Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 326)
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 2004
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
(RETIRED) RICHARD
HAES OBE
Q320 Rachel Squire: The key part
is that those friendships and allegiances will be maintained?
Mr Haes: Yes, and I think that
is thoroughly worthy, but if he went to Deepcut in the first place,
he would form those friendships there and they would be reinforced.
He would not know differently, if I put it that way. He would
still be perfectly as good a soldier there as he would over there.
Q321 Chairman: When you began your
inquiry, and you must be feel very vindicated by events in terms
of related response to much that you have done, did anybody come
to you and say, "Colonel, read these before you begin"
and this reading list should have included, I would have thought,
some of the documentation you read about in the Surrey Policy
Report, or was the obligation on you to find out?
Mr Haes: I suppose, with hindsight,
the answer could have been "yes" but at no point, whoever
I spoke to, either in higher Headquarters or in the operating
divisions where you might expect it, did someone say , "Ah,
but a guy did a report on this two years go", or one year
ago or whatever. There was absolutely no indication of that, and
I think when I arrived in the job, because it was a newly-established
post, I have to say I got very quickly stuck into sorting out
the problems that were existing. There was very little in the
way of any organised, back-dated reference material and, because
no one had been doing the job, I had to go through all sorts of
files. The civilian staff, with the best will in the world, had
filed letters in places because they did not really understand
what it was about. They just put it in any file. It was a case
of going through every single file to find out where the information
was. Most of the time, we could not find it if it was back-referenced.
We had say, "Sorry, please send us another copy of that".
Q322 Mr Hancock: Who was the general
in charge when you given this job?
Mr Haes: By name, it was General
Christopher Elliot.
Q323 Mr Hancock: He must have been
in charge when at least one or two of the previous reports would
have ended up on his desk?
Mr Haes: I cannot answer that,
I am afraid.
Q324 Mr Hancock: The dates would
say that he should have known?
Mr Haes: I do not know who those
reports were submitted to, nor who was responsible for sorting
them out.
Q325 Chairman: We are trying to find
this paper trail. Maybe we will find out.
Mr Haes: I think also relevant
to that is that when I was initially brought in, that was not
my remit. My remit was to look at this new, emerging legislation,
which indeed was a fairly full-time job, and so I took on, the
duty of care and supervision study side as a matter of natural
staff work. It developed, it evolved, as it went along and presumably
because I was finding things out as I went, perhaps naively, I
did not make that quantum leap to say, "Has anything like
this been done before?"
Q326 Chairman: As a very last question,
you expressed concerns about the heavy administrative burden caused
by the 20% of regular offenders in terms of additional duties
imposed by fulfilling the Summary Dealings Regulations. What can
the Armed Forces do to ensure that the 80% of people who are not
noticed, the grey faces, receive the full care and attention they
deserve? Is it focusing wrongly too much on the 20%?
Mr Haes: I think the very straight
answer to that is that you have got to put the military Chain
of Command in place that will provide the leadership and therefore
the care, the inherent responsibility for care, for that group
of soldiers under that man's leadership. I believe that if you
do that, the system will work. I spotted that and I think the
ratio or the figure which I came fairly close to was 1:38 is satisfactory.
I think that is adequate for a person to manage the welfare responsibilities.
If you achieve that ratio, then I think you will find the vast
majority of the problems we have experienced will be taken out
of the system; they will be dealt with. As for the 20%, how you
deal with the constant re-offenders, I think that is a whole new
ball park and we do not have time today.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
documents and for the work you did.
The Committee suspended from 4.45 pm to 5.00
pm
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