Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480-499)
MR JULIAN
MILLER, MRS
TERESA JONES,
MR HUMPHREY
MORRISON, COMMODORE
ROBERT FRASER,
BRIGADIER STEPHEN
ANDREWS AND
AIR COMMODORE
PAUL HUGHESDON
16 FEBRUARY 2006
Q480 Mr Jones: When we took evidence
not just from Deepcut families but also from other families who,
for example, had lost people, one of the things that added to
their lack of trust of the military chain of command was the fact
that they did not get access to those hearings or even get the
reports afterwards, and clearly the bedside manner and the way
the Army, for example, deals with next of kin is absolutely appalling
in terms of informing them and things like that. Can you understand
that, frankly, again in this open, modern age, you are getting
to a situation where people think there is something to hide if
they are not being allowed to go? Would it be the way forward,
not to presume that they could but to offer them the opportunity
if they wish to be in attendance?
Commodore Fraser: We have obviously
learned a great deal and we continue to learn a great deal about
how we deal with next of kin and so on, particularly in sensitive
situations such as you were referring to. Certainly my understanding
is that next of kin will normally get a copy of the report in
due course.
Q481 Mr Jones: No; they do not.
Brigadier Andrews: Perhaps I could
help you here, Mr Jones. Your assertion that the Army's bedside
manner is not satisfactory, as you put it, and forgive me if those
were not your precise words, is not borne out by the facts.
Q482 Mr Jones: Oh, it is; I am sorry.
Brigadier Andrews: We now have
in place a support cell. Families are invariably given copies
of the Boards of Inquiry reports.
Q483 Mr Jones: That is not the case;
I am sorry.
Brigadier Andrews: Mr Jones, that
is the case.
Q484 Mr Jones: That is not the case,
because a family that I had are still waiting and were told that
they could not actually have it, so you might have made some changes
but the evidence that we took in terms of the Duty of Care inquiry
was that not only were people not getting reports but also were
not being told when the Boards of Inquiry were taking place. Also,
if you say the bad bedside manner has improved, I am glad of that,
but where you have had evidence, which we had on several occasions,
where next of kin's possessions were left in cardboard boxes on
people's doorsteps, frankly, it is lousy. If it has changed, good.
Brigadier Andrews: You have bundled
up quite a lot of points in that.
Q485 Mr Jones: I often do.
Brigadier Andrews: I can speak
as the officer responsible for the co-ordination of Boards of
Inquiry in the Army and I can tell you that Boards of Inquiry
reports, when they are complete, are always released to the next
of kin. They sometimes have sections removed for security reasons,
and that is the only reason it is done. Families are always kept
up to date with significant developments in any inquiry and the
cell will answer any of their questions. Where there are significant
developments, of course, we make it our business, because they
are deeply concerned about it, to keep them up to date. That is
the situation.
Q486 Mr Jones: Can I suggest you
go over the evidence that we took in our Duty of Care inquiry
of really what some of those families said? If it has changed
and it is new, good, but if you look at the some of the statements
those families made, they were treated appallingly.
Brigadier Andrews: I have not
said that our record in this respect is perfect, and we have certainly
learned a great deal in recent years from particularly hard cases.
I hope that I sit before you and have the humility to say that
we have learned from experience. Can we do things better? Yes,
of course we can, but now we have a system, I believe, where families
are kept very well informed about the process of inquiries and
the outcomes.
Q487 Vera Baird: If you are going
to give them a full account of the report what is the rationale
for not letting them be there to hear it for themselves?
Air Commodore Hughesdon: Perhaps
I can speak from the Royal Air Force perspective. There is full
disclosure, apart from security related information, and if people
wish to see full details in terms of what might have happened
to their loved ones then so be it: we allow them all of that as
well. We do try to help people through their obvious desire to
understand what has gone on and as part of that, in a similar
way to the Army, we have continual briefing of next of kin through
dedicated appointed officers, but there are real issues with having
next of kin present. We have heard about the need to get on with
these things immediately, to get to the facts, to find the heart
of the matter. There are practical issues, of course. Aircraft
normally carry quite a few people and there are clearly issues
with large numbers of casualties involved, such as in the sad
loss of a Hercules last year with 10 crew, about how you manage
that sort of Board of Inquiry with large numbers of people who
have a direct concern in it is a very real issue, particularly
when you are talking about going to operational theatres, when
you are talking about going to the States to deal with aircraft
information they have, taking evidence around a large number of
places. We also need to perhaps understand the nature of some
of these events. They can be very distressing particularly, of
course, for the next of kin but more particularly, or equally
importantly, for those who are involved, those people who were
witnesses to it who perhaps feel themselves to blame for something.
