July 10, 2020 • 58 mins
Located in Surrey, the Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut (more often known as the Deepcut Barracks) was once the headquarters of the British Army's Royal Logistic Corp. On paper, Deepcut seemed to be a successful military installation -- yet it had a dark side. Young trainees were routinely bullied and abused, with little high-level oversight. A series of controversial trainee deaths between 1995 and 2002 were all ruled suicides, and, despite complaints and calls for investigation from grieving family members, forensic experts and more, this remains the official conclusion of the UK government today. Almost a decade since the last documented death, questions remain. Does the British Army have something to hide? Tune in to learn more of the Stuff They Don't Want You To Know about the Deepcut Four.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled deconds. Most importantly, you argue, you are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
It's obvious to everybody listening today, whether or not you
have been in the military, whether or not you have
(00:48):
a friend or a loved one in the arms forces,
that life in any country's military can be brutal and
depending on where you enlist. Training itself, just the just
the training part, just when you're becoming a soldier, can
be especially taxing. It stretches individuals to their mental and
(01:09):
physical limits, and sometimes it pushes them beyond those limits,
with catastrophic consequences to follow. Today's episode is probably best
framed as an introduction to a story that many of
us in the US especially may not know. The reason
(01:30):
I'm stressing that this is an introduction is because there
is so much to this rabbit hole. This is a
warren of rabbit holes. And what we're going to do
in this episode is the same thing we do with
every show. We're going to give you the facts. We're
going to tell you where it gets crazy. But we
do want you to know that there is much much,
(01:53):
much more information out there. And uh, we talked a
little bit about this off air. We consider this an
ongoing case. We'll call it the Deep Cut. Four. Here
are the facts. This story takes place in London, just
(02:13):
outside of London, actually about an hour and a half
drive southwest of the city of London, which is a
place we've talked about before on this show. The city
of London exists within London or Greater London. Uh, that's
a whole episode in itself, but specifically, we're going to
the Deep Cut Barracks. It's known as Princess Royal Barracks
(02:33):
Deep Cut. It's near Camberly, Surrey in England, and before
it was also known as black Down Barracks. Yeah, in
the Royal engineers started to build uh several camps around
this facility. UM. It had originally been used as a
(02:54):
training ground up until the late eighteen hundreds, but it
didn't really have any formalized infrastructure until nineteen hundred UM.
The barracks went through a number of different changes, but
after the story that we're going to dive in today
took place, UM they were scheduled to be torn down
(03:18):
and today you can see these barracks as the home
to the Royal Logistic Core Museum UM, which is a
wing of the of the British Military UM and also
the Royal Logistics Core Band which is where they're based
in Rehearse and the Defense Logistics School is also there
and then twenty five training support regiments. Yeah, back in
(03:41):
twent um, as you were deluded to earlier there, the
UK government announced official plans to close down the operation
and to open the land upon which the compounds stands
for future housing developments. As we record right now, the
current estimates project the barracks will be completely deep commissioned
(04:02):
and become a thing of the past by twenty one.
That means of course that anything that any way that
the physical location could have assisted in the investigation will
be full stop gone by next year. What do we
mean when we say investigation, So in Deep Cut Barracks
(04:27):
between and two thousand and two young trainees began dying
under what we would we would like the most diplomatic
way to put it is mysterious circumstances. They all died
from gunshot wounds, and they were all privates, Jeff Gray, Cheryl,
James Sean Benton, and James Collinson. Their deaths were all
(04:52):
ruled suicides by the military, despite strong and continuing objections
from friends, family members, some government officials, and numerous experts.
We're talking, you know, well journalists as well, but we're
also talking pathologists, ballistics experts, corners and so on. So
(05:13):
as early as two thousand and two, there were calls
for an inquiry, and then um, you know, one of
the big problems, the military was investigating itself, and there
were later police investigations along with reviews of army training procedures.
And then two years later, in two thousand four, the
government announced that a review of the situation occurring at
(05:36):
Deep Cut concluded that the deaths of these four privates
were probably again here we go, probably self inflicted. It's
it's a review that you can read right now. It
was conducted by Nicholas Blake QC. It's available online. Uh,
it's really in depth, very very in depth. One thing
(05:57):
we found in researching this episode is that the new
risk inquiries that have occurred since the time of these
deaths are so filled with information it becomes a bit
difficult to navigate them. But we assure you that it
is worth your time. Uh. This specific one, performed by
Nicholas Blake QC, focused on the problems that were occurring
(06:20):
within the system itself, the organization of the military and
you know, really just the situation at Deep Cut itself
with regards to supervision and what the you know, the
trainees were doing, how they were looked after, and what
they had access to. And I want to add here, uh,
I have spent a lot of time reading some very
(06:43):
you know, very important but very dry reports, and British
legal writing is a different language. I think we were
talking off air and I was saying, British legal writing
warps your mind. But the way it would be written
in your report like this would be something more like
and in depth analysis us of what may accurately be
described as the overall linguistic approach to the articulation of
(07:04):
concepts in the British legal system, conducted by Ben Bull
and PC via Stuff they don't want you to know.
Subcommittee to I Heart Media finds that numerous individuals have
encountered circumstances both delatorious and circuitous, and they're going forward
cognitive function a circumstance they traced to that which could
also be called British legal writing c n XC appendix
for at all, Like this is this written? I feel
(07:26):
like this is written. You know. I don't want to
accuse people of trying to make it um illegible for
the average person, but it's I think they shot themselves
in the foot if they were going for accuracy. Well,
I mean we've read contracts, you know, and and we
we have legal documents that come across our inboxes for
(07:46):
various work things, and they're written pretty pedantic, hard to
understand language that seems a little pointed at times where
it's obviously meant to be. That's why you gotta hire
a lawyer, because you gotta have someone who in the
club who can like decipher this for the lay person.
This is entirely the next level of that. UM I
would I would categorize that writing as maximum formality. Yeah,
(08:11):
And speaking of maximum formality, I have to say, like
for part of the research that I did into this topic.
I watched this great BBC Panorama documentary they've done covered
a lot of interesting stuff over the years, like they
did want on Scientology, that quite enjoyed, and it's just
a great series. It's been around for a long time.
But you know, we're talking about one particular barracks. We're
(08:32):
also talking about the idea of systematic abuse, which is
obviously very poignant right now with the stuff we're going
through in our history as a country and as a
as a human race. But we're not necessarily trying to
damn the entire British military here. We are looking at
a specific case, and the British military will deny that
these things are systematic and that they do try to
(08:54):
root out any quote unquote bad actors in the system. Um.
But you know, for anyone who has certain in the military,
I know it can feel when people who have not
certain in the military are criticizing these structures that it
can feel a little bit like, you know, how where
where do you get off or something? But I I
feel like the there the researches here, the data is here. Um,
(09:15):
maybe not enough to apply it to the whole system,
but it sure makes you think, and I think now
is a great time to to talk about these these deaths.
So let's jump back to that two thousand four review
conducted by Nicholas Blake QC. Within it, there are a
lot of recommendations about what could be done better, perhaps,
but again it's focused squarely on the system itself and
(09:38):
the way the military is organized. UH. If you look
deeply into it, it shows that these four deaths, which
again the report characterizes as self inflicted UH or suicide,
it does say that many have occurred due to a
number of dangerous contributing factors at specifically Deep Cut barracks. Yeah,
there are things like you'll see these observations and then
(10:00):
you'll also see UM, if you if you fast forward
to you know, page three hundred and forty or so,
you'll see things. You'll see recommendations for how these could
be fixed. UH. The problems, according to the QCs report,
QC stands for Queen's Counsel. Think of it like a
super lawyer. The problems are things like lack of control
(10:23):
over access to firearms in the barracks. They were very
loose with that poor supervision, which I think we have
specifics on later in the show, poor accommodation, lack of
discipline and prevalent like Lord of the Fly style bullying,
unofficial punishments, sexual harassment and abuse, running rampant no real
(10:46):
complaint mechanism, which is something we see in a lot
of organizations, honestly and low quality instructors. The review, as
you might imagine, did not satisfy the parents and loved
ones of these four dead trainees, so the police conducted
for other inquiries for subsequent investigations. These have never been
(11:07):
made public. They're there somewhere unless the evidence was destroyed,
which is a possibility, but they've never been made public.
And these parents believe their children did not die from suicide.
They believe their children were murdered and that the UK
government was and is actively covering it up. So why
(11:27):
did they think that? We'll tell you after we're from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. We mentioned the
names here, but um, let's let's explore the specific details
of these these deaths. And also these are the four
(11:48):
known deaths. That doesn't mean there aren't more. So first
we have Jeff Gray, who's from London, seventeen years old.
Um he was found dead with two gunshot wounds to
the head on September seven in teens two thousand one.
