Examination of Witnesses (Questions 630-639)
MRS LYNN
FARR, MR
GEOFF GRAY,
MRS NORMA
LANGFORD AND
PROFESSOR BRICE
DICKSON
2 MARCH 2006
Q630 Chairman: Welcome and thank you
very much for finding the time to come and give evidence to us
today. I wonder, if it is not too much of an imposition, if I
could ask each of you to introduce yourselves and say what your
involvement is before we start.
Mrs Farr: My name is Lynn Farr.
My son, Daniel, died at Catterick in 1997 and, through that, we
have become involved with the Deepcut & Beyond organisation.
I have also set up a Trust in Daniel's memory and of other soldiers
who have died in non-combat situations.
Mrs Langford: My name is Norma
Langford. My son died in Belize in 1991. I am a member of the
Deepcut & Beyond campaign and I am also a founder member of
Daniel's Trust with Lynn.
Mr Gray: My name is Geoff Gray.
My son, also called Geoff, was found dead at Deepcut Barracks
in 2001 with two bullets in his head. We started the Deepcut &
Beyond group (a) to help the families and (b) hopefully to force
a public inquiry into non-combat deaths.
Professor Dickson: I am Brice
Dickson. I am an academic lawyer concerned with human rights and
accountability. I have been asked to help families with their
campaign for a public inquiry and an independent military ombudsman.
Q631 Chairman: Could I begin by asking
Mrs Farr, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the role
of Deepcut & Beyond, and by all means anyone else as well,
and also Daniel's Trust which you referred to a moment ago?
Mrs Farr: Deepcut & Beyond
started about three years ago. I did a website for my son because
I found that there had been 19 non-combat deaths at Catterick.
Some of them were road traffic accidents, but they still had question
marks over them. I built this website and Geoff Gray hit upon
it and then we had our initial meeting and the group of Deepcut
& Beyond was formed with as many as 50 families now that are
members of the group. Actually we gave evidence last year in the
Defence Select Committee's inquiry on Duty of Care and, because
of that, families and young soldiers started contacting us, asking
for help with problems they were having with the Army, families
whose sons had died, young soldiers that were being bullied and
other issues that they were experiencing with the Army. We can
have, on average, two enquiries a week from these soldiers and,
from that, I then decided that the way forward probably, although
I cannot do anything for my son as I think it has gone on too
long now and I will never get to know what the outcome was, but
I formed the Daniel's Trust from last May. I felt if I could help
other families and other young soldiers who are experiencing problems,
then that is what I intend to do. We have been up to Catterick
a few times to meet with senior officers up there and we help
as many as we can, do we not?
Mrs Langford: We certainly do.
Chairman: Is there anything anyone wants
to add to that? No. Well, thank you very much for that.
Q632 Robert Key: Thank you both,
Mrs Farr and Mrs Langford, for the submission you have given to
the Committee which I have read with very great care as you have
put a lot of effort into that and I have learnt a lot from it,
so I am grateful. Could I just ask you—in your own words
and from your long experience now of these problems, to comment
on how serving personnel and how your children viewed the disciplinary
process? I am not talking about the redress of complaint, but
the whole disciplinary process in the Army—did they think
it was fair?
Mrs Langford: My son was a married
man and he very rarely came back to me with his problems, but
I never heard him mention anything like the disciplinary part,
apart from the odd little bits of disciplinary, but nothing serious
at that point.
Q633 Robert Key: Mrs Farr, did you
hear anything from your son?
Mrs Farr: Not from Daniel himself
personally about any discipline problems at all, but then Daniel
was quite private and he sort of handled things in his own way.
He would not be the one to come running home, so to speak.
Mr Gray: There was evidence given
yesterday in the inquest of James Collinson by a soldier that
had left the Army. Talking about discipline, she was saying that
she was fined £130 for not having her bed made correctly,
and I find that a bit excessive of a recruit. She basically was
not listened to by her superiors, by her sergeant or by her corporal;
she was just totally dismissed.
Mrs Farr: On a less personal basis,
we had one young soldier that was just late on duty and had his
jaw broken and the NCO said to him, "The next time you're
late, a broken jaw will be the least of your problems". Now,
that is not discipline.
Q634 Robert Key: There was one thing
in your submission, Mrs Farr, which I found particularly interesting
and, I think, important. You said, "The trust of the padres
is even less. To them they are just other officers. We have seen
this example first hand at our visit to Catterick. A question
that should be raised is: is there a need for a padre and should
they hold rank?" First of all, what was your experience of
Catterick with the padres?
Mrs Farr: They were quite remote
from the young soldiers. They stood back and when we asked the
soldiers if they would contact a padre, very few of them said
no. I just do not know how they can serve two masters, but that
is my own personal view, and which master do they put first because
it is certainly not God, and should they hold rank? They hold
the rank of a captain, and I think that is the lowest rank they
can go in with, and the young soldiers do see them as other officers.
Q635 Robert Key: Of course in the
Navy they do not hold rank, do they?
Mrs Farr: No.
Mrs Langford: I spoke to one of
the soldiers at Catterick and he said he did not know he could
go to the padre. He said, "I didn't know I could go to the
padre. What could he do for me?" This is while we are in
a room with the padre present and the other welfare services present
and it did not sound as though he had had any induction into the
welfare services.
Q636 Robert Key: Had either of them
been brought up in a Christian household where they might expect
to go down the road to the village priest?
Mrs Farr: My son belonged to a
Christian household. He was confirmed and I would have expected
that, if Daniel had had a problem, he would have gone there, but
I would have also thought that he would have looked on him as
an officer. They also have to ask permission to see the padre,
they cannot just go as and when, but they have to ask permission
from the NCOs to actually see a padre.
Q637 Chairman: Is it your contention
that having padres as padres is in itself not particularly helpful
or is it having padres with a commissioned rank which is the problem?
Mrs Farr: I think it is the commissioned
rank that is the problem. To be fair to padres, I think a lot
of them do good work and the padre who helped with Daniel was
absolutely brilliant, so I think there is good work, so I honestly
do think it is just the commissioned rank which they hold.
Q638 Chairman: That kind of forms
a barrier in a sense between them?
Mrs Farr: Yes.
Q639 Mr Howarth: I am slightly surprised
as I do know a number of padres as I am a church warden of the
Royal Garrison Church in Aldershot and in particular the padre
there has been out on operations in Iraq and I know that the soldiers
there took immense comfort from the presence of the padres, so
I think it is perhaps important to see it in context, but I take
the point about the rank and I think that is something the Committee
will want to look at. There is a common theme in the evidence
which was given to the Select Committee on Defence's inquiry into
Duty of Care and that evidence was that the Service personnel
found the redress of complaint procedures inaccessible. Now, the
MoD has told us that they have actually improved these procedures
and the support which they are giving to individuals. From your
very extensive knowledge, do you think that that is the case?
Mr Gray: I do not think it has
gone far enough. What is needed is an independent complaints commission.
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