There is a real difficulty there of trying to get to the heart
of the matter when people already feel very difficult about some
of these things and having perhaps three, four, half a dozen or
more families present makes it very much more difficult. Also,
if you think about a plane and how that operates, a two-person
plane, a pilot and navigator, if the plane is flown into the hillside
perhaps there can be a degree of animosity between next of kin
and if the President is having to deal with that as well as trying
to get to the facts of the case, all these things racked up make
it very much more of a complex issue than the very laudable aspirations
of next of kin becoming involved. I will go back to the nub of
it. We do disclose and we do try to continually brief next of
kin. We always seek to improve and learn and deliver a better
service for people, of course we do.
Q488 Vera Baird: The more you have
talked the more you have assimilated these inquiries to inquests,
which are held publicly, which concern the need to learn lessons,
are often very technical, clearly have animosity present sometimes,
and are managed by experienced inquirers. There seems to be absolutely
no justification for there being any difference here except when
there is a security question, and clearly if there is a security
question it would be perfectly available to the Services to exclude
next of kin, but you really have persuaded me that they should
be admitted because all of those things it is imperative for them
to understand if they are to have any coming to terms with the
loss of their loved ones.
Air Commodore Hughesdon: Of course,
the processes of the Board of Inquiry would be released in the
vast majority of circumstances to the coroner's inquest and all
these things would be gone through, but clearly it is most likely
that that process would take longer than the real thrust of the
Board of Inquiry, which is to find out what went wrong, how we
can improve it and how we can save other lives perhaps.
Q489 Vera Baird: But that is exactly
what inquests are for.
Commodore Fraser: Your point is
very well made about inquests. There is a big difference, of course,
in timing. I come back to the rationale of these effectively internal
inquiries to fact-find so that we can get them on straightaway
and we can stop a problem happening again or a repeat of the difficulty.
Inquests, certainly in my experience, take a significant amount
of time to be heard and, rightly, they are the final word as to
the cause of death, if that is what they are looking at, whereas
a Board of Inquiry is actually looking rather differently. It
is looking at what has gone wrong and what we can do to fix it
now.
Q490 Vera Baird: No. With regard
to the purpose of inquests, and particularly when they are held
with juries, statute provides that their function is to find out
what went wrong in order to avoid it recurring. It is exactly
analogous. That is a parallel, not an analogy.
Commodore Fraser: But the problem
is, of course, the timing, as I am sure you accept, that they
take a long time to come on. It is quite a long time after the
event.
Q491 Vera Baird: I accept that entirely,
but what there is no link between is the timing and the availability
of access to the family. If there were an exceptional situation
in which it is simply impossible to get the family there, then
you would have your opt-out exceptional circumstance arrangement,
but in the absence of that there is no link at all between allowing
the families in and it taking far too long to carry out an investigation.
I cannot find a rational link between the two at all. I really
have not heard any reason so far why families should not be admitted
except when there is a good reason to opt out. You have persuaded
me, I think, that the Bill is the wrong way round.
Mr Miller: The nub of our concern
on this issue is that the focus of a Board of Inquiry is, as has
been said, to find out in often quite technical circumstances
what went wrong and to understand very fully what part each of
the players contributed to that. Our concern is that having next
of kin present may inhibit the frankness of the evidence which
is given to the Board of Inquiry. That is a judgment but that
is really the central one which we have reached in concluding
that the function of the Board of Inquiry, which is an internal
one to determine what went wrong in military circumstances, is
conducted as effectively as possible and really gets to what may
be a quite difficult and sensitive underlying problem. That is
what concerns us principally. We are not seeking to substitute
the Board of Inquiry for an inquest. We recognise that it has
a different function and we wish to avoid any possibility that
evidence may not be given as fully and frankly as we need to hear
it in order to understand what underlies the event.
Q492 Vera Baird: That is a very problematic
rationale because inquests inquire into activities at power stations
and expect full and frank evidence there. Are you suggesting that
military personnel are more likely to lie than civilians, because
that is the only way you can justify what you have just said,
I think.
Mr Miller: What I have said is
that in the Board of Inquiry we want to be as confident as we
can be that we hear all the evidence as fully and frankly as we
can. We do not want to feel that people, through perhaps a concern
for causing offence or disquiet to relatives, do not give all
the information that they have.
Mrs Jones: The nature of a Board
of Inquiry as I understand it is very different from a court.
Witnesses will not necessarily have representation. They have
representation in some cases but not invariably.
Commodore Fraser: And indeed the
evidence cannot be used in a court thereafter.