It was officially internally ruled like within the military organization,
ruled a suicide. He was on guard duty. And this
(12:10):
is the thing. We talked about this a little bit
off air, and Matt was kind of telling Paul about
the story. Uh, this was a very common kind of well,
I'm gonna call it like a chore or like a duty,
like a thing that everyone was expected to do and
take turns. They were guarding in these wooded areas, the
outskirts of the barracks. Uh, all night long, very sleep deprived. Um,
(12:30):
and it's something that everyone was expected to do. He
was on guard duty. He had left his group to
perform a maneuver they call prowler patrol, where you go
on your own around the outskirts of the you know,
just basically like, yeah, it's the kind of thing you
see in like war movies where someone you know standing
post and then every so often they go and walk
(12:51):
around and make their rounds to make sure no one's
lurking in the bushes or anything. Uh So he did that.
Anecdotal evidence that we've found suggests that someone else. It's
entirely likely, uh, in fact probable, that someone else fired
the shots that ended Jeff's life. Um. There are four
witnesses that have testified to seeing a figure running from
(13:15):
the place where Private Gray's body was found. Um, we've
also found evidence, um in the research that suggests that
someone moved his body. Yeah, and and we're gonna talk
more specifics about this stuff as we go on. For now,
we're just gonna tell you the basic details of of
these individuals. Another young soldier who died was named James Collinson.
(13:40):
He was for Perth. He was also seventeen, like Jeff.
He died on March two from a single gunshot wound
to his head while he was on guard duty. His
body was found near a perimeter fence there at the facility.
And it just should be noted here that several of
(14:00):
the areas of Deep Cup Barracks have these very large
perimeter fences where the guard duty essentially was was performed
near nearer these fences. Then there's the third case. We're
jumping around a little bit in time here, but the
third case is Cheryl James. She's eighteen, she was from
(14:23):
Land Gulf Land and Wales. And she was found dead
from a single gunshot wound to the head on November.
Like those other two cases we've mentioned, she was on
guard duty. Her body was found in the woods nearby
her abandoned post. Yeah, and and Cheryl allegedly was the
(14:46):
target of widespread sexual harassment by commanding officers UM, which
is a culture that we we've seen many many accounts
of being kind of pervasive within Deep cut UM, whether
just in passing or potentially as a tool of control UM.
There are various accounts of this. UH, people denying these allegations,
(15:10):
but I just I think it's important to mention that
there's a lot of UH discussion about these things being
very real by folks who have passed through this facility
over the years. You know, I would also say, each
one of these individuals is their own person. They were
the own protagonists in their story, as we mentioned on
this show a lot, and in some of these inquiries,
(15:31):
the deep background on on these folks. You know, there
are complications in every person's life and that's you know,
one of the major things that was looked at in
these inquiries. So we we again I am stressing we
are just giving you the absolute top down view at
this moment on these people. Yeah. Yeah. The last of
(15:55):
the deep cut four by which we mean the acknowledged
deaths in this ongoing to investigation was Sean Benton. Sean
was twenty years old. He was a local is from Hastings,
East Sussex. Benton died from five gunshot wounds to the
chest after he was also on a guard duty assignment.
(16:19):
After he was also on patrol of the perimeter, and
he was, like some of the other cases, on an
unauthorized solo patrol that's occurred on June nine. As we mentioned,
military the military Internal Investigation quickly and in their mind
definitively said that all four had shot themselves with their
(16:41):
own rifles while on guard duty, although the coroner at
the time recorded a verdict of suicide in only one case. Yeah,
and just just to really quick add a detail to Sean,
he is um I believe correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
But the only one where we actually have a detailed
suicide note that he left behind. There's an article, uh
(17:04):
that it's on the Daily Mail, which you know, I
know it's a little bit of a kind of take
it with a grain of salt of times. But this
is a document that they published that they got ahold of.
It was this, uh, this note where he claimed that
he he was being discharged from the army and that
he couldn't cope with returning to city street life, that
all he ever wanted as a career in the army. Um.
(17:25):
And we'll come back to this. And there's definitely this is,
in my opinion, by far, one of the more unusual
cases of the of the four here. But Sean was
characterizes having had some history of of psychological uh problems, um,
and potentially a history of depression. Um. But we'll we'll
revisit that a little bit. And yet he ended up
(17:47):
with five gunshot wounds to the chest. Right. But also
we we do have we do have what is being
referred to as a suicide note from him, but there's
some problems with that too. Yeah. And each of these,
each of these casesly becomes, i think, uh, its own separate,
distinct morass of conflicting information. Uh. And perhaps the one
(18:10):
thing they have in common is an active cover up.
But uh, it's it's not our jump to it's not
our job to tell you that we just want to
give you the facts of the matter. While while these
events occurred decades ago, right, the multiple reports all indicate that,
regardless of how these young privates died, Deep Cut itself
(18:33):
was in the midst of a desperate and quiet crisis. UM.
We have investigative journalists like Brian Cathcart who have found
that the institution routinely exposed trainees to bullying, sex and
flagrant like ridiculous disregard for rules relating to firearms like
(18:53):
even more UM lack of daisical than a bunch of
buddies who just get shotguns and drinking beer and shooting
at cans with their friends. It was bad. Additionally, the
Ministry of Defense or m O D as will refer
to moving Forward UM, has been accused of withholding, possibly
even destroying evidence related to this case. We've got Jim
(19:17):
Collinson uh forty years old, the father of James UM
compared getting information you know, I mean, think about it
like your child has died under mysterious circumstances. They're not
you know, you know your child. You don't understand how
could they do this? Suicide is such a difficult thing
in that way, and to not get any answers would
(19:37):
just prolong that morning period. And you know, you you
expect that if, if, if the Ministry has nothing to hide,
they would be forthcoming with information about the case. But
apparently it was just not to be. Jim Collinson Um again,
the father of James, said getting information from the m
o D was like getting blood from a stone. Uh.
There's a quote from him saying the m o D
wouldn't come forward and explain what happened to or some
(20:00):
that night. Then three days after his funeral, I phoned
up a senior official at Deep Cut and asked him
how the investigation was going. He replied, one body, one gun,
draw your own conclusion. Yikes. I mean, come on, just
let's have a little bit of bedside manner at the
very least. And that seemed to have been their attitude overall.
(20:23):
James was just just a number. This was this case closed.
You know, it's the same with the police. When they
close a case or close a murder, they don't want
to think about it ever again they have moved on.
There's no empathy, there's no room for empathy in these organizations.
Sometimes it seems uh not to be not to say
that's the case for every officer, but it seems in general,
(20:44):
this whole idea of emotionlessness is is a big part
of the military and these kinds of organizations we've got
another account for. I would just say that if a
police officer dies, the investigation into that death, I would say,
is far more rigorous than the death of a citizen
would be, UM, just because of the resources, internal resources
(21:07):
that would be going into finding out what happened to
a fellow officer. And I think maybe what you're signaling
here is that it feels as though if a member
of the military, any military is killed or dead for
any reason, um, outside of wartime, outside of active engagement,
then it feels as though the most, the most strenuous
(21:32):
things should be done, the most um intense steps should
be taken to find out exactly what happened. And maybe
it seems as though we're not seeing that and did
not see that the banality of evil right most most
uh you know, so with institutions of this size, fiction
(21:53):
often gets it wrong. It's not, as it is so
rarely the case that there is some sort of uh
antagonistic super villain who thinks I am the bad guy
and I am doing evil things. A lot of times,
it's just a person with a very narrowly defined scope
of responsibility. Uh. And these investigations can become normalized. I
(22:16):
see it all the time on this show. It is
disturbing how quickly things become normal. So if you were
investigating certain circumstances of horrible things like deaths, day in
day out, then what becomes the worst event in someone's
entire life for other people becomes a Tuesday, you know.
(22:39):
And and that's not right, but it's it's what happens.
There's desensitization. The parents have been vocal about this for
for decades. Uh. Does James is the father of Cheryl.
James said, he he brought up, like the QC, he
brought up the ongoing problems with the system we're just scribing.
(23:00):
He actually said, we believe the central issue is not
how Cheryl died, but why her death was not thoroughly
investigated at the time. To your point, Matt, he said,
any meaningful investigation into our daughter's death in nineteen was denied.
The Army assumed her death was a suicide. Uh. And
he says there's clear evidence to support that fact. Army
(23:23):
documents that we have in our possession, referred to her
tragic suicide on decept and that's the Army's quote, their
tragic suicide on December fourteenth, nine. And that's one week
before the coroner's court even convened an end quest, meaning
the Army, before like an autopsy or a coroner's investigation occurred.
(23:45):
The Army went ahead and just said it was self inflicted. Yeah,
and you know, I mean we we again with suici EI.
