Family of Pte Sean Benton hope to learn truth of his death at Deepcut Barracks

Pte Sean Benton’s mother suspected he was being bullied the last time she saw him, no matter how much he refused to confide in her.

The 20-year-old soldier had been quiet throughout his weekend visit home in late May 1995, but did not want to talk about what was wrong. As his parents took him back to his Army base he cried.

Days later Pte Benton was found dead with five gunshot wounds to his chest while on guard duty at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey.

His death was the first of four involving young recruits at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002 amid allegations of bullying and a culture of abuse.

The death of Pte Benton from Hastings was also the start of years of lonely and what felt at times like fruitless fighting by his family to find out what happened. It is a search they hope will approach its conclusion this week as a new inquest begins into his death. Yet it is a victory Pte Benton’s mother Linda and father Harry have not lived to see.

“She was never the same after he died,” said Tracy Lewis, Pte Benton’s older sister.

“If this had been sorted much sooner, much earlier, I do believe my mum and dad would be still here.”

When Mrs Benton died in 2015, her daughter promised she would carry on the campaign for a proper investigation into his death amid allegations he died after he was beaten, bullied and humiliated.

“He was quiet, very quiet,” Ms Lewis recalls of that last weekend home.

“My mum had concerns then because he was so quiet. When he went back, mum and dad took him back and he did cry. My mum did ask him if he was being bullied. You know your own children. My mum knew. You know what they like and what they don’t like. My mum knew something was wrong but he just didn’t open up. He knew my mum would worry.”

He was found dead on June 9, 1995, shortly after he had been told he was to be discharged from the Army. An internal inquiry the following month ruled the death was a suicide, but even then Mrs Benton had felt the investigation was only cursory.

In the years that followed Pte Benton’s comrades and friends came forward with allegations he had been punched, harrassed and thrown out of a window at his Royal Logistic Corps training unit as instructors tried to “break” him.

As time went on, others also died. Pte Cheryl James, 18, from Llangollen, north Wales, was found with a single bullet wound to the head in November 1995. Pte Geoff Gray, 17, from Hackney, east London, was found with two gunshot wounds to his head in September 2001. Pte James Collinson, 17, from Perth, Scotland, was found dead with a single gunshot wound while on guard duty at the barracks in March 2002.

As the deaths mounted, Surrey Police launched a new investigation, but the families were unsatisfied and the inquiry was later sharply criticised for poor leadership and a lack of focus.

“It was just like hitting a brick wall each time and you did think ‘You are never going to know’”, said Ms Lewis, who still lives in Hastings.

The breakthrough resulting in this week’s inquest came when families backed by the campaign group Liberty began using the Human Rights Act to demand disclosure of the evidence gathered by Surrey Police. Liberty has then asked the High Court to rule on the families right to a new inquest based on the volume of new evidence.

The family of Pte James were the first to be given a second inquest, which after three months of evidence in June 2016 ruled she had committed suicide.

The Benton’s inquest was granted after they secured 100 volumes of material from Surrey Police.

The inquest will once again cast a spotlight on incidents the Army has spent the past two decades trying to move on from, and as a new softer series of recruitment ads emphasise the emotional support and sense of belonging found among soldiers.

Ms Lewis said she was keeping an open mind as to what had happened to her younger brother.

She said: “Hopefully we will get a bit of closure and a bit of justice for Sean. To find out what happened to him. What happened in his last moments.”