Ten years of war, 10 years of inquests
By Lisa Mitchell, BBC News, 4 October 2011
For the families of the 382 service men and women who have died on duty in Afghanistan, the knock on the door is only the start. The heartbreak of the inquest lies ahead.
For the family of 26-year-old Joseph Pool it was the moment they could bear it no longer. In a dusty coroner's court in Trowbridge Town Hall, a sergeant major was describing Joseph's death. His mother sobbed quietly while his fiancee, and mother of his two children, had to leave.
The inquest was the 155th military inquest to be held in the courtroom - specially convened to hear the details of the deaths of troops in action in Afghanistan whose bodies have been repatriated through nearby RAF Lyneham.
The coffins of the fallen make the public journey through Wootton Bassett and on to private funerals. But the story doesn't end there for the families. They face an often agonisingly long wait for the details of what exactly happened all those thousands of miles away.
A gifted and well-liked junior commander, a "natural soldier" his friends called him, L/Cpl Pool, of The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland was with a specially trained reconnaissance group based at Camp Bastion in Helmand province.
He and his fellow soldiers were sent south to deal with insurgents who were attacking a vital supply road.
The inquest was told L/Cpl Pool was loading up the Javelin missile rocket launcher he had carried through dead of night through freshly flooded and muddy fields, when he was hit by a rocket propelled grenade.
A pathologist and ballistics expert said the soldier was likely to have lost consciousness instantly. His friend Sergeant Major Stephen Dawson knew it. Not stopping to put on his body armour, he scrambled to the site of the explosion to find one man had lost an arm and "Pooly" lying under the Javelin.
"I don't think he suffered at all. I was there in literally seconds and I just knew that he was gone."
As fellow Scots, the men had fought side by side before in Iraq and the sergeant major told the inquest Joseph was "very fit, a very switched-on bloke, selfless."
Then he paused and mumbled: "He was one of my friends."
Wiltshire and Swindon coroner David Ridley acknowledges that reliving the incidents in which their comrades died is not easy, for even the most stoic of soldiers. He only asks them to when their testimony is vital.
And just as he tries to minimise the toll of inquests on serving personnel, so the coroner tries to protect the families.
He uses Google Maps to help families envisage the moments leading up to the death. Joseph Pool's commanding officer was able to point out where the men had trudged through the mud, where they had taken off their body armour and "got a brew going", and where Joseph had been standing when he was hit.
Families have already seen the pathologist's report before they attend the inquest and Mr Ridley sees no reason to go into painful details again in open court.
That is something Barbara Bowman appreciated. Mrs Bowman's son, Maj Josh Bowman, was shot dead in his bed by a rogue Afghan soldier he had been working with.
"The coroner was very kind," she said.
"We had the post-mortem report and he didn't go into detail. That would have been very distressing."
Mrs Bowman and Maj Bowman's father John were supported by an officer assigned to them by the Army, who guided them through what to expect. They were also able to see all the reports and witness statements before the inquest.
"We knew exactly what had happened, we didn't find out anything new at the inquest.
"We were prepared to be upset and distressed but as far as our family were concerned, it wasn't as bad as we were expecting."
If families do have any complaint about the inquest process, it has been about the length of time some cases take to get to court.
Maj Bowman was killed in Helmand in July 2010 - but his inquest was held a full year later.
"Everybody was tremendously kind, but I was sorry that it took so long - it was always hanging over us," said his mother.
And as painful as the wait was for the Bowmans, in the past delays of four years for other families have not been uncommon.
The low point in the military inquest system was in 2007 when families started a campaign to speed up the procedure.
In response the MoD and Ministry of Justice found the cash to fund the court at Trowbridge and now it serves as a "hub" for military inquests, particularly those involving multiple deaths.
And in 2008, the Defence Inquest Unit was set up as a liaison between the MoD and coroners and with a specific brief to help streamline the complicated inquest process.
One family which had to wait four years was that of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, who died in March 2003 when a US aircraft opened fire on his tank. His inquest was held, finally, in February 2007. It was a complicated case which relied on co-operation from the Americans to hand over evidence.
At one point, L/CoH Hull's widow Susan pleaded successfully with US President George Bush to allow a redacted cockpit recording to be heard in its entirety.
Like other families who are left feeling there are questions still to be answered, Mrs Hull was represented by lawyers at the inquest.
Solicitor Geraldine McCool, who acted for the Hulls, says she believes lawyers can "add value to complex situations".
"Inquests are not an adversarial process but they can feel very adversarial," she said.
"In the case of short inquests, for example involving IEDs (improvised explosive device), it is probably appropriate that there is no lawyer. Military families tend to be very stoical about deaths and not anti-MoD.
"But in some inquests, families develop more questions."
In some instances, the lawyers act for the families for nothing, as in Matty Hull's case, or they are funded by the Royal British Legion.
There is a case, Ms McCool says, for more legal aid to be available to military families.
"Sometimes they need someone fighting their corner," she said.
"Inquests have become a more rigorous process over the past 10 years - coroners need to get credit for that."
In recording their verdict, coroners cannot make recommendations to the MoD but they can air their concerns - and some have done it forcibly.
That has led to body armour being issued to personnel as they leave for battle, better night-vision goggles, clearer identification of friendly forces, replacements for poorly armoured Snatch Land Rovers and better detection of IEDs.
Arrse, the self-styled Army Rumour Service, an online forum for soldiers to exchange frank views, describes coroners as "becoming an extremely honourable, uncorruptable and squaddie-friendly profession in the establishment".
Coroner David Masters, Mr Ridley's predecessor at Wiltshire, is described as a "thorn in the side of the MoD and government".
He criticised faulty electronic jamming equipment at the inquest of two men killed by a remote controlled roadside bomb, and said working equipment should be on every patrol vehicle.
When the MoD's expert witness said: "I agree, and that's the position we are working towards," Mr Masters replied: "A bit late, isn't it?"
Mr Ridley said in his experience, his reports had been positively received by the MoD, which had shown a willingness to learn from the deaths.
He has 19 military inquests to complete.
"When I took over, it was taking 12 months on average to get an inquest to the final hearing. That time is now reduced to around seven to eight months. Some have been concluded in as little as five months," he said.
Trowbridge's role is coming to an end. Repatriations are being moved to RAF Brize Norton and consequently, multiple-death inquests will move to the coroner's court in Oxford.
As the sunlight streamed though the stained glass windows in Trowbridge coroner's court, Mr Ridley declared his verdict. Joseph Pool was unlawfully killed by a massive explosion from a rocket-propelled grenade fired by an Afghan insurgent.
His commanding officer, Lt Col Charlie Herbert, put it more simply: "He died a soldier's death in close combat, bravely and tenaciously taking the fight to the insurgents."