There's so many it's it's obviously really triggering subject for
many people. Um there's a lot that that happens when
something is ruled us to us side. So you know,
for example, if if um uh, someone has an insurance
(24:06):
policy on themselves and they are they can take their
own lives, that's insurance policy doesn't pay out. Not to
say there's any any of that's going into these decisions,
but I'm just saying, is it's a big deal to
rule something a suicide. It means something. Uh So to
just flippidly do that and just say case closed, it
just it feels very irresponsible, And it feels like they're
(24:26):
just looking out for the optics of it and and
and trying to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing as quickly
as possible. Yeah, you know, there there's some stuff I
found about Jeff Gray that I took personally, to be
honest with you, UM and his parents were more explicit.
But we kept finding more to this story. Every every
(24:46):
string we pulled, every puzzle piece we interlocked, led to
another puzzle piece, another string of what appears to be
a tremendously occulted web of ongoing problems here, because, as
James also said that he had on record, there were
no less than five other attempted suicides at Deep Cut
(25:07):
and they just work externally reported. And then you mentioned
earlier the panorama, the panorama video from BBC that that
appears to confirm some of this, right, Yeah, they they
found a document um that lists uh, several additional suicide
(25:28):
attempts unsuccessful suicide attempts. UM. I guess that's what's been
attempt is uh. And it catalogs all of the various
methods that were used by these cadets, including overdosing on
um a, sena, mena fin or paracetamol. Isn't that that's
what they call? It's the same thing, right, so they
call it in the uk UM and also splitting their
own wrists. But in this document there's no there's nothing
(25:51):
that mentions any of the bullying, which I guess maybe
I wouldn't be the appropriate document for that to be listed.
But it just it feels like there's a disconnect here. Uh,
this doesn't feel like something that is normal or should
be accepted. Agreed, And we're gonna get more into the bullying.
Uh as we continue on here what that means and
(26:12):
and what it looks like today even or in the
recent past. Um, But let's move on to Jeff Gray.
His parents, as you said, Ben, have been extremely explicit
in in their statements about their son's death. I have
a quote here. We are of the opinion that there
is a cover up surrounding Jeff's death, and one of
(26:36):
the major reasons for that. There are a lot of
major reasons for that, but I guess one of the
most surface puzzling things. It's something we already talked about
that Jeff was shot twice in the head. We proved
it when the inquest was done into his death. UM.
There is evidence suggesting that Jeff's body was moved after
he was killed, and as we noted, before earlier in
(26:59):
this episode, that there were footsteps heard running away from
the fence in the area where Jeff's body was found,
um that some intruders, some outside people were there that night,
at least one they it seems like they may have
waited over an hour to place Jeff's body in the
area where it was originally found after he was killed elsewhere,
(27:21):
and to put it, to put it plainly, the specific
quote from the parents of Jeff Gray and their statement
is is this, we feel that the army has tried
to make us believe some fairy tale where Jeff shot
himself twice, hid for an hour, climbed over a fence
a couple of times, then laid down and died. And
(27:43):
hearing it presented that way, um, hearing it presented that
way cuts close because that, you know, um, that's what happened.
Like that appears to be the bare bone circumstances of
the sequence of events that occurred from the time he
(28:05):
was alive to the time he was found dead. Now
it's I know a lot of us in the crowd
are especially long time listeners. When you've heard us discuss
allegations of homicide, UH framed a suicide. You you already
know this and we should acknowledge it. People can and have,
and sadly, in the future probably still will commit suicide
(28:26):
via firearm and be able to shoot themselves under some
circumstances more than once, uh, in the head or chest.
But it is it is rare, to say the least.
We're going to examine more of this. We've alluded to
a couple of things we're diving into here. After a
word from our sponsors, give her back, Um, we're gonna
(28:56):
talk a little bit about another inquest that was performed
much later. It was released June third, two thousand and sixteen,
was performed by Brian Barker CBE again Queen's counsel. This
one was a specific in question to the death of
Cheryl James, and we want to talk about some of
(29:17):
the underlying conditions that were happening there at Deep cut Um,
conditions that perhaps set up some of the younger people there,
because again we're talking about teenagers in a lot of
this to young adults. Um, we're just gonna speak about
the environment in which they were existing. So within this
report it was noted that in the field Army, the
(29:41):
usual ratio of corporals, two soldiers or you know, just
higher higher commanding officers to the um to like privates
and to lower ranking soldiers would generally be around one
to eight to one to twelve. So one come er,
twelve officers under that commander, one commander, eight officers under
(30:04):
that commander. And sometimes and they call this in when uh,
when a unit is holding or when it's a holding unit,
so like a unit that's just kind of on standby. Essentially,
it would be one commanding officer to twenty and generally
maximum one to thirty would be appropriate. Um However, at
deep cut, the ratio of a commanding officer to these
(30:28):
lower ranking officers was rarely less than one to eighty
and on occasions up to two hundred. So imagine that
in a teacher student ratios, I think a good way
to look at it. Imagine you can imagine those other
ratios like one teacher to eight to twelve students. I mean,
(30:50):
that would be amazing, That would be very closely learning,
having a lot of one on one act interaction. One
to twenty and thirty is probably about what you would
see in a public school here in the United States,
but one to eighty or two hundred is I just
don't know how there's any real oversight there, and also
(31:11):
like how there's justification for that, you know. It's like sure,
you could say, well, I really like your analogy about schools,
because I do think this is instruction, you know, I mean,
it's not like arts and crafts, but it absolutely is.
It requires instruction and training and the ability to have
a little bit of one on one time to some
degree with individuals. And I know a lot of army
(31:31):
exercises and drills happen on mass so maybe that doesn't apply,
but it's still just seems egregiously out of proportion, especially
when you consider the access to firearms that you're talking about,
and like, you know, the the lack of oversight in
that department. You know, well, din just just didn't even
know what's going on at the barracks at any given time.
And this is so this is a crucial point because
(31:55):
we're a lot of what we're talking about is how
these were initially report it and reports themselves. Investigations inherently
require oversight and supervision, and that just wasn't occurring at
the level it should have been occurring at these barracks.
And it was not an isolated incident. It was not
(32:16):
a one off bad Saturday when two people called out
sick or something. This was ongoing, and it was ongoing
for decades. UH. The environment there has been described by
multiple accounts people who went through the training as dreadful,
as brutal, as cruel, as horrific. Um. I mentioned earlier
(32:40):
that the banality of evil here, which holds true, always
tells us that very few people think of themselves as
an antagonist. Right, Um, everybody's their own main character, everybody's
the hero of the story. Why doesn't the rest of
the world only loved me? I couldn't do anything wrong
by reasons. But if there is a single human face
(33:05):
we could put on this story as what most people
would see as an antagonistic force, it would be one
Sergeant Andrew Gavegan. Yeah, Gavigan comes up time and time again. Um.
He he was. He testified in front of one of
these inquests that took place a little bit later. But
he is someone whose name constantly comes up among people
(33:29):
that have passed through UH this facility. Um, and not
in a positive way at all. In fact, Cheryl James
Father in that panorama documentary. Um spoke of him in
terms of, boy, what I like to be alone in
a room with this guy? Um, I would do what
any father would do. And the reason is there are
(33:50):
a lot of widespread allegations that Uh, not only was
Gavigan kind of the ring master of a lot of
these systematized bullying tactics to dehumanize, allegedly dehumanized and humiliate.
Uh kind of the idea of breaking down, you know,
as a cadet and making them up stronger by breaking
(34:12):
them or whatever, which you know, as we know, it
doesn't always work like that. Uh. He is also accused
of some sexual misconduct with Cheryl Um. The allegation was
that he invited her to these barracks or I'm not
invited if you're you're commanding officer. He ordered her to
these UM barracks in the undercover of night and then
(34:34):
allegedly made some sexual advances. He has denied this multiple times, UM,
as he has characterized some of these bullying techniques as
having been done quote in humor. So do with that
what you will, Ben, You're the one who pointed that
that line out to me, and I was shocked. Yeah.
In eighteen Uh he denied the deep kind abuse. We're
(34:57):
jumping around in time here, but I think the I
want to emphasize just how recent this ongoing investigation is. Uh.
He says some disturbing stuff in this inquest. One of
the things he says that the local news in the
UK latched onto is he did something that a lot
of abusers do, which is gaslighting. Right. And this this
(35:21):
happens anywhere. It's not just something that happens in romantic relationships.
It happens at your job, it happens in your family,
It happens all the time. The predators are out there. Um.
What he did, which gonna tried and true tactic of
abusers or people who have abusive tendencies, is he simultaneously
admitted that he was abusive, there was doing abusive things
(35:44):
while also diminishing and minimizing the valid claims of his victims,
similar to like gas lighting in a way. Uh. He
during this inquest, which is a legal affair, he said
that he would refer to his outburst of temper by
saying that was my twin brother. That was his joke
(36:06):
about it. It wasn't me, it was by twin Uh.
