Deaths of Service Personnel Overseas (Inquests)

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

My hon. friend the Minister for the Armed Forces and I wish to make the latest of our quarterly statements to the House with details of the inquests of service personnel who have died overseas. As always, we wish to express the Government’s deep and abiding gratitude to all of our service personnel who have served, or are now serving, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Once again we also extend our sincere condolences to the families of those service personnel who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in connection with the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in particular the 11 service personnel who have died since our last statement. Our thoughts remain with all of the families.

Today we are announcing the current status of inquests conducted by the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, and other coroners in England and Wales. This statement gives the position at 8 July 2011.

To supplement this statement I have placed tables in the Libraries of both Houses, which outline the status of all cases and the date of death in each case. The tables include information about cases where a board of inquiry or a service inquiry has been held.

Our Departments will continue to work closely together to improve our processes. We will continue the Government’s support for coroners conducting inquests into operational deaths. We remain grateful to them and their staff for their dedication, together with those people who are providing support and information throughout the inquest process and afterwards.

Since October 2007 both Departments have provided additional resources for operational inquests. These resources have been provided to the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, Mr David Ridley, due to the repatriation of service personnel at RAF Lyneham. These measures have been provided to ensure that there is not a backlog of operational inquests. As I confirmed in the last statement, we will again provide additional resources to the Oxfordshire coroner, Mr Nicholas Gardiner, when repatriation ceremonies for those killed on operations overseas move to RAF Brize Norton within his district. The move will take place on 1 September 2011.

Current status of inquests

Since the last statement there have been 23 inquests into the deaths of service personnel on operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A total of 476 inquests have been held into the deaths of service personnel who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 12 service personnel who died in the UK of their injuries. In three further cases, no formal inquest was held. In two of these cases the deaths were taken into consideration during inquest proceedings for those who died in the same incident. In the third case, where the serviceman died of his injuries in Scotland, it was decided not to hold a fatal accident inquiry.

Open inquests

Fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan

There are currently 75 open inquests to be concluded into the deaths of service personnel who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-one of these involve deaths in the last six months. The Wiltshire and Swindon coroner has retained 28 of the remaining open inquests, and 35 are being conducted by coroners closer to the next-of-kin. Hearing dates have been set in 13 cases.

There is one remaining open inquest into deaths from operations in Iraq.

Inquests into the deaths of service personnel who returned home injured

Twelve inquests remain to be held of service personnel who returned home injured and subsequently died of their injuries. Two hearing dates have been set. The remaining 10 cases will be listed for hearing when the continuing investigations are completed.

We shall continue to inform the House of progress with the remaining inquests.