German ballistics experts asked to investigate how the teenage Deepcut recruit Cheryl James died were hindered by a lack of crucial evidence from the scene of her death, an inquest has heard.
Experts from Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt, (BKA) who conducted a series of experiments at the request of Surrey police, said it looked as if the 18-year-old had been shot at very close range, but they could not determine if she had shot herself or if it was the “deliberate” act of another.
Dr Thomas Liebscher, Dr Bernd Salziger, and Dr Ludwig Niewöhner, giving evidence via video link to Woking coroner’s court, said the tests, which were carried out eight years after Pte James’s death at the Surrey barracks in 1995, were conducted on a pigskin sphere filled with gelatine.
The coroner, Brian Barker, was told that the team had not been sent the bullet cartridge, or fragments of bullet recovered at the scene. Neither did it have samples of any gun residue found on her body, or chemical analysis of any residue.
“We didn’t have the evidence from the scene,” Niewöhner told the hearing.
Poor-quality photographs provided to them by the Surrey force showed dark deposits on James’s hand but they could have been soot, dirt or bruising. “The pictures were very bad and not sharp so I cannot say what it is,” Niewöhner said. “We cannot distinguish without any chemical investigation.”
Requests for negatives of the photographs received no response from Surrey police, the hearing was told, and neither did requests for bullets and casings, and the victim’s clothing.
Liebscher added that examination of any gun residue “would be extremely significant” in determining the range of the shot.
James, from Llangollen, north Wales, was found dead from a single gunshot wound while on lone guard duty at the barracks on 27 November 1995 and is one of four young recruits who died from gunshot wounds at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002.
She was discovered with a bullet wound between her right eye and the bridge of her nose. Photographs from the scene showed a star-shaped wound measuring 6.4cm by 5.5cm (2.5in by 2.2in). Salziger said: “The impact looks like a very close-range shot.”
Surrey police approached the German experts as part of a reinvestigation into the deaths in 2003.
Salziger said the German ballistics team at first believed that James’s skull had not been the primary target of the fatal shot because of the lack of an exit wound, which was unusual. Tests on the pigskin sphere using a stable bullet always produced an exit wound. Tests with an unstable bullet, such as that firing through wood, did not, he said.
But after consulting a German pathologist, he said, the team decided it was “plausible” that a bullet could become unstable by hitting bone in the skull. Surrey police also informed them of a case of a “Soldier A” , not connected to Deepcut, where this was said to be the case, and which the experts then took as “proof”.
Initially the BKA suggested to Surrey police that it examine three hypotheses: that the wound was a primary entry wound, that it was an exit wound and that there was a secondary entry wound.
At one point, Surrey police said they were under “time pressure” and wanted a quick investigation, according to Peter Mant, counsel for the James family. But the BKA refused to compromise in the search for answers, he added.
Questioned by Bridget Dolan QC, counsel for the inquest, the experts agreed with the conclusions of the BKA’s 2003 report, which stated: “The question of who actually fired the shot cannot be answered conclusively.”
Dolan said: “But it does not exclude the possibility it was a deliberate shot by another person other than Miss James?”
Salziger replied: “It is possible that it was activated by somebody else.”
Dolan continued: “But you say there are no grounds to contradict self-inflicted injury?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” he replied, adding: “It isn’t possible to tell if it was Cheryl or somebody else.”
The BKA concluded that the trigger force was 4.8kg, within the normal range, and that it was possible to operate the trigger without undue effort whether the index finger or thumb was used.
The hearing continues.