He told the people in the hearing at this inquest
that that it was all a good humor. The twin
brother happened very rarely and it was controlled. But that's
the thing that been um. I can that's what shocked
me and blew me away that he was so brazen
about this in front of an official inquiry. UM, because
(36:29):
it just confirms what the what these reports are about him.
Um by many of these folks again who have passed
through the deep cut barracks, um, this idea of his
twin brother. Um. He was characterized by many of the
folks that I saw in the in the panorama piece
who you know knew him well, um, as being a
(36:52):
split personality, as having this this true Jekyl and Hide
kind of quality where he would just change on a
dime into this other person. Uh. And the fact that
he brought that up himself, I think is is very
very talent and very interesting as to the sense of
like untouchability, you know, being in a position of power
like that, and how he felt. I just want to
(37:13):
point out here that sergeant I don't know how to
pronounce a big Gavigan, it feels. Remember the sergeant Gavigant
was a private at one time. Remember that he probably
went through something very very similar I'm imagining. No, I'm
not trying to humanize him, absolutely not. But what I'm
(37:34):
saying is he went through a system that probably did
exactly what he is trying or was trying to do
to the privates that he was then in charge of
UM And to me, it feels like a system that
would just continue, as we've seen in other systematic abuse situations,
where it becomes a line of people doing what they
(37:58):
know and what they've been trained essentially to do. I
think that's a really good point, Matt. I was I
was hoping, if you guys don't mind, can we talk
a little bit about some of the allegations of some
of the scenarios of systematic abuse and bullying, because I
think we've sort of we've obviously hit on the fact
that that this these allegations took place, but I don't
know that we've we've really gone into any specifics outside
(38:21):
of some of the sexual harassment. For anyone listening, especially
if you are a survivor of abuse, or if you
are having to deal with people like this in your
day to day life, any level, we do want to
give a disclaimer. We are going to be discussing some
explicit things, so please be four warns. Um. Yeah, we
(38:44):
there are multiple very specific allegations of violence of sexual abuse. UM.
Bullying really is a misnomer here. I think abuse is
a much more accurate term. Yeah. Some of them include
things like hanging uh cadets out of windows by their ankles. Uh.
(39:08):
There's an account that because of an infraction of some degree,
whether or not keeping your locker need or or perhaps
I think it was talking down or or talking back
to a commanding officer, that a cadet was thrown out
of a third story window. Um. There was an account
of a trench being dug and not being dug deep enough,
(39:31):
and uh the cadet being asked to lay down in
it and then being dog piled on by commanding officers,
one of which who stood on his back jumped on
full force with two ft And finally an account of
a of a male cadet being staked down the article
in the sun first as being pegged down. I guess
(39:51):
that just means tied down, you know, prone on a
field with legs spread. And then uh land rover military
vehicle being event very quickly towards him, uh between you know,
with the tires driving between his leg becoming dangerously close
to you know, hitting him in the genital area. So
(40:14):
there's obviously some um, some pretty heinous things going on there.
There were heinous things going on there at the Deep
Cut Deep Cut barracks. Um. And who's to say, you
know where these kinds of things are occurring in other
places around the world where military training is being was
(40:35):
taking place, or just in other places where there are
young people learning. Uh, you know, we've seen allegations of
all kinds of that type of abuse in colleges and
fraternities across the world. Um. It's rough stuff. It's really
rough stuff, and it has a deep psychological effects on
the people who are experiencing it on both sides. Actually,
(40:59):
so maybe this is a good time to to tell
people what has happened since Yeah, since all of these
events have occurred. Yeah, yeah, we've laid out a number
of the continuing claims here. The military was investigating itself.
It was criticized, and rightly, I mean, how could it
(41:20):
be impartial? The Ministry of Defense at the very least
denied valuable information when it was most needed. And um,
Having waded through so much stuff on this case, I
have to say it's pretty offensive to find that infamous
lack of accountability phrase kept popping up. You know, the
(41:41):
one mistakes were made. Note the beautiful, insidious structure of
the passive voice there. Then someone made a mistake, says
this kind of language, but not anyone specifically, and definitely
not not me the person writing it. Don't make me
responsible for the consequences of my actions. Uh. Look, there's
(42:04):
another important thing I want to hit. So there's a
ballistic expert named Ken Swan. He's independent, was working on
behalf of surviving family members, and he is one of
the reasons that the police have yet to release therefore
subsequent investigations, because he wrote to them and said, look, opinions, opinions,
(42:26):
emotions aside. I did the math. This is my area
of expertise. It is highly unlikely that any of these
four people committed suicide. He's there's an interview with the
Telegraph where he walks through his efforts. He physically went
to deep cut barracks, went to every position where these
four people um encounter these these fatal gunshots, and attempted
(42:50):
to reconstruct the wound patterns. What he found, if it
is true, is damning. He said. We have used some
of the best shots in the British Army in my tests,
but none has been able to recreate the same pattern
at the distances these suicides were supposed to have taken place.
In the case of Sean Benton, the wounding pattern can
(43:11):
only be achieved when firing at a range of fifteen feet.
That does not point to suicide, and the styles on
them just a bit in a quote I really appreciated,
he says. There is always the possibility that I may
be wrong, but I will believe that when someone can
forensically prove that I am wrong. Otherwise I will stand
(43:33):
by my findings. If that's not enough, there's another revelation.
A female private who served at Deep Cut admitted to
police in one of their investigations that she ordered a
colleague to shoot at one of the four soldiers who
are still alleged to have committed suicide. She she said
(43:54):
that she told her colleague to fire at Private Sean
Benton because she thought he had fired at her. That
speaks to how lacks the firearm regulation was in general.
There I believe in her account to the detectives. She says, yeah,
I told him, I told you know, a colleague mind
(44:15):
of fire at Benton, but I wanted him to hit
the legs. Benton, of course, is the one who got
shot five times in the chest. And it's bigger. This
is one of the other important points that we found.
This is bigger than deep Cut. Uh. There are multiple
reports of suspicious deaths in the UK military, non combat deaths, right,
(44:37):
so they're not in the field, they're not in a
armed conflict with an enemy force. Uh. And multiple parents
and loved ones who disagree with the official findings. And
just like the parents of the Deep Cut four, these
relatives are demanding answers, but they are often left unsatisfied
with the results of these investigations. We found two other
(44:58):
deaths that are indirectly linked to Deep Cut. Not saying
this is all like some kind of um Peppe Sylvia situation,
but these deaths were considered part of the Deep Cut
four because they didn't occur on the premises. Yes. Private
David Shipley, twenty years old from Barrow in Furnace, found
(45:21):
unconscious and face down in an assault course pool in
Germany on August seventeen, two thousand two, just days after
he left from deep Cut. Um Private Alison Croft, twenty
two from Bradford was found hanged at Dalton Barracks in Abington,
Oxfordshire in October of two thousand two. And although Croft
(45:43):
had no official connection with deep Cut, officers from the
two barracks often socialized together. Not not to not to
overstate the case as that being some kind of connection
or applying this to some kind of suicide pact or something.
It's just interesting. There's clearly more to the story than
the official investigations have revealed that I think we can
(46:05):
say with some degree of certainty. Yeah, And there are
also other deaths within the military that should be looked
at that aren't necessarily bullying, but perhaps would be considered
extreme tactics of punishment that are doled out sometimes in
these in these areas, these barracks, these facilities. There's one
(46:28):
that you can look to if you'd like, a private
named Gavin Williams who died after experiencing what is called
beasting b e A S t I n G. Where essentially,
as punishment you're made to exercise um beyond the extent
of what any soldier would normally do or any trainee
(46:52):
would normally do UM. And he died as a result
of this. And we have to remember the point I
don't think we hit here that I know all of
our fellow listeners are thinking about during this exploration today.
These are kids, these are these are teenagers. You know,
they're they're putting an environment. Like you mentioned, Matt, that
(47:13):
UM has a lot in common hormonally and socially with
things like fraternities or college days. So there's partying right
and and partying alone and and like everybody who's ever
been that age, uh, I ask you you don't have
to tell us about it, but I ask you to
(47:34):
think back to all the dumb stuff you did as
a kid. Uh? And does that mean does that mean
that you should have died? It doesn't. And and I
think you know, to that point about diving into UM
the full extent of these people's personal lives, I think
sometimes investigation no, you know what, why couch it? I
(47:56):
know sometimes that investigations tend hand use that that information
as a kind of posthumous victim blaming, which is reprehensible.
