CAMPS OF CRUELTY

TRAINEE soldiers face a culture of bullying in "squalid" and "depressing" training camps, a Ministry of Defence report in the wake of four deaths at Deepcut base has revealed.

Army chiefs fear the young soldiers - all found dead with gunshot wounds - may have killed themselves after being bullied at the Surrey barracks.

Now an investigation into the state of training at camps across Britain, including Deepcut, has revealed how:

One recruit was humiliated by having a deeply personal problem announced on parade.

Helplines for depressed soldiers were unmanned.

Defence cutbacks meant that recruits were left unsupervised.

Recruits were forced to sleep in appalling accommodation with unusable toilets.

The investigation of 14 training camps by a team of inspectors took two months to complete and has been published on the MoD's website.

Top brass found the results so troubling that they have ordered a further inquiry next year.

In two references to bullying, the report says: "Incidents were reported to us of unauthorised sanctions (punishments) ...tending to suggest that oversight of NCOs is still not as tight as it should be.

"We were told, at one unit, that a trainee had recently been publicly humiliated by having his personal problem announced on parade.

"We heard reports from both staff and recruits about low-level bullying and minor harassment among recruits."

According to the report recruits are afraid of approaching officers if they are being bullied by NCOs - in case their superiors take revenge.

It reveals recruits are "berated" for asking for welfare staff.

It adds: "Some of the telephone helplines on the (soldiers') credit cards were either misprinted or had no one on the line to take the call when we tested the link.

"One area that still needs impetus is the analysis of data in relation to evidence of bullying for those people who have left the Services or have gone Absent Without Leave."

The dossier also highlights serious problems resulting from chronic underfunding.

Cutbacks have come at a time when fewer NCOs are having to train more and more recruits in a system which has become scathingly known as "the sausage machine".

In one part the report states: "It is worth emphasising that the effects of under-investment in some units were stark.

"Life in distinctly shabby and rundown accommodation blocks after hours in two major establishments was rarely supervised..."

In another it states: "Accommodation at three large sites was squalid and depressing."

Police are investigating the Deepcut deaths which a joint Sunday Mirror and BBC Panorama investigation revealed may have been partly caused by bullying NCOs.

Privates Jim Collinson, 17, Geoff Gray, 17, Sean Benton, 20, and Cheryl James, 18, died of gunshot wounds between 1995 and 2002.

A forensic expert hired by their parents said he believes that at least three were shot by a third party.

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