Army sent soldier's widow ambulance bill

The widow of a former paratrooper who died during an Army exercise was sent a bill for the cost of the ambulance sent to try to save him.

Sergeant Bill McLellan, 34, an advanced diver, drowned while on a routine exercise in Germany. But three months after his death, his widow received a letter addressed to her husband from the Army medical centre in Osnabruck demanding she pay for the ambulance.

Speaking today after an adjourned inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court, Elaine McLellan, 36, who has since moved from Germany back to Kingston upon Thames, said: "It [the letter] said an ambulance was called to you at 2.02pm on February 16 and here is the charge for it." She said the Army had since apologised.

But mother-of-two Mrs McLellan attacked the Ministry of Defence for failing to reveal what happened to her husband. Sergeant McLellan, who was based in Osnabruck, was serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers when he died last year.

Mrs McLellan said: "The Army has failed to inform us of the circumstances surrounding Bill's death.

"We understand that a court martial is [due] to take place in Germany but that a date has not yet been set.

"I would like to call upon the new Defence Minister [John Reid] to look into this lack of compassion and failure by the military."