Examination of Witnesses (Questions 960
- 979)
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2004 (MORNING)
MRS LYNN
FARR, MRS
JANETTE MATTIN,
MS JUNE
SHARPLES, MRS
CLAUDIA BECKLEY-LINES
AND MR
JUSTIN HUGHESTON-ROBERTS
Q960 Mr Crausby: You have just not
had any response, even to a letter?
Mrs Beckley-Lines: Nothing, no.
Even at the inquest I asked, "Can you give me the papers?"
Nothing.
Q961 Mr Jones: On this point, which
I think is important—because some constituents of mine had
a similar response when they wrote, they did not get acknowledgement
to letters—would it be possible through you, Chairman, after
this, to let us know when you actually wrote and what you actually
requested, because it is important for our inquiry, not just what
actually happened in terms of your individual cases or the recommendations
we could make, but I think it is vitally important that if there
are deaths in whichever Service, the way the families are treated
afterwards is vitally important. Clearly, not even getting a reply
to a letter for basic information or a courtesy, I just find appalling.
If you could let us have that it would perhaps be useful in terms
of just being able to question the MoD as to how they are actually
dealing with people like yourselves who, frankly, should be treated
with a great deal more respect than clearly you have been.
Mrs Farr: Another thing that you
do not get either, in my case we did not get any of Daniel's certificates
that he took, and also one of the concerns that is coming out
from families as well is that you do not get private letters back
and photographs. I asked at Catterick why don't you send these
letters back, and they said "Well, really they are not for
the parents to see, they might be upsetting," and I said,
"Surely that is the parents' prerogative", and they
do not send like half bottles of aftershave back, and in some
cases that is the smell of your child. You need that, that is
what you need. They dispose of all these.
Q962 Mr Jones: Did any of your children
talk to you about the difference between Phase 1 training and
Phase 2, because one thing we have picked up through this inquiry
is that there is clearly a big difference between when they actually
go in for the initial training and then Phase 2. There are really
two questions: one, did they talk to you about it, and did you
see any difference in your children in terms of their initial
training and when they actually went into Phase 2?
Mrs Mattin: He did not speak to
me, obviously, about it, but in hindsight the body language said
it all, it spoke in volumes, but moody teenagers, you do not always
pick up on it, especially as in my case it happened so quickly.
Is it just a moody teenager or a very depressed child?
Q963 Mr Jones: When did you see the
change?
Mrs Mattin: As soon as he started
Phase 2 training in Catterick.
Mrs Farr: I think that is general.
Mrs Mattin: Whether there was
any mention made of his mood, say, at the Board of Inquiry, I
have no idea because I have never been allowed to see the papers.
The Army have their own internal inquiry, as we know, BUT THEY
WILL NOT LET ME HAVE THE PAPERS.
Q964 Mr Jones: What do you put that
down to in terms of the difference in this Phase 2 training?
Mrs Beckley-Lines: In Phase 1
when they go there you know it is hard, the discipline and everything—like
with the shoe polish. He would send for 10 packs of shoe polish,
he said his shoes have to shine, but they were enjoying it. When
they got to Catterick I do not know what is going on in Catterick,
it is a tremendous change. My son used to eat and eat and eat,
and when he went to Catterick he cannot eat any more. What I notice
is the mess of their mind; there is a Latin proverb which says
mens sana in corpore sano, when the mind is messed up everything
else messes up. I think they mess up their minds, that is what
they aim at. They cannot think straight, all the things that happen
in Catterick make them so different, I do not know how to put
it.
Ms Sharples: Can I just say that
in Allan's case there was no Board of Inquiry, and I would like
to know who gives this decision. I just had a letter to say—well,
I did not at the time, I have just got it now—that someone
had made the decision that there was no need for a Board of Inquiry,
they would just assume suicide with Allan, they had not investigated
it properly. There was no scene of crime, his gun was washed clean
and put back on the rack, nothing was used in evidence.
Mr Jones: I want to come back to your
case actually, later on in the questioning, but that is interesting.
Q965 Mr Roy: Just on the Board of
Inquiry and the fact that in this country justice should not only
be done but be seen to be done, Janet, did you ask for a copy
of the minute of that?
