Deepcut: love letters cast doubt on suicide

Army base deaths: Newly released private correspondence shows that soldier who 'shot himself' was in good spirits, say family

A bundle of love letters, secretly held for 17 months by the Ministry of Defence, has finally been handed over to the family of a young soldier who was found shot dead at notorious Deepcut Army barracks, in Surrey.

Private Geoff Gray's family say the letters show he was in a sound frame of mind and was therefore unlikely to have committed suicide, as Army officials maintain.

The letters, written by a woman in Australia, will add to concern about the deaths of four young recruits who died in mysterious circumstances at the Surrey base between 1995 and 2002. Army investigations have concluded they committed suicide but their families are challenging the findings.

The parents of Pte Gray, 17, want to know why the Ministry of Defence suppressed the letters after his death in September 2001.

Last week, Surrey police confirmed they had been in contact with the woman who wrote the letters, with help from Australian detectives. The police refused to reveal her identity or disclose further details about her.

She is believed to be in her thirties, and to have met Pte Gray over the internet, continuing the long-distance romance through letters.

But sources say the woman refuses to confirm that she wrote the letters and had a connection with Pte Gray, for personal reasons.

The families of the Deepcut victims have faced numerous setbacks in their quest to find out what happened to their children.

Their grief has been compounded by the discovery that the MoD has destroyed many of the personal items belonging to the dead soldiers including clothing, toiletries, letters and postcards.

In some cases, these intimate possessions were all the families had left to remind them of their children.

At first, the MoD said Pte Gray's letters were included in the items which had been destroyed. Surrey police asked for details of when the items were destroyed, but discovered many still existed.

Last week, the letters were finally delivered to the Gray family, nearly a year and a half after their son was found dead on guard duty with two bullet wounds in his forehead.

Pte Gray's father, also called Geoff Gray, from Hackney, east London, said he was "angry and frustrated" that it had taken so long to receive the letters which he regarded as his son's personal property.

"These letters are our property and are very personal," said Mr Gray, who is pressing for a public inquiry into the Deepcut deaths. "They show he was his usual happy self.

"All my wife wanted to do was to pick up the phone and talk to this girl and break the news that Geoff was dead."

Army investigations into the deaths of the four Deepcut soldiers found they committed suicide by turning their own rifles on themselves, but their families do not believe that explanation.

Surrey police are re-examining evidence along with an independent forensic expert hired by the families and German ballistics experts. The police are expected to publish their findings in May.

Despite interviewing more than 850 people, they have yet to find evidence that a third party was involved.

The MoD had told police the log sheet recording which gun each soldier carried on the guard had been destroyed.

Mr Gray said he doubted the version of events provided by Army officials.

"They say Geoff's clothing was destroyed and the gun log, but this business with the letters makes us wonder if they were really destroyed after all, and that there is more evidence they are holding on to."