Cpl Sarah Bryant and the three SAS reservists, a difference in reporting

The BBC report the inquest into the sad and probably unnecessary death of four soldiers in Afghanistan by concentrating on Cpl Sarah Bryant's death, she is the first female soldier to die in Afghanistan. They do mention that

"The coroner at an inquest into the death of four British soldiers in a blast in Afghanistan has pointed to "inadequacies" in training.

In his summing-up, Wiltshire and Swindon coroner David Masters said there were issues with how soldiers were trained to deal with bombs. "

and that the four were travelling in a 'Snatch Land Rover' and he went on to comment on this vehicle. The BBC reports part of what he said in this passage:

"Mr Masters repeated what witnesses had told the court, that shortages in other vehicles meant soldiers had to used the lightly protected Land Rover, which was not adequate for the purpose.

The soldiers died after the back wheel of their Land Rover hit a 50kg to 100kg (110lb-220lb) pressure-plated roadside bomb as they crossed a ditch.

...

Concerns about the Snatch Land Rover were raised as long ago as 2003.

The lightly armoured vehicle's vulnerability to roadside bombs and other explosives has led some soldiers to call it the "mobile coffin".

The Ministry of Defence is upgrading the Snatch with improvements to its armour and better electronic counter-measures to detect roadside bombs. But that work has yet to be completed. "

That extract is damning enough, soldiers dying in a vehicle that was known to off inadequate protection to its users and one that has still not been upgraded by the Government.


The Telegraph's report gives us more of what the coroner said, including his criticism of the Labour government that the BBC decided to kept from its readers (my emphasis):

"Wiltshire Coroner David Masters said he would write to the Ministry of Defence to raise concerns about "theatre-wide" equipment shortages and gaps in training which led to the deaths.

"I intend to submit a report to the Ministry of Defence which will take up a number of these issues which this inquest has quite properly canvassed," Mr Masters said at the conclusion of a six-day inquest into the deaths at Trowbridge Town Hall.

...

The use of the Snatch Land Rover has long been controversial due to the numbers that have died in them and the inquest heard that it had been nicknamed the "mobile coffin" because of the lack of protection it afforded troops.

The vehicles could not cover soft ground and became stuck in a little water, which restricted the unit to driving along dangerous tracks, witnesses said.

The commanding officer of 23 SAS regiment, the Territorial Army battalion, told the hearing that he had raised concerns about the lack of safer vehicles and was told that he would have to make do as no others were available.

Mr Masters said the commanding officer, named only as Colonel A at the inquest, had wanted the better-armoured WMIK vehicle to replace the Snatch - even though it too might been badly damaged by the "massive" bomb concerned.

"There was a limited pool of vehicles available, a general shortage of vehicles available during that period," said Mr Masters.

"He wanted WMIKs because of the nature of the territory. He put in a request and justified it but he didn't get them. That shortage meant that they were unavailable to him. There was only a finite supply of vehicles to be allocated across the whole brigade."

Major Sebastian Morley, Cpl Bryant's SAS squadron commander in Helmand, later resigned, accusing the Government of being "cavalier at best, criminal at worst" for ill-equipping troops.

Mr Masters heard that shortages of metal detectors meant soldiers had not been shown how to use them before deploying to Afghanistan and were forced to ask an expert on base in Afghanistan how to do so.

An Ebex metal detector became available only four months into the deployment, until which point the soldiers had to scan the ground for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

One witness told the coroner of his training on the Ebex: "We worked it out ourselves with the use of the manual."

"There was a theatre-wide shortage of that piece of vital equipment," Mr Masters said.

He said that the lack of Ebex meant convoys took longer to move along a route and their slow pace opened them up to increased risk of attack.

"In my judgment there was an inadequacy in training for this unit and its members," he said. "

The BBC do not report the parts of the evidence and report that are most detrimental to the way Gordon Brown underfunded the armed forces. Some of the evidence contradicts some of Gordon Brown's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry and that should not be hidden from the British voter just because the BBC want to ensure a Labour victory at the general election.

I presume that David Cameron will bring up this coroners verdict at PMQs today and that Gordon Brown will dissemble as his way.