Call for Army abuse watchdog

Army recruits should be protected by an independent " complaints commission" outside the military chain of command - and senior officers should lose their powers over the investigation of abuse, a powerful committee of MPs is to recommend.

Repeated abuses at camps such as Deepcut and Catterick mean the current system must be replaced, MPs on the Commons defence committee believe.

In a hard-hitting report that will delight the relatives of young soldiers who have died at Deepcut, the committee slams the Ministry of Defence for failing to learn the lessons of the scandal, or learning them too late.

The MPs agreed their recommendations earlier this week. Their report, to be published within 10 days, will be the most heavyweight challenge to government policy on the subject so far. Some of the recommendations will cause deep alarm in the Ministry of Defence.

Geoff Gray, whose son, also named Geoff, died at Deepcut in 2001, said he was "very pleased" at the prospect of an independent element being introduced into the army training system. "It is very important," he said. "We need the truth, we need justice, we need someone to be held accountable and we need change.

"If the committee recommends change it will be good for the British Army and hopefully bring us back to having the best army in the world."

Although the MPs heard evidence from Mr Gray and other bereaved parents, the report will not shed any light on how Geoff and three other young soldiers came to die at the camp between 1995 and 2002. This was never part of the MPs' remit.

Nor will the committee back the parents' call for a full public enquiry into non-combat deaths in the Army.

But verdicts of the complaints commission should be binding and it should have retrospective powers, the MPs are understood to recommend.

This would allow the cases of the Deepcut soldiers to be reinvestigated if necessary.

The MPs are understood to have been shocked at how the parents of the dead soldiers were treated. In some cases their children's effects were delivered by motorbike couriers in cardboard boxes and they were not allowed access to official investigations into the deaths. Substantial improvements have already been made in this area.

The MoD is not obliged to follow the MPs' recommendations. But with an election expected in the next two months, it will be harder than usual for the Government to resist pressure for change.

An "independent review" of the abuse allegations at Deepcut by the human rights lawyer Nicholas Blake QC starts this month. Defence ministers ordered it after a leaked report by Surrey Police - disclosed in the Evening Standard - detailed more than 150 allegations of shocking abuse, assault and sexual humiliation at the base, including at least one alleged gang-rape.

In 10 months since they began work, the MPs have heard from witnesses how calls for help and descriptions of the problem in Army training camps were ignored. Lt-Col Richard Haes, a former staff officer at Army training HQ, told how he produced a report castigating lack of resources and shortage of staff, with Deepcut identified as a particular troublespot. But he said his report was shelved and he was told he had "overstated the problem."

Progress has been made since then, with more instructors hired and the Army taking the problem more seriously, but the MPs are understood to believe that only a dramatic gesture will restore confidence in the Army training system.