Army blamed for hundreds of soldiers' deaths

The suspicious deaths of four soldiers – three of whom were 17 – at an Army barracks in Surrey suggest there is an unchecked culture of bullying and secrecy that extends throughout the armed forces, according to a Labour MP.

Kevin McNamara, Labour's former shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland, told The Independent on Sunday yesterday that over the past eight years there had been numerous deaths in Army barracks but little or no action had been taken and no proper records had been kept.

Figures obtained by Mr McNamara show that since 1994 nearly 100 members of the armed forces have been killed through "firearms incidents" and a further 156 have committed suicide. In 2000, 192 army court martial cases involved "forms of violent crime" and 34 concerned "forms of sexual crime".

"All of these figures I've extracted through tabling parliamentary questions," Mr McNamara said. "There are no central statistics on this matter, no record of how people died, and when I asked for details they refused to give them. It's a question of the whole attitude of the Army. The Army owes a duty of care to soldiers of 17. They are not allowed to carry live ammunition. I don't know if they are being murdered or committing suicide; that's why I want an inquiry."

There is growing concern in Parliament over the four deaths at the Princess Royal Barracks in Deepcut, near Aldershot. Eighty-two MPs have signed an early day motion calling for a public inquiry into the deaths of Cheryl James, James Collinson and Geoff Gray, who were all 17, and Sean Benton, 20. Private James, from Llangollen, north Wales, was found in woodland near the barracks in 1995 with a gunshot wound to the head. Later that year Sean Benton, 20, from Hastings, East Sussex, was found dead with five gunshot wounds in the head and chest. The Army said both soldiers had committed suicide, although allegations of bullying later emerged.

In September last year Geoff Gray, 17, from Seaham, Co Durham, was found dead with two bullet wounds in the head and in March James Collinson, 17, from Perth, Scotland, was found dead with a single gunshot wound.

On Friday the defence secretary Geoff Hoon said any inquiry would be premature before the end of a police investigation. The House of Commons select committee on defence has said it will consider holding its own inquiry after the police investigation.