I mean, that's unclean, but but it happens in multiple
cases far beyond the Deep Cut for I'm I'm interested
in hearing you guys ideas on this UM. I mean,
(48:21):
do you think the UK and the US. I don't
want to be unfair. The UK has a huge problem
with their reports. We were talking about this a little
bit off air. Uh. They have a habit of, like
reports on child abuse rings have a series of inquest
and very formal, official sounding language that lead nowhere, and
(48:44):
the reports disappear and the evidence is gone and they
hope that the news cycle moves on. Do you guys
think that there will be revelations on this Deep Cut
four case or do you think it's going to be,
you know, like Operation you Turee or something can just
consigned to history. I don't know. Well, if you think
(49:04):
about the case of Eryl, she died in and there
was still stuff coming out in UM, but there are
these kinds of inquests that you're describing UM, where it's
a deep background look at what was happening in her
life up into the point when she allegedly committed suicide,
looking at every minute detail of her personal life, the
(49:25):
terrible things that had happened to her, the consequences of
those things, how she dealt with them, how other people
and her family dealt with them, her personal relationships. But
to your point about uh, you know, essentially using that
information to victim blame, which I would say it absolutely
has been seen to function in that way in the past.
(49:45):
I just wonder how you guys would try and prove
that someone committed suicide or not without looking at their
past of you know, possibly self harm, of suffering from depression,
of their personal interpersonal relationships. I don't know how you would,
at least after the fact, especially years after the fact,
how you would be able to prove one way or
(50:08):
the other if it was suicide if you didn't do that.
Did we discuss bend the what you had mentioned afair
about the five gunshot wounds to the chest, the justification
for that that that's the one that blew me away,
and we said we were going to come back to
Sean and his suicide note um and and some of
the weirdness surrounding that scenario. But wasn't it determined that
(50:28):
it was an automatic blasts or something like that, that
that the gun was an automatic mode and so it
shot a spray of bullets. Adam, Yeah, that's correct. That
was the official conclusion of UM one of the internal
inquest or internal UM investigations. Yeah, and it's interesting because
that story too, goes through a couple of different iterations
(50:50):
when you read about it, where there's one version that
says that he fired shots at another UH officer UM,
and then that he was talked down, he was attempted
to be talked down from like, you know, taking his
own life, and then he did it in view of
another officer and UH, it's it's a little like you said, then,
reading these documents can be very little tricky. UM. So
(51:11):
I'm not quite sure if I was, if I'm interpreting
this correctly, but that that's what I what I saw.
I don't know if you guys have had any other
research materials about that case. Well, the only thing I
would bring up here would be potential motive for covering
up a homicide within an army facility like that, UM.
(51:34):
And I think just it's worth a quick discussion here.
Think about the pr blowback that would happen if soldiers
under your care as a commanding officer, you've got let's
say eighty of these UH, these lower ranking soldiers under
your care, you find out that there was a firefight
between a couple of your students. Essentially they're basically students. Uh,
(51:57):
there's a physical firefight between your students and one of
them died being shot five times. Would you, you know,
report that officially, as in the students that I was
meant to be looking after shot at each other and
one of them killed another one, or would you try
(52:17):
to make it look like a suicide. Um. I'm not
not saying, um, that that's definitely what happened. I'm not
saying that that is what would happen. I'm just saying
there is that is a I would say, a possible
motivation to want to make something like that look like
a suicide and officially become a suicide. Yeah. And and
(52:39):
you know that another interesting thing about his cases that
there was a suicide note that was found, but there
there's some inconsistencies with that. And and according to the note,
this is what the note said to sergeant gave again
again that the kind of villainous figure that we've talked about. UM,
I'm sorry for what I'm doing, but I just can't
(53:00):
accept being discharged. I'm too embarrassed to go home, and
I don't want to be on city Street. And I
don't want to have a factory job. I just wanted
a career in the army. I know it's my fault
for things I've done wrong. Only if I got a
week's leave when I applied for things I could have
been it could have been different. I could have calmed
down instead of building problems up and then getting drunk
(53:21):
and bursting into flames. It's terrible to read. So here
we are, and now now we're we passed this to you,
fellow conspiracy realist. What do you think are these tragedies? Yes? Absolutely?
(53:42):
What is there a cover up of foot uh? Do you,
like the parents of of these of these victims believe
that to be the case, or do you think it's
um you know, it's just a matter of tragedy and
perhaps well intentioned incompetence on the part of some investigators,
who are you know, of course themselves human and therefore fallible.
(54:05):
Or are these deaths the results of enormous stress leading
to suicidal acts or some of these deaths homicide? If so,
are these homicides in some way linked? And perhaps most importantly,
what happens next? It's and and none of these have
been solved to you know, universal satisfaction. UM, we would
(54:30):
love to hear your thoughts. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Twitter, you can find us
on the other one Instagram. Sorry, guys, we're conspiracy stuff
on most of those conspiracy stuff showing Instagram. Just mentioning here.
As we said at the top of the show, there
is a ton more that you can dig into with
(54:51):
each one of these people's deaths, and we recommend you
you do that if if you feel so inclined, UM,
and if you find something that you feel needs to
be brought to our attention and the rest of us listening,
please send it our way. One last important note here.
It's something UM we endeavor to include at the end
(55:13):
of any episode dealing with this content. Suicide is real.
It is a real and serious thing. If you or
a loved one are currently quarreling with or combating suicidal ideation,
you are not alone. You are worth it. There are
(55:33):
resources out there specifically for you. We like to recommend
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It is available twenty four
hours a day. Here is the number one eight hundred
two seven three eight to five five. Again, that's one
eight hundred to seven three eight to five. Thanks ben Um.
(55:55):
I think that's that's really important resource to have. Uh,
if anyone out there knows anybody that's going through any
of this stuff, I would also just say just be
a be a resource yourself, if you know. I mean
it's not always a parent, but if you see morning signs,
especially with someone that's very close to you, just check
on people and make sure they're doing okay, and just
just be try your best to be supportive and understand
(56:18):
because sometimes people are suffering in silence and then they
don't want anybody to know. But I think it's more
meaningful than one might realize. Uh, you know when someone
sees you and and really tries to connect in that way. Yeah.
The last thing I would put here is you You
can also go to some meraitans dot org s A
M A R I T A n s dot org
(56:38):
where you can talk to somebody, uh three and six
or five days a year, twenty four hours a day.
If you're in need, call them please. And if you
have thoughts on this episode or any of the topics
covered it it we would like to hear from you.
You don't have to use social media. If that's not
your bag of badgers. We also have a number or
(57:00):
where you can call us twenty four hours a day
and leave a message, especially with information on this or
any other topic. Uh. If the spirit so moves you,
we always like to give our own number out here.
You can call us. Our number is one eight three
three st d w y t K. You can leave
(57:22):
a message. You have three minutes. Anything you want to say,
We're we're here to listen to. If you don't want
to do any of that stuff, you don't want social media,
you don't want to call, but you do want to
send us information, please send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(57:56):
don't want you to know. Is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled deconds. Most importantly, you argue, you are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
It's obvious to everybody listening today, whether or not you
have been in the military, whether or not you have
(00:48):
a friend or a loved one in the arms forces,
that life in any country's military can be brutal and
depending on where you enlist. Training itself, just the just
the training part, just when you're becoming a soldier, can
be especially taxing. It stretches individuals to their mental and
(01:09):
physical limits, and sometimes it pushes them beyond those limits,
with catastrophic consequences to follow. Today's episode is probably best
framed as an introduction to a story that many of
us in the US especially may not know. The reason
(01:30):
I'm stressing that this is an introduction is because there
is so much to this rabbit hole. This is a
warren of rabbit holes. And what we're going to do
in this episode is the same thing we do with
every show. We're going to give you the facts. We're
going to tell you where it gets crazy. But we
do want you to know that there is much much,
(01:53):
much more information out there. And uh, we talked a
little bit about this off air. We consider this an
ongoing case. We'll call it the Deep Cut. Four. Here
are the facts. This story takes place in London, just
(02:13):
outside of London, actually about an hour and a half
drive southwest of the city of London, which is a
place we've talked about before on this show. The city
of London exists within London or Greater London. Uh, that's
a whole episode in itself, but specifically, we're going to
the Deep Cut Barracks. It's known as Princess Royal Barracks
(02:33):
Deep Cut. It's near Camberly, Surrey in England, and before
it was also known as black Down Barracks. Yeah, in
the Royal engineers started to build uh several camps around
this facility. UM. It had originally been used as a
(02:54):
training ground up until the late eighteen hundreds, but it
didn't really have any formalized infrastructure until nineteen hundred UM.
The barracks went through a number of different changes, but
after the story that we're going to dive in today
took place, UM they were scheduled to be torn down
(03:18):
and today you can see these barracks as the home
to the Royal Logistic Core Museum UM, which is a
wing of the of the British Military UM and also
the Royal Logistics Core Band which is where they're based
in Rehearse and the Defense Logistics School is also there
and then twenty five training support regiments. Yeah, back in
(03:41):
twent um, as you were deluded to earlier there, the
UK government announced official plans to close down the operation
and to open the land upon which the compounds stands
for future housing developments. As we record right now, the
current estimates project the barracks will be completely deep commissioned
(04:02):
and become a thing of the past by twenty one.
