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.
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