Defendant ‘messed up’ gun targets, trial hears
AN ARMY officer accused of the manslaughter of a young soldier who was shot in the head during a training exercise allegedly said after the incident “I’ve messed up, haven’t I?” a court martial heard.
Ranger Michael Maguire, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, died after coming under machine gun fire during an exercise at the Castlemartin Training Area in Pembrokeshire in May 2012.
The 21-year-old, from County Cork, Ireland, was shot in the forehead and killed during training that was preparing the troops for deployment to Kenya.
Captain Jonathan Price, 32, now of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish, is accused of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Rgr Maguire through his failure to set up and supervise a safe exercise.
The prosecution alleges he failed to attend a recce of the range when preparing a Range Action Safety Plan (Rasp), that he placed targets too close together, and he failed to “deconflict” the two exercises.
Lieutenant Colonel Richard Bell, 45, and Warrant Officer Stuart Pankhurst, 40, are both accused of negligently performing a duty.
Lt Col Bell, the senior planning officer, is accused of failing to review or counter-sign the Rasp produced by Capt Price, and failing to supervise or support him.
WO Pankhurst, who was supervising the exercise involving Rgr Maguire in area 10A, is accused of failing to “express any caution or concern” despite having attended the recce and having knowledge of the extent of the adjacent shooting in area 10B.
Steven Philipps-Harries, a range officer at Castlemartin, told the court martial in Bulford, Wiltshire, of a conversation he had with Capt Price in the aftermath of the fatal shooting.
Mr Philipps-Harries, a retired army warrant officer and now a Ministry of Defence employee, explained that after being alerted to an incident, he had driven to the range and went to find Capt Price and saw some targets sticking in the sand.
“I said, ‘what is that target over there?’ and he said, ‘it is a switch-fire target’.
“He took me to the position where he had triangulated the target from,” Mr Philipps-Harries said.
“We looked to the extreme left where the grass was to show him how out of arc his targets were and you could quite clearly see where the casualty was.
“I said, ‘you can see how out of arc your targets are’. He said, ‘I’ve messed up, haven’t I? What do you think will happen to me?’
“I said I didn’t know.”
All three defendants deny the charges and the trial, before a board of seven senior officers, continues.