That means of course that anything that any way that
the physical location could have assisted in the investigation will
be full stop gone by next year. What do we
mean when we say investigation, So in Deep Cut Barracks
(04:27):
between and two thousand and two young trainees began dying
under what we would we would like the most diplomatic
way to put it is mysterious circumstances. They all died
from gunshot wounds, and they were all privates, Jeff Gray, Cheryl,
James Sean Benton, and James Collinson. Their deaths were all
(04:52):
ruled suicides by the military, despite strong and continuing objections
from friends, family members, some government officials, and numerous experts.
We're talking, you know, well journalists as well, but we're
also talking pathologists, ballistics experts, corners and so on. So
(05:13):
as early as two thousand and two, there were calls
for an inquiry, and then um, you know, one of
the big problems, the military was investigating itself, and there
were later police investigations along with reviews of army training procedures.
And then two years later, in two thousand four, the
government announced that a review of the situation occurring at
(05:36):
Deep Cut concluded that the deaths of these four privates
were probably again here we go, probably self inflicted. It's
it's a review that you can read right now. It
was conducted by Nicholas Blake QC. It's available online. Uh,
it's really in depth, very very in depth. One thing
(05:57):
we found in researching this episode is that the new
risk inquiries that have occurred since the time of these
deaths are so filled with information it becomes a bit
difficult to navigate them. But we assure you that it
is worth your time. Uh. This specific one, performed by
Nicholas Blake QC, focused on the problems that were occurring
(06:20):
within the system itself, the organization of the military and
you know, really just the situation at Deep Cut itself
with regards to supervision and what the you know, the
trainees were doing, how they were looked after, and what
they had access to. And I want to add here, uh,
I have spent a lot of time reading some very
(06:43):
you know, very important but very dry reports, and British
legal writing is a different language. I think we were
talking off air and I was saying, British legal writing
warps your mind. But the way it would be written
in your report like this would be something more like
and in depth analysis us of what may accurately be
described as the overall linguistic approach to the articulation of
(07:04):
concepts in the British legal system, conducted by Ben Bull
and PC via Stuff they don't want you to know.
Subcommittee to I Heart Media finds that numerous individuals have
encountered circumstances both delatorious and circuitous, and they're going forward
cognitive function a circumstance they traced to that which could
also be called British legal writing c n XC appendix
for at all, Like this is this written? I feel
(07:26):
like this is written. You know. I don't want to
accuse people of trying to make it um illegible for
the average person, but it's I think they shot themselves
in the foot if they were going for accuracy. Well,
I mean we've read contracts, you know, and and we
we have legal documents that come across our inboxes for
(07:46):
various work things, and they're written pretty pedantic, hard to
understand language that seems a little pointed at times where
it's obviously meant to be. That's why you gotta hire
a lawyer, because you gotta have someone who in the
club who can like decipher this for the lay person.
This is entirely the next level of that. UM I
would I would categorize that writing as maximum formality. Yeah,
(08:11):
And speaking of maximum formality, I have to say, like
for part of the research that I did into this topic.
I watched this great BBC Panorama documentary they've done covered
a lot of interesting stuff over the years, like they
did want on Scientology, that quite enjoyed, and it's just
a great series. It's been around for a long time.
But you know, we're talking about one particular barracks. We're
(08:32):
also talking about the idea of systematic abuse, which is
obviously very poignant right now with the stuff we're going
through in our history as a country and as a
as a human race. But we're not necessarily trying to
damn the entire British military here. We are looking at
a specific case, and the British military will deny that
these things are systematic and that they do try to
(08:54):
root out any quote unquote bad actors in the system. Um.
But you know, for anyone who has certain in the military,
I know it can feel when people who have not
certain in the military are criticizing these structures that it
can feel a little bit like, you know, how where
where do you get off or something? But I I
feel like the there the researches here, the data is here. Um,
(09:15):
maybe not enough to apply it to the whole system,
but it sure makes you think, and I think now
is a great time to to talk about these these deaths.
So let's jump back to that two thousand four review
conducted by Nicholas Blake QC. Within it, there are a
lot of recommendations about what could be done better, perhaps,
but again it's focused squarely on the system itself and
(09:38):
the way the military is organized. UH. If you look
deeply into it, it shows that these four deaths, which
again the report characterizes as self inflicted UH or suicide,
it does say that many have occurred due to a
number of dangerous contributing factors at specifically Deep Cut barracks. Yeah,
there are things like you'll see these observations and then
(10:00):
you'll also see UM, if you if you fast forward
to you know, page three hundred and forty or so,
you'll see things. You'll see recommendations for how these could
be fixed. UH. The problems, according to the QCs report,
QC stands for Queen's Counsel. Think of it like a
super lawyer. The problems are things like lack of control
(10:23):
over access to firearms in the barracks. They were very
loose with that poor supervision, which I think we have
specifics on later in the show, poor accommodation, lack of
discipline and prevalent like Lord of the Fly style bullying,
unofficial punishments, sexual harassment and abuse, running rampant no real
(10:46):
complaint mechanism, which is something we see in a lot
of organizations, honestly and low quality instructors. The review, as
you might imagine, did not satisfy the parents and loved
ones of these four dead trainees, so the police conducted
for other inquiries for subsequent investigations. These have never been
(11:07):
made public. They're there somewhere unless the evidence was destroyed,
which is a possibility, but they've never been made public.
And these parents believe their children did not die from suicide.
They believe their children were murdered and that the UK
government was and is actively covering it up. So why
(11:27):
did they think that? We'll tell you after we're from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. We mentioned the
names here, but um, let's let's explore the specific details
of these these deaths. And also these are the four
(11:48):
known deaths. That doesn't mean there aren't more. So first
we have Jeff Gray, who's from London, seventeen years old.
Um he was found dead with two gunshot wounds to
the head on September seven in teens two thousand one.
It was officially internally ruled like within the military organization,
ruled a suicide. He was on guard duty. And this
(12:10):
is the thing. We talked about this a little bit
off air, and Matt was kind of telling Paul about
the story. Uh, this was a very common kind of well,
I'm gonna call it like a chore or like a duty,
like a thing that everyone was expected to do and
take turns. They were guarding in these wooded areas, the
outskirts of the barracks. Uh, all night long, very sleep deprived. Um,
(12:30):
and it's something that everyone was expected to do. He
was on guard duty. He had left his group to
perform a maneuver they call prowler patrol, where you go
on your own around the outskirts of the you know,
just basically like, yeah, it's the kind of thing you
see in like war movies where someone you know standing
post and then every so often they go and walk
(12:51):
around and make their rounds to make sure no one's
lurking in the bushes or anything. Uh So he did that.
Anecdotal evidence that we've found suggests that someone else. It's
entirely likely, uh, in fact probable, that someone else fired
the shots that ended Jeff's life. Um. There are four
witnesses that have testified to seeing a figure running from
(13:15):
the place where Private Gray's body was found. Um, we've
also found evidence, um in the research that suggests that
someone moved his body. Yeah, and and we're gonna talk
more specifics about this stuff as we go on. For now,
we're just gonna tell you the basic details of of
these individuals. Another young soldier who died was named James Collinson.
(13:40):
He was for Perth. He was also seventeen, like Jeff.
He died on March two from a single gunshot wound
to his head while he was on guard duty. His
body was found near a perimeter fence there at the facility.
And it just should be noted here that several of
(14:00):
the areas of Deep Cup Barracks have these very large
perimeter fences where the guard duty essentially was was performed
near nearer these fences. Then there's the third case. We're
jumping around a little bit in time here, but the
third case is Cheryl James. She's eighteen, she was from
(14:23):
Land Gulf Land and Wales. And she was found dead
from a single gunshot wound to the head on November.
Like those other two cases we've mentioned, she was on
guard duty. Her body was found in the woods nearby
her abandoned post. Yeah, and and Cheryl allegedly was the
(14:46):
target of widespread sexual harassment by commanding officers UM, which
is a culture that we we've seen many many accounts
of being kind of pervasive within Deep cut UM, whether
just in passing or potentially as a tool of control UM.
There are various accounts of this. UH, people denying these allegations,
(15:10):
but I just I think it's important to mention that
there's a lot of UH discussion about these things being
very real by folks who have passed through this facility
over the years. You know, I would also say, each
one of these individuals is their own person. They were
the own protagonists in their story, as we mentioned on
this show a lot, and in some of these inquiries,
(15:31):
the deep background on on these folks. You know, there
are complications in every person's life and that's you know,
one of the major things that was looked at in
these inquiries. So we we again I am stressing we
are just giving you the absolute top down view at
this moment on these people. Yeah. Yeah. The last of
(15:55):
the deep cut four by which we mean the acknowledged
deaths in this ongoing to investigation was Sean Benton. Sean
was twenty years old. He was a local is from Hastings,
East Sussex. Benton died from five gunshot wounds to the
chest after he was also on a guard duty assignment.
