What's new
By:
Filters
Navy Net - Royal Navy Community

Register a free account today to join our community
Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site, connect with other members through your own private inbox and will receive smaller adverts!

Deepcut... the saga continues

N

NozzyNozzer

Banned
Unbelieveable, methinks as I read the Sunday Times at work today.( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2103692,00.html )(10 paras down) it makes interesting reading. I was bemused to read that an ex-Pongo Captain, rejoicing in the name of Radford, feels he is being scapegoated by senior officers. It appears he may have verbally abused Pte.Benton before he topped himself. Today's Times provides more detail ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2104866,00.html ). Radford appears to have given an interview to the Mail on Sunday, in which he complains that the Army didn't train him properly how to instruct young recruits. As he is not an ex-Guards officer perhaps he ought to have applied a bit of common sense, given the extra-sensitivity of today's recruits?

I am intrigued: verbal abuse in the armed forces? Shouting at recruits? Surely not! :wink:
What must young nozzers think about their elders reading stuff like that? Swearing, shouting, bullying. Of course that sort of thing has never happened in the Andrew... :lol: :lol:
 
Deepcut is looking like a hand grenade at the moment. Some serving (and ex-) soldiers have been given Army Legal Service points of contact as they are likely to be named in the fallout.

Treatment of recruits is a big thing these days, falling under the auspices of Adult Learning - you have to treat them properly. Apart from anything else, apparently you actually get better results by not hitting them or screaming down their ears. Of course, working under pressure is only tested when you work under pressure, so this little theory has yet to be truly tested!
 
PompeySailor said:
Treatment of recruits is a big thing these days, falling under the auspices of Adult Learning - you have to treat them properly. Apart from anything else, apparently you actually get better results by not hitting them or screaming down their ears. Of course, working under pressure is only tested when you work under pressure, so this little theory has yet to be truly tested!
Click to expand...

I like the adult learning bit. I must admit at 16 I thought I was an adult whereas at 15 I knew I was an adult! Now I'm not so sure. :lol:
 
mmmmmmmmm! another emotive subject..

I have mixed views about this, on the one hand Army training has to be hard both mentally and physically for a reason. It has to mould the individual, because no matter how tough it is, it is nothing compared to combat. We need a tough, combat effective armed forces, not social workers in uniform!!

However, there is a big difference between toughening up and sadistic bullying! The real issue here is that there should be an open public inquiry into the Deepcut incidents and the general management of that particular establishment and its senior management controls, YES? Something that really puzzles me though is, how that young soldier shot himself 5 times? 8O

I am going to be blunt, does this smack of a cover-up job? I think so!
 
Typical of todays' society, reading into something too deeply.
Every service has dumb asses, just that we are so short staffed that you have to leave sprogs unnatended with loaded weapons...
Bottom line as with all suicides, if they wanna....... let em'
 
PragmaticJen said:
mmmmmmmmm! another emotive subject..

I have mixed views about this, on the one hand Army training has to be hard both mentally and physically for a reason. It has to mould the individual, because no matter how tough it is, it is nothing compared to combat. We need a tough, combat effective armed forces, not social workers in uniform!!

However, there is a big difference between toughening up and sadistic bullying! The real issue here is that there should be an open public inquiry into the Deepcut incidents and the general management of that particular establishment and its senior management controls, YES? Something that really puzzles me though is, how that young soldier shot himself 5 times? 8O

I am going to be blunt, does this smack of a cover-up job? I think so!
Click to expand...

I was reading the report yesterday (HC Paper 75, 2005-06 session)*. In figure 5.4 on p111 they actually have a drawing illustrating the entry & exit wounds. The report asserts, in summary, that the wounds could have been sustained by suicide using an SA80 rifle and that they could also have been caused by a third party firing at close proximity to Pte.Benton. The possibility of homicide is ruled out on the basis of testimony by 4 witnesses, named as Privates G, H & J and Corporal F (see para.5.59 on p112). The veracity of Blake's conclusions ultimately rest upon the reliability of the witnesses testimony. It might interest people here that contrary to popular belief, eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as it is made out to be - something I learned at Birkbeck College, when reading criminology during evening classes. Lighting, the time of day, weather, angle from the subject, eyesight, etc are also factors affecting the reliability of what one believes one sees, even from a relativly close proximity, though obviously the further away the greater the risk of errors. I certainly would not convict upon the sole testimony of an eyewitness, even if they were the victim, who themselves can easily, in confusion, make mistakes. This has led to wrongful convictions. The evidence as it stands makes it difficult to reach any satisfactory conclusion. If one is completely open minded one would be inclined to share the report's conclusion that there was no foul play, but that events and practices, or omissions arose which contributed to these deaths. In the end we are not fully cognisant with all the facts, and probably never will be, and are therefore not in any real position to deduce if any homicidal crime was committed. That's my opinion anyway.