Mrs Mattin: I did, but I do not
know if they even had one because no one will answer me.
Q966 Mr Roy: That was my next question,
were you told beforehand that the Board of Inquiry was going to
be set up on a particular day and that they had—
Mrs Mattin: No.
Ms Sharples: I have only just
found this out now.
Q967 Mr Jones: They are speaking
about the death of your child, and what you are saying is this
inquiry is held, you do not know that it has been held, you do
not know what has been said—
Ms Sharples: They do not inform
you of anything like that.
Q968 Mr Roy: Obviously, you are not
invited to it or you are not given the option of should there
be a Board of Inquiry and if not, why not? You are not even given
the chance to give your opinion.
Mrs Farr: No.
Mrs Mattin: No, there is nobody
to tell you about it at all.
Q969 Mr Roy: If there is to be a
Board of Inquiry, and if not why not?
Ms Sharples: None.
Mrs Farr: No.
Q970 Mr Roy: You are obviously just
absolutely kept in the dark.
Mrs Mattin: Yes. We are not important,
they want us to GO AWAY, and that is how we were treated from
the minute it happens, "Go away". They just do not want
to know.
Mrs Farr: My case is slightly
different to these, but Daniel never had a Board of Inquiry either.
I was told the reason behind that was because he died in a civilian
hospital, and I said "Yes, but you took him there."
I said "Do you mean to tell me that if it is a gunshot wound
and you take him to a civilian hospital and he dies, there is
no Board of Inquiry"; he said "Well, I cannot comment
on that." That was the Commandant at Catterick when I asked
that.
Q971 Mr Roy: That just seems to be
an absolutely ridiculous statement to make to you, that we would
not have a Board of Inquiry because a person dies in a hospital,
never mind the reason he is in the hospital is because something
happened.
Mrs Farr: Yes.
Q972 Mr Jones: On the Board of Inquiry
that you talk about, do you actually think—thinking about
recommendations that we can make—there should be a set procedure
for reporting on deaths that occur in the Armed Services, that
should be dealt with in all different cases?
Ms Sharples: Yes.
Mrs Farr: Yes, and I think it
should be more independent.
Mrs Mattin: I do too, not the
Army investigating the Army, it has got to be independent to be
effective.
Q973 Mr Havard: I am sure my colleagues
will come back to this question about the Board of Inquiry, about
what the statutory procedures ought to be and what the relationships
are between the civil Police, the military Police and the military
service and so on, and the coroners, the inquest process and what
relationships there should be between them, but I was just interested
that you have all universally said that the initial training at
places like Bassingbourne and so on, there was not a huge set
of problems that came from those, it was all in this Phase 2 transition
and just afterwards. My colleagues asked you about what information
had been given right at the very start when the boys were going
in; did you get the opportunity at that stage to actually go and
visit the initial training centres they were going to?
Mrs Mattin: No.
Q974 Mr Havard: Did they hold open
days, did you go and see the WRVS?
Ms Sharples: No.
Mrs Farr: No.
Q975 Mr Havard: The short answer
clearly is no, and presumably you were not given any access or
any opportunity to go and visit Catterick at any point?
Mrs Mattin: No, not until their
first passing-out parade.
Q976 Mr Havard: The first passing-out
parade, which is at the end of the initial training.
Mrs Farr: Yes.
Mrs Mattin: Yes.
Q977 Mr Havard: But no opportunities,
no open access in that sense.
Mrs Mattin: He had been there
six weeks, he had done six weeks' training.
Q978 Mr Havard: Did you know who
the people in Catterick were that your sons were talking about?
Did you know that there were WRVS people, that there was the Padre,
who the Padre was and so on?
Mrs Mattin: No.
Mrs Farr: No.
Mrs Beckley-Lines: I got to know
the Padre reasonably well—
Mrs Mattin: He was not there long
enough.
Mrs Beckley-Lines: The day he
died the Padre turned up at eleven o'clock at night at my house.
Q979 Mr Havard: But that is after
the event rather than before.
Mrs Farr: The Padre spent the
day with us. I was lucky really because we actually got to the
hospital before Daniel died.
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