(16:19):
After he was also on patrol of the perimeter, and
he was, like some of the other cases, on an
unauthorized solo patrol that's occurred on June nine. As we mentioned,
military the military Internal Investigation quickly and in their mind
definitively said that all four had shot themselves with their
(16:41):
own rifles while on guard duty, although the coroner at
the time recorded a verdict of suicide in only one case. Yeah,
and just just to really quick add a detail to Sean,
he is um I believe correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
But the only one where we actually have a detailed
suicide note that he left behind. There's an article, uh
(17:04):
that it's on the Daily Mail, which you know, I
know it's a little bit of a kind of take
it with a grain of salt of times. But this
is a document that they published that they got ahold of.
It was this, uh, this note where he claimed that
he he was being discharged from the army and that
he couldn't cope with returning to city street life, that
all he ever wanted as a career in the army. Um.
(17:25):
And we'll come back to this. And there's definitely this is,
in my opinion, by far, one of the more unusual
cases of the of the four here. But Sean was
characterizes having had some history of of psychological uh problems, um,
and potentially a history of depression. Um. But we'll we'll
revisit that a little bit. And yet he ended up
(17:47):
with five gunshot wounds to the chest. Right. But also
we we do have we do have what is being
referred to as a suicide note from him, but there's
some problems with that too. Yeah. And each of these,
each of these casesly becomes, i think, uh, its own separate,
distinct morass of conflicting information. Uh. And perhaps the one
(18:10):
thing they have in common is an active cover up.
But uh, it's it's not our jump to it's not
our job to tell you that we just want to
give you the facts of the matter. While while these
events occurred decades ago, right, the multiple reports all indicate that,
regardless of how these young privates died, Deep Cut itself
(18:33):
was in the midst of a desperate and quiet crisis. UM.
We have investigative journalists like Brian Cathcart who have found
that the institution routinely exposed trainees to bullying, sex and
flagrant like ridiculous disregard for rules relating to firearms like
(18:53):
even more UM lack of daisical than a bunch of
buddies who just get shotguns and drinking beer and shooting
at cans with their friends. It was bad. Additionally, the
Ministry of Defense or m O D as will refer
to moving Forward UM, has been accused of withholding, possibly
even destroying evidence related to this case. We've got Jim
(19:17):
Collinson uh forty years old, the father of James UM
compared getting information you know, I mean, think about it
like your child has died under mysterious circumstances. They're not
you know, you know your child. You don't understand how
could they do this? Suicide is such a difficult thing
in that way, and to not get any answers would
(19:37):
just prolong that morning period. And you know, you you
expect that if, if, if the Ministry has nothing to hide,
they would be forthcoming with information about the case. But
apparently it was just not to be. Jim Collinson Um again,
the father of James, said getting information from the m
o D was like getting blood from a stone. Uh.
There's a quote from him saying the m o D
wouldn't come forward and explain what happened to or some
(20:00):
that night. Then three days after his funeral, I phoned
up a senior official at Deep Cut and asked him
how the investigation was going. He replied, one body, one gun,
draw your own conclusion. Yikes. I mean, come on, just
let's have a little bit of bedside manner at the
very least. And that seemed to have been their attitude overall.
(20:23):
James was just just a number. This was this case closed.
You know, it's the same with the police. When they
close a case or close a murder, they don't want
to think about it ever again they have moved on.
There's no empathy, there's no room for empathy in these organizations.
Sometimes it seems uh not to be not to say
that's the case for every officer, but it seems in general,
(20:44):
this whole idea of emotionlessness is is a big part
of the military and these kinds of organizations we've got
another account for. I would just say that if a
police officer dies, the investigation into that death, I would say,
is far more rigorous than the death of a citizen
would be, UM, just because of the resources, internal resources
(21:07):
that would be going into finding out what happened to
a fellow officer. And I think maybe what you're signaling
here is that it feels as though if a member
of the military, any military is killed or dead for
any reason, um, outside of wartime, outside of active engagement,
then it feels as though the most, the most strenuous
(21:32):
things should be done, the most um intense steps should
be taken to find out exactly what happened. And maybe
it seems as though we're not seeing that and did
not see that the banality of evil right most most
uh you know, so with institutions of this size, fiction
(21:53):
often gets it wrong. It's not, as it is so
rarely the case that there is some sort of uh
antagonistic super villain who thinks I am the bad guy
and I am doing evil things. A lot of times,
it's just a person with a very narrowly defined scope
of responsibility. Uh. And these investigations can become normalized. I
(22:16):
see it all the time on this show. It is
disturbing how quickly things become normal. So if you were
investigating certain circumstances of horrible things like deaths, day in
day out, then what becomes the worst event in someone's
entire life for other people becomes a Tuesday, you know.
(22:39):
And and that's not right, but it's it's what happens.
There's desensitization. The parents have been vocal about this for
for decades. Uh. Does James is the father of Cheryl.
James said, he he brought up, like the QC, he
brought up the ongoing problems with the system we're just scribing.
(23:00):
He actually said, we believe the central issue is not
how Cheryl died, but why her death was not thoroughly
investigated at the time. To your point, Matt, he said,
any meaningful investigation into our daughter's death in nineteen was denied.
The Army assumed her death was a suicide. Uh. And
he says there's clear evidence to support that fact. Army
(23:23):
documents that we have in our possession, referred to her
tragic suicide on decept and that's the Army's quote, their
tragic suicide on December fourteenth, nine. And that's one week
before the coroner's court even convened an end quest, meaning
the Army, before like an autopsy or a coroner's investigation occurred.
(23:45):
The Army went ahead and just said it was self inflicted. Yeah,
and you know, I mean we we again with suici EI.
There's so many it's it's obviously really triggering subject for
many people. Um there's a lot that that happens when
something is ruled us to us side. So you know,
for example, if if um uh, someone has an insurance
(24:06):
policy on themselves and they are they can take their
own lives, that's insurance policy doesn't pay out. Not to
say there's any any of that's going into these decisions,
but I'm just saying, is it's a big deal to
rule something a suicide. It means something. Uh So to
just flippidly do that and just say case closed, it
just it feels very irresponsible, And it feels like they're
(24:26):
just looking out for the optics of it and and
and trying to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing as quickly
as possible. Yeah, you know, there there's some stuff I
found about Jeff Gray that I took personally, to be
honest with you, UM and his parents were more explicit.
But we kept finding more to this story. Every every
(24:46):
string we pulled, every puzzle piece we interlocked, led to
another puzzle piece, another string of what appears to be
a tremendously occulted web of ongoing problems here, because, as
James also said that he had on record, there were
no less than five other attempted suicides at Deep Cut
(25:07):
and they just work externally reported. And then you mentioned
earlier the panorama, the panorama video from BBC that that
appears to confirm some of this, right, Yeah, they they
found a document um that lists uh, several additional suicide
(25:28):
attempts unsuccessful suicide attempts. UM. I guess that's what's been
attempt is uh. And it catalogs all of the various
methods that were used by these cadets, including overdosing on
um a, sena, mena fin or paracetamol. Isn't that that's
what they call? It's the same thing, right, so they
call it in the uk UM and also splitting their
own wrists. But in this document there's no there's nothing
(25:51):
that mentions any of the bullying, which I guess maybe
I wouldn't be the appropriate document for that to be listed.
But it just it feels like there's a disconnect here. Uh,
this doesn't feel like something that is normal or should
be accepted. Agreed, And we're gonna get more into the bullying.
Uh as we continue on here what that means and
(26:12):
and what it looks like today even or in the
recent past. Um, But let's move on to Jeff Gray.
His parents, as you said, Ben, have been extremely explicit
in in their statements about their son's death. I have
a quote here. We are of the opinion that there
is a cover up surrounding Jeff's death, and one of
(26:36):
the major reasons for that. There are a lot of
major reasons for that, but I guess one of the
most surface puzzling things. It's something we already talked about
that Jeff was shot twice in the head. We proved
it when the inquest was done into his death. UM.
There is evidence suggesting that Jeff's body was moved after
he was killed, and as we noted, before earlier in
(26:59):
this episode, that there were footsteps heard running away from
the fence in the area where Jeff's body was found,
um that some intruders, some outside people were there that night,
at least one they it seems like they may have
waited over an hour to place Jeff's body in the
area where it was originally found after he was killed elsewhere,
(27:21):
and to put it, to put it plainly, the specific
quote from the parents of Jeff Gray and their statement
is is this, we feel that the army has tried
to make us believe some fairy tale where Jeff shot
himself twice, hid for an hour, climbed over a fence
a couple of times, then laid down and died. And
(27:43):
hearing it presented that way, um, hearing it presented that
way cuts close because that, you know, um, that's what happened.
