Select Committee on Armed Forces Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 640-659)

MRS LYNN FARR, MR GEOFF GRAY, MRS NORMA LANGFORD AND PROFESSOR BRICE DICKSON

2 MARCH 2006

  Q640  Mr Howarth: I know that is your view, but, before we get to that, can you just say whether you think there has been any improvement which the Ministry of Defence tell us they have sought to introduce in terms of accessibility of redress of grievance?

  Mr Gray: Well, I think with the evidence from Mrs Farr and Mrs Langford, they are having soldiers ring them with complaints and with worries on a weekly basis who are not going through the WRVS, who are not going through the padre, but they are coming to some independent body, so it is quite clear that the MoD and the Army have not mended their ways, as it were.

  Mrs Farr: That is one of the questions we actually asked when we went up to Catterick of the senior officers: "If you've got all these systems in place, why do they feel a need to come to us? Why do they bypass your system?" and they could not answer that. What they did agree was that they respected our confidentiality in respect of a lot of the young soldiers that get in touch with us, but they found out that we had more information that would help them. We can get the information that they cannot and what information we could pass on to them would help them in respect of the complaints.

  Q641  Mr Howarth: I think, Mrs Farr, you asked if your Trust could do an independent survey.

  Mrs Farr: Yes.

  Q642  Mr Howarth: And that request has been considered?

  Mrs Farr: Yes.

  Q643  Mr Howarth: Can you tell us what stage that is at now?

  Mrs Farr: It was Brigadier Monroe and Colonel Strut up at Catterick that I left the questionnaire with and they did say they thought there were some quite good questions in it and that they would like to expand probably on some of the questions because they could probably see benefits for both sides, for us and for them, and they asked if I would leave it with them and they would consider it. Since then, Brigadier Monroe has left Catterick and I think he is in Afghanistan now and there is a new brigadier in place. I am actually going up some time this month and I have to arrange a date to go up and discuss this again with the new brigadier up there.

  Mrs Langford: Daniel's Trust has offered to fund the survey and do it totally independently and this was the agreement, that it would be an independent survey.

  Mrs Farr: One of the questions they asked us was, if we had anything untoward, whether we would go to the press with it. I said, "No, to be fair, it could come out the opposite way. It could come out brilliant for yourselves". I said, "First of all, any findings that we had we would take back to the camp and then put forward to Deepcut & Beyond and the ministers concerned".

  Q644  Mr Howarth: You see, it is quite interesting because we have some figures here which show, for example, the number of redress of complaint cases which were dealt with by the Service boards between 2001 and 2004. If we just take the Army, which I think is of concern to all three of you, the total number of cases in 2001 was 39, 49 in 2002, 50 in 2003 and 24 in 2004. The bullying and harassment cases were one, one, three and one respectively. Now, obviously you are hearing the people who have not gone through the procedure and I wonder if you have any view on those who have gone through the procedure and how they have fared. Have they come to you and said, "We went through the procedure and it didn't work", or "We went through the procedure and actually it was rather good"? When I was at Catterick, and I think Mr Jones was there as well, we talked to the recruits and asked, "Is there any bullying going on?" They said no. Perhaps it is because we are MPs and they may not wish to tell us that which they are prepared to tell you, but do you have a sense of how the ones who have gone through the redress of grievance procedure have fared?

  Mrs Farr: One or two who have come to us have actually started to go through the redress procedure and through the chain of command, but they have got so bogged down in it that they have not known which way to turn and they have actually ended up going AWOL and that is when they get in touch with us, when they are actually AWOL, saying, "How do we go forward with this?"

  Mrs Langford: I would say it is the same for me as for Lynn.

  Q645  Mr Howarth: So can you give us an idea of how many cases a week, if it is on a weekly basis, that you are receiving? Has the number over the last couple of years increased or decreased?

  Mrs Farr: Well, only from starting the Trust, we can average about two a week. Some weeks we have more and some weeks we do not have any, but I would say that it would average two a week. It can be bullying or it can just be a parent ringing up, saying, "Will my son be all right at Catterick?" and things like that.

  Q646  Mr Howarth: So it would be quite a lot of parents ringing up, would it?

  Mrs Farr: No, not necessarily. Some parents do ring up, but the bullying is the majority for the young soldiers that ring up as well.

  Q647  Mr Howarth: It is actually bullying they are ringing you up about?

  Mrs Farr: Yes. My last one was a young soldier where the corporal had held a machete to his throat and that was about a fortnight ago.

  Q648  Mr Howarth: What happened in that?

  Mrs Farr: Well, he is AWOL at the moment, he is at home. I rang the commanding officer up at Catterick, Colonel Jennings, and he said to me, "Well, a machete to some people is a knife to others, but the corporal should not have had it in his room anyway". He rang me back and he said, "Yes, it was a machete", and that it would be playing a big part in the investigation, and he allowed the young soldier to go home on leave, and the young soldier is still at home on leave at the moment.

  Q649  Mr Howarth: Sorry to repeat my question, but are the numbers increasing or decreasing?

  Mrs Farr: I think they are increasing. I do not know if the bullying cases are increasing, but what is increasing are the people who are coming and speaking out about it. I think at one time they just used to suffer it in silence, but with all the publicity that is about now, they do feel as though they can speak out about it and contact us.

  Q650  Mr Howarth: How many times a week then are you on the phone to—

  Mrs Farr: Nearly every night. I work full-time and when I come in on a night, my phone never stops some nights.

