Deepcut suicide doubt over lack of exit wound
Inquest told police failed to interview and eliminate potential suspects from original investigation
The fact that there was no exit wound from the bullet that killed a young female soldier at Deepcut barracks suggests she may not have committed suicide, an inquest heard yesterday. The court also heard that police investigating the 1995 death at the Surrey base of Pte Cheryl James, 18, failed to question properly and eliminate three potential suspects, including her boyfriend.
THE body of a young female soldier found shot dead at Deepcut barracks raised doubts that she committed suicide, an inquest heard yesterday.
It was also disclosed that police failed to question properly and eliminate three potential suspects, including the Army recruit’s boyfriend.
Pte Cheryl James’s body was found with no exit wound, no blood on the ground and with her face covered by her waterproof.
A police officer reviewing the death said in 2002 that the circumstances in which she was found at the Surrey barracks “raised questions” about the manner of her death.
Pte James was the second of four young soldiers found dead at the Royal Logistic Corps barracks in Surrey between 1995 to 2002, amid allegations of bullying, violence and sexual abuse.
The 18-year-old from Llangollen, Denbighshire, had recently finished initial training when she was found dead on Nov 27, 1995, after a night on guard duty, with a single bullet wound between her nose and eye.
A 1995 inquest delivered an open verdict, after the Army said she had killed herself, but it was quashed after High Court judges ruled the hearing inadequate.
A new inquest has heard that police originally investigating the shooting did not fully question and eliminate three men as potential suspects.
The hearing at Woking coroner’s court heard that a 2002 Surrey Police review of the investigation had highlighted two soldiers and an unidentified male seen near the scene of Pte James’s death. It said that Pte Jim Carr-Minns, her boyfriend, and Pte Paul Wilkinson needed to be interviewed to “confirm or disprove” their involvement in Pte James’s death.
Alison Foster QC, counsel for the James family, told the hearing that the review said each “should be considered a suspect and should be interviewed immediately to confirm or disprove his involvement in the death”.
A 2005 independent review of the Surrey Police investigation found this had not been done.
Ms Foster said a police officer questioned the suicide theory because of the way the body was found.
Reading out a statement made in 2002 by the officer, she said: “There was no exit wound, the apparent lack of blood on the ground, the way in which the hood of [her] waterproof jacket was covering the face. Any one of these indicators would not cause suspicion... but taken together, they ask questions about the way and the manner of Pte James’s death.”
A childhood friend also said Pte James was desperate to leave the Army in the days before her death.
Lydia Baksh said: “She was just being reprimanded all the time and getting put on guard duty a lot, which she just couldn’t bear.”
In a letter to Ms Baksh eight days before she died, Pte James called her new boyfriend Jim “the only good thing to come out of the Army so far”.
The inquest continues.
‘Any one of these indicators would not cause suspicion … but together, they ask questions about the death’