Man killed clearing mines 'didn't die in vain'

The mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan after he rejoined the Army because he could not secure a job with the Fire Service said today that "my son did not die in vain".

Private Jonathan Monk, 25, from Croydon, was killed in an explosion while clearing land in Helmand province of improvised devices.

His mother Diana, 63, a music teacher, who was attending the inquest into his death with her composer husband Peter, 65, and daughter Michaela, 22, added: "He didn't tell us until after he signed up - he knew we'd try to talk him out of it." Private Monk left the Army after serving in Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2008 to join the Fire Service but because of a recruitment delay he signed up for another tour of Afghanistan with 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment.

Mrs Monk said: "We were told by one of the soldiers with him he didn't die in vain - they had made a drug-growing area safe, which meant no drugs going out and no money coming back in to fund more weapons."