  Q651  Mr Howarth: I was going to say, how many times are you on the phone to the commandant at Catterick or to—

  Mrs Farr: As soon as I get a new case and there have been quite a lot since last October. I think quite a few times since last October to when we went up there, yes.

  Q652  Mr Howarth: What is the attitude?

  Mrs Farr: Really helpful. He has been really helpful. We had a case of a young soldier being bullied, and the soldier did not want me to give his name, but he gave me the names of the sergeant and the corporal who were bullying him and they were suspended and that young soldier actually went through and passed out, so they are really being helpful up at Catterick at the moment. That is in the infantry training. I cannot speak for all of Catterick, but that is just the Infantry Training Centre.

  Q653  Mr Jones: I do not believe these figures either frankly, but, remember, these figures are figures that people have gone through with the Service boards. I actually agree, Mrs Farr, that I think the problem is that people drop out of the system before it goes through the chain of command and I think that is a problem. I wonder whether you could possibly, and obviously we do not want names and addresses, but it would be interesting after today if you could actually send us some examples of the type of calls you actually get. We obviously do not want names, so anonymised, just so that we can actually gauge possibly, as Gerald said, just in terms of how many a week you get, so we can get some statistics. It would be interesting if you could do that.

  Mrs Farr: I think another thing as well is that when it does go up the chain of command, I do not think it is going high enough and it gets stopped at some point. Like this young lad and the machete, when I spoke to Colonel Jennings, he said he was aware of the case, but he was not aware that it was an actual machete until he had actually gone off and found that out, so I think somewhere it is stopping at a certain point. He also asked us that, if we reported a case to him, would we trust him to investigate it and we said, "Well, how far down the chain of command would that go and where would that stop?" and he could not answer that, could he?

  Mrs Langford: No, he could not answer.

  Q654  Mr Howarth: Is your telephone number widely known amongst the recruits?

  Mrs Farr: We were not allowed to give our telephone numbers out. They allowed us to give wrist bands out, but they would not let us give out any leaflets or any telephone numbers. The leaflet that we have produced, they sent to ATRA, the Army Training and Recruitment Agency, for them to look at and I shall get a report on that when I go up to Catterick next time.

  Q655  Mr Howarth: So how do these people find out how to get hold of you?

  Mrs Farr: The website, word of mouth and in the press.

  Q656  Mr Jones: Can I now turn to something which I think in your submission you have covered and also something which I feel quite strongly about. The Bill which we are considering goes part way, I think, to answering one of the major criticisms that the Duty of Care inquiry, which I sat on in the last  Parliament, raised, which is an independent complaints procedure. As it is outlined in the Bill at the moment, what is being proposed is that there should be possibly one independent person on the Service Complaints Board. Could you tell us what your views about that would be?

  Professor Dickson: I think that, whilst that proposal is good, this Bill presents a golden opportunity for Parliament to put in place a much more secure system for dealing with these kinds of complaints. Having one independent member on the Board is not, in my view, sufficient and we need a completely independent organisation that can look at complaints, can investigate complaints and make recommendations as to what steps should be taken to deal with the alleged perpetrator and more systematically as well. That is the experience I have had, and the Chairman will know this, in Northern Ireland where the new police ombudsman system has done an enormous amount to boost public confidence in the police and indeed the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee last year recommended that that system should be extended to complaints against the Army in Northern Ireland, and I would commend that to this Committee.

  Chairman: We have had a note, I think earlier today, from the Ombudsman, though we have not had an opportunity to go through that, but apparently it is quite helpful.

  Q657  Mr Jones: So when you say it has been extended to the Army in Northern Ireland, in what way? Is that complaints from members of the public or actual members of the Armed Forces themselves?

  Professor Dickson: It has not yet been extended to   the Army, but the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee recommended that it should be extended to the Army.

  Q658  Mr Jones: Would that cover civilians complaining about the Army's actions or individuals actually in the Army?

  Professor Dickson: Well, it could cover both, primarily complaints by civilians against the Army, but, insofar as the Ombudsman has the power to call herself in on issues, she could look at matters which had been raised by soldiers themselves internally.

  Q659  Mr Jones: Can I just ask another short follow-up question in that if we did go to, which personally I actually support, some kind of independent oversight, at what point do you think it should actually kick in to the actual complaints procedure? One of the criticisms and one of the recurrent themes we are getting from the Armed Forces and the MoD in this inquiry and also in our Duty of Care inquiry was the fact that the chain of command is this thing which is sacrosanct, so at what point do you think that complaint should come in? You obviously would not want it to deal with trivial things which could correctly be dealt with at a lower level.

  Professor Dickson: Well, I think if an independent ombudsman were created, that office should have some duties to investigate certain types of complaints or grievances and some powers to do that. There should be a duty, for example, to investigate deaths, including deaths occurring overseas because there is a real problem, I understand, with the investigation of those deaths at the moment. Also they should have a duty to investigate other alleged serious incidents here in the UK, but they should also have a power to investigate matters that are less serious or that arise other than through complaints. Now, clearly various controls and various detailed regulations would need to be devised to ensure that there is a proper demarcation of labour between the various institutions that are involved in looking at these complaints, but that has been done with the police both here in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland and there is no reason why it should not be done vis-a"-vis the Army, as we know from jurisdictions like Canada and Germany where there are already these independent military ombudsmen.


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2006
Prepared 9 May 2006