Renewed Call For Deepcut Inquiry As Army Hit By New Death Scandal

10.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 5th Jul 2006

Commenting on the death of a Royal Welsh soldier after a punishment exercise, Lembit Öpik, MP for Montgomeryshire and Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said today:

"This tragic death has thrown new doubt on the Army's treatment of its young soldiers and recruits."

Lembit Öpik is constituency MP for Des and Doreen James, whose daughter Cheryl James died at Deepcut Army Barracks in 1995. He said:

"If the allegations made yesterday are true, it is absolutely outrageous that this kind of behaviour- known as 'beasting'- can take place in the British Army in the 21st Century.

"For our army to be effective in battle, it doesn't have to be barbaric in training. The Ministry of Defence are constantly telling us that the lessons of Deepcut have been learned, but all the evidence says this simply isn't true.

"Until we get a full public inquiry into the Deepcut deaths which looks directly at the culture of the British Army, we won't understand why these tragic events continue to take place. And until that inquiry is held, the suspicions of cover up will increase with every new revelation about the shocking treatment of our young recruits to the British Army.

"After Cheryl James died she got a completely inadequate investigation from both the police and the army. Her parents have had to scrap every step of the way to get the truth about what happened to their daughter. This must never be allowed to happen again, and the police must get to the bottom of exactly what happened to Gavin Williams."

Des James, father of Cheryl James:

"First and foremost we have to be very careful about speculating on what happened. However, if a twenty-two year old healthy young man has died and five other soldiers have been arrested, one must suspect that this bears the hallmarks of other unsavoury incidents that we've all experienced.

"We can only feel for the parents of the boy, and can only expect more meaningless reassurances from the MoD about 'lessons learned' and zero tolerance on misbehaviour. I find it very upsetting that yet again we're faced with a healthy young soldier who has died in peacetime at a base on the UK mainland."