The Report is available, free, online at: http://www.deepcutreview.org.uk/index.php?module=Website&action=Text&content=1111359418445-6578
 
I have been (as I am sure we al have) through some tought imes, but we don't consider shooting ourselves.
Any doc or psych will tell you thatthey are not all there (in technical terms)
Anyway as with all mentaly deficient people with guns (columbine/dunblane/ hungerford etc.) I would rather they just sloped off and did themselves instead of innocent people. Of course I feel sorry for the families, but at least these folks didn't take anyone with them.
Would you want to be serving with slightly unhinged personnel ???
Not this callsign....
 
PragmaticJen said:
Uncle_Albert said:
PragmaticJen said:
Something that really puzzles me though is, how that young soldier shot himself 5 times?
Click to expand...

I can see that happening if the rifle was set to automatic fire.
Click to expand...

Not convinced... :roll:
Click to expand...

The rate of fire on those things is about 650 rounds per minute, so firing five would take less than half a second. I think it's not beyond the bounds of belief that his hand could have maintained pressure on the trigger for that long.
 
I'm with Jen. An open, transparent public enquiry would have put this question to bed without the need for further investigation at continuing expense, poor PR for the Army and, by association, the other 2 Services.

My time at Raleigh in the early 70s included lots of instances of bullying and racial harassment, carried out by recruits on other recruits and some of this I will be eternally ashamed of, as I stood by while it happened. There's a time for toughness in training, but it's not when kids have just joined and are at the mercy of those that see an opportunity to get in a bit of bullying or sexual predation like that eternal sh*t of a PTI who was prosecuted last year.

The assessment of one of the previous contributors to this thread that these kids killed themselves may turn out to be the case, but have a bit of compassion, their families do not deserve the ignorant dismissal of their legitimate call for openness.
 
Any of the "never did me any harm" brigade care to jump in here and say that bullying, racial harassment and sexual predation build better sailors and trying to stamp it out is foolish do-gooding from liberal pinkos?
 
I'm afraid the as the Army has succesfully muddied the watres on this one with the perhaps unwitting collusion of the local plod, that a public enquiry is unlikely to produce any more info than we have already. Unless some one who has real evidence comes forward and tells the truth I suspect we will never get the real truth out of this, to the Armys eternal shame.

As to the bullying to be fair some of it is just the normal group funtions of sorting out the pecking order and who is who. It is normal, natural and will always happen, and rarely does any real harm. You will see it in almost any group, a bit of black catting, a bit of baitng a bit of fishing, just till the newcomer settle in and makes his mark. In young adults this quite often involves physical horseplay as well. In groups though it can get out of hand and cause problems and it will always be a problem for the instructor to know when the line must be drawn. The predatory bullying especially by instructors is wholly another thing and needs constant attention to prevent. Here the bully is intent on creating pain and suffring for his/her own satisfaction.

Peter
 
Maxi - Sorting out the pecking order is ok, then, if it means taking a poor Scots lad who has never been out of his village, has never had the advantage of being able to take a daily hot bath, let alone think that it was necessary, parading him through the block to the showers and scrubbing down to bleeding skin with a floor scrubber to prove what "clean" is. This is one of the memories that makes me ashamed of my basic training stint, but as long as it did me no harm it's acceptable.

I am sure you didn't mean that, but the instructors were nowhere near these events and it's much more likely that the bullying is by peers, rather than the instructors in my opinion.

I am equally sure that there will be wizened old farts out there who do feel that they were improved by this kind of senseless macho behaviour, but you are wrong! Good basic training should be hard, but fair. I have no problem with the GI whose mantra was that he carried his whistle on a chain "because no shithouse is complete without a chain", but the vulnerable young is not a new phenomenon. It was kept under wraps in my training days and some of the bullying new-joiners no doubt went on to become either model citizens or more dangerous bullies at higher rates.

That we suffered it does not make it right and if the opportunity arrives to stop it, alleluia to that.
 
Bullying has never had a place anywhere, firm discipline has. There is no substitute for leading by example. Training recruits is a great job, even though the powers that be won't let you do it the way it should be done. Teach these people in such a way that they would follow you to hell and back, and teach bullies that there is always someone meaner than them (unfortunately there is only one form of counselling appropriate for bullies, and it works..... scudding).
 

Latest Threads

New Posts

Top