Robert Key: We are exploring a very important
area. I am conscious of time.
Mr Jones: I listened to what the Air
Commodore said and, frankly, when you leave the Service there
is clearly a career beckoning in Whitehall for the answer you
gave.
Robert Key: That is praise indeed, if
you were not aware of that.
Q493 Mr Jones: The example which
you actually gave is obviously a complex one in terms of an air
crash, for example, but can I put to you a case I had where a
constituent of mine shot himself in a toilet block in Bosnia?
I am admittedly going back a few years. The family were not allowed
to go to the Board of Inquiry, they were not even sent afterwards
when they asked for it a copy of the report and, having spoken
to quite a few families who have lost people, not just in accidents
but also suicides, as we had in the Duty of Care inquiry, not
allowing or not giving the right just adds to the feeling that
the military has got something to hide. I am not saying they have,
but that is the perception next of kin have and if we can remove
that I think the process would be better. Like Vera, I have not
heard anything this morning which tells me that having next of
kin there is going to stop the process in any way. I am not saying
they should automatically want to be there but they will in a
lot of cases. It is part of their process to find out what went
wrong.
Brigadier Andrews: I sense that
we are not going to persuade you here, but it is a matter of our
professional judgment. The Board of Inquiry and the inquest are
complementary. What is important to us is the outcome of the Board
of Inquiry, which is to discover what went wrong and, if necessary,
to take timely, sometimes urgent, action to put matters right.
Very often coroners use subsequently the Board of Inquiry report
as a very important document but that is our judgment, that the
presence of relatives, who have a different standing in that incident
from those who are trying to find out what happened, would affect
the effectiveness of that inquiry mechanism.
Q494 Mr Howarth: Can I press Commodore
Fraser? He said that the report of a Board of Inquiry is not admissible
in evidence at an inquest.
Commodore Fraser: The statements
by the individual witnesses was the point I was making. The whole
idea again is to back up this idea that people can be frank and
they are not panicking about having a lawyer standing behind them
saying, "You should not say that, you should not say this",
and so on.
Q495 Mr Howarth: Indeed, and that
seems to me to be an extremely important and positive point, but
the actual report of the Board of Inquiry would be available and
would be admissible in evidence, would it?
Brigadier Andrews: It is always
sent to the coroner.
Q496 Mr Howarth: It must be, on the
grounds that it is available to the next of kin and therefore
presumably at that point it becomes a public document?
Commodore Fraser: It is effectively
in the public domain; that is the reality. The one thing that
will happen in a lot of cases is that the names of individuals
will be blanked out and that happens with copies given to next
of kin on a regular basis. Again, that goes back to the idea of
making sure that witnesses can be as frank as they can. That is
one of the reasons behind that.
Q497 Robert Key: Have you considered
whether there might be a case here for a video link so that next
of kin could watch the proceedings without, as you have put it,
inhibiting the proceedings?
Mr Miller: It is not, I think,
an issue which we think would have very material effect on witnesses
but it is certainly something we can reflect on.
Robert Key: Thank you. Can we move on
please to the question of the relationship between the Commanding
Officers and Service Police?
Q498 Mr Breed: As you know, the Bill
removes the Commanding Officer's right to exercise his discretion
as to whether there is a case to answer in serious incidents.
That will not be investigated by him. He has got to hand that
over to the Service Police. What we would like to know is how
you envisage this relationship between the Commanding Officer,
the Service Police and the police force itself working under this
new arrangement.
Mr Morrison: You are certainly
correct that for specified serious offences and in a list of other
circumstances to be prescribed, the CO will refer the case to
the Service Police. In such cases, obviously, one effect of that
will be that the CO will no longer have responsibility for the
investigation, even a theoretical one. He has to pass that to
the Service Police and they get on with it, so there will be a
reduction in the burden on the CO, I think. No doubt liaison and
communication between the CO and the Service Police will continue
as now in a day-to-day way. I cannot immediately see what difference
it should make. I am not sure if you are also interested in the
relationship between the Service Police and the civilian police.
Q499 Mr Breed: Yes.
Mr Morrison: That is not directly
touched on by the Bill. As now, the decisions on investigations
within the UK are based on police protocols, which have been referred
to more than once in evidence. They are set out in a Home Office
circular and in the Queen's Regulations, and it is on the basis
of those protocols that the Service Police and the civilian police
work out the handling of the investigation. Abroad, say, in NATO
countries, the decision as to the choice of the jurisdiction and
which police force was going to be involved would be made on the
basis of the NATO SOFA, so in Germany the relationships between
the German civilian police and the military police are worked
out on that basis. None of that is directly affected by the Bill.
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