take on the challenge; he knew what he was doing and why, and he was up for it.
THe Army is not afraid to be held accountable for its actions, whether in training or on operations. nobody wanted to know more than us what caused Cpl Hoole’s death and if there is anything we can change or do better to reduce the risk of something like this happening again.
‘We have therefore co-operated fully with this Service Inquiry and welcome its recommendations.’
But having pored over the findings of the official inquiry, Mr Hoole is convinced his son’s death was preventable and that by failing to follow procedure and ignoring heat casualties, the Army is guilty of ‘corporate manslaughter’.
He said: ‘I have requested that the coroner reopen the inquest into my son’s death and have a proper inquest, because at the time it was recorded as accidental death based on the report the pathologist sent in. We just accepted it at the time.
‘There are questions that need answers, for the sake of getting justice for Josh and to try to prevent another family going through the heartache we have gone through.’
At the time of his son’s death, Mr Hoole described comparisons to previous tragedies as ‘a knee-jerk reaction’ and insisted that his son ‘knew the risks’ before setting out on the AFT.
Like his father, Cpl Hoole, who served two tours in Afghanistan, was a committed serviceman and was keen to gain promotion to platoon sergeant.
The Army enjoys Crown immunity and cannot be pursued for corporate manslaughter. But the 55year-old believes that if the coroner revisits the case and rules that his son’s death was not entirely accidental, it will heap pressure on the Army to rethink the conclusions of its official inquiry.
He said: ‘In terms of the Army being accountable for their actions, I challenge them to waive their right to Crown Immunity with regards to the circumstances surrounding my son’s death because I believe they are guilty of corporate manslaughter.
‘The Army has certain core values, three of which are integrity, honesty and moral courage. If they really feel that strongly, they should have the moral courage to do the right thing and waive that right so their honesty and integrity can be proved.’