Like that appears to be the bare bone circumstances of
the sequence of events that occurred from the time he
(28:05):
was alive to the time he was found dead. Now
it's I know a lot of us in the crowd
are especially long time listeners. When you've heard us discuss
allegations of homicide, UH framed a suicide. You you already
know this and we should acknowledge it. People can and have,
and sadly, in the future probably still will commit suicide
(28:26):
via firearm and be able to shoot themselves under some
circumstances more than once, uh, in the head or chest.
But it is it is rare, to say the least.
We're going to examine more of this. We've alluded to
a couple of things we're diving into here. After a
word from our sponsors, give her back, Um, we're gonna
(28:56):
talk a little bit about another inquest that was performed
much later. It was released June third, two thousand and sixteen,
was performed by Brian Barker CBE again Queen's counsel. This
one was a specific in question to the death of
Cheryl James, and we want to talk about some of
(29:17):
the underlying conditions that were happening there at Deep cut Um,
conditions that perhaps set up some of the younger people there,
because again we're talking about teenagers in a lot of
this to young adults. Um, we're just gonna speak about
the environment in which they were existing. So within this
report it was noted that in the field Army, the
(29:41):
usual ratio of corporals, two soldiers or you know, just
higher higher commanding officers to the um to like privates
and to lower ranking soldiers would generally be around one
to eight to one to twelve. So one come er,
twelve officers under that commander, one commander, eight officers under
(30:04):
that commander. And sometimes and they call this in when uh,
when a unit is holding or when it's a holding unit,
so like a unit that's just kind of on standby. Essentially,
it would be one commanding officer to twenty and generally
maximum one to thirty would be appropriate. Um However, at
deep cut, the ratio of a commanding officer to these
(30:28):
lower ranking officers was rarely less than one to eighty
and on occasions up to two hundred. So imagine that
in a teacher student ratios, I think a good way
to look at it. Imagine you can imagine those other
ratios like one teacher to eight to twelve students. I mean,
(30:50):
that would be amazing, That would be very closely learning,
having a lot of one on one act interaction. One
to twenty and thirty is probably about what you would
see in a public school here in the United States,
but one to eighty or two hundred is I just
don't know how there's any real oversight there, and also
(31:11):
like how there's justification for that, you know. It's like sure,
you could say, well, I really like your analogy about schools,
because I do think this is instruction, you know, I mean,
it's not like arts and crafts, but it absolutely is.
It requires instruction and training and the ability to have
a little bit of one on one time to some
degree with individuals. And I know a lot of army
(31:31):
exercises and drills happen on mass so maybe that doesn't apply,
but it's still just seems egregiously out of proportion, especially
when you consider the access to firearms that you're talking about,
and like, you know, the the lack of oversight in
that department. You know, well, din just just didn't even
know what's going on at the barracks at any given time.
And this is so this is a crucial point because
(31:55):
we're a lot of what we're talking about is how
these were initially report it and reports themselves. Investigations inherently
require oversight and supervision, and that just wasn't occurring at
the level it should have been occurring at these barracks.
And it was not an isolated incident. It was not
(32:16):
a one off bad Saturday when two people called out
sick or something. This was ongoing, and it was ongoing
for decades. UH. The environment there has been described by
multiple accounts people who went through the training as dreadful,
as brutal, as cruel, as horrific. Um. I mentioned earlier
(32:40):
that the banality of evil here, which holds true, always
tells us that very few people think of themselves as
an antagonist. Right, Um, everybody's their own main character, everybody's
the hero of the story. Why doesn't the rest of
the world only loved me? I couldn't do anything wrong
by reasons. But if there is a single human face
(33:05):
we could put on this story as what most people
would see as an antagonistic force, it would be one
Sergeant Andrew Gavegan. Yeah, Gavigan comes up time and time again. Um.
He he was. He testified in front of one of
these inquests that took place a little bit later. But
he is someone whose name constantly comes up among people
(33:29):
that have passed through UH this facility. Um, and not
in a positive way at all. In fact, Cheryl James
Father in that panorama documentary. Um spoke of him in
terms of, boy, what I like to be alone in
a room with this guy? Um, I would do what
any father would do. And the reason is there are
(33:50):
a lot of widespread allegations that Uh, not only was
Gavigan kind of the ring master of a lot of
these systematized bullying tactics to dehumanize, allegedly dehumanized and humiliate.
Uh kind of the idea of breaking down, you know,
as a cadet and making them up stronger by breaking
(34:12):
them or whatever, which you know, as we know, it
doesn't always work like that. Uh. He is also accused
of some sexual misconduct with Cheryl Um. The allegation was
that he invited her to these barracks or I'm not
invited if you're you're commanding officer. He ordered her to
these UM barracks in the undercover of night and then
(34:34):
allegedly made some sexual advances. He has denied this multiple times, UM,
as he has characterized some of these bullying techniques as
having been done quote in humor. So do with that
what you will, Ben, You're the one who pointed that
that line out to me, and I was shocked. Yeah.
In eighteen Uh he denied the deep kind abuse. We're
(34:57):
jumping around in time here, but I think the I
want to emphasize just how recent this ongoing investigation is. Uh.
He says some disturbing stuff in this inquest. One of
the things he says that the local news in the
UK latched onto is he did something that a lot
of abusers do, which is gaslighting. Right. And this this
(35:21):
happens anywhere. It's not just something that happens in romantic relationships.
It happens at your job, it happens in your family,
It happens all the time. The predators are out there. Um.
What he did, which gonna tried and true tactic of
abusers or people who have abusive tendencies, is he simultaneously
admitted that he was abusive, there was doing abusive things
(35:44):
while also diminishing and minimizing the valid claims of his victims,
similar to like gas lighting in a way. Uh. He
during this inquest, which is a legal affair, he said
that he would refer to his outburst of temper by
saying that was my twin brother. That was his joke
(36:06):
about it. It wasn't me, it was by twin Uh.
He told the people in the hearing at this inquest
that that it was all a good humor. The twin
brother happened very rarely and it was controlled. But that's
the thing that been um. I can that's what shocked
me and blew me away that he was so brazen
about this in front of an official inquiry. UM, because
(36:29):
it just confirms what the what these reports are about him.
Um by many of these folks again who have passed
through the deep cut barracks, um, this idea of his
twin brother. Um. He was characterized by many of the
folks that I saw in the in the panorama piece
who you know knew him well, um, as being a
(36:52):
split personality, as having this this true Jekyl and Hide
kind of quality where he would just change on a
dime into this other person. Uh. And the fact that
he brought that up himself, I think is is very
very talent and very interesting as to the sense of
like untouchability, you know, being in a position of power
like that, and how he felt. I just want to
(37:13):
point out here that sergeant I don't know how to
pronounce a big Gavigan, it feels. Remember the sergeant Gavigant
was a private at one time. Remember that he probably
went through something very very similar I'm imagining. No, I'm
not trying to humanize him, absolutely not. But what I'm
(37:34):
saying is he went through a system that probably did
exactly what he is trying or was trying to do
to the privates that he was then in charge of
UM And to me, it feels like a system that
would just continue, as we've seen in other systematic abuse situations,
where it becomes a line of people doing what they
(37:58):
know and what they've been trained essentially to do. I
think that's a really good point, Matt. I was I
was hoping, if you guys don't mind, can we talk
a little bit about some of the allegations of some
of the scenarios of systematic abuse and bullying, because I
think we've sort of we've obviously hit on the fact
that that this these allegations took place, but I don't
know that we've we've really gone into any specifics outside
(38:21):
of some of the sexual harassment. For anyone listening, especially
if you are a survivor of abuse, or if you
are having to deal with people like this in your
day to day life, any level, we do want to
give a disclaimer. We are going to be discussing some
explicit things, so please be four warns. Um. Yeah, we
(38:44):
there are multiple very specific allegations of violence of sexual abuse. UM.
Bullying really is a misnomer here. I think abuse is
a much more accurate term. Yeah. Some of them include
things like hanging uh cadets out of windows by their ankles. Uh.
(39:08):
There's an account that because of an infraction of some degree,
whether or not keeping your locker need or or perhaps
I think it was talking down or or talking back
to a commanding officer, that a cadet was thrown out
of a third story window. Um. There was an account
of a trench being dug and not being dug deep enough,
(39:31):
and uh the cadet being asked to lay down in
it and then being dog piled on by commanding officers,
one of which who stood on his back jumped on
full force with two ft And finally an account of
a of a male cadet being staked down the article
in the sun first as being pegged down. I guess
(39:51):
that just means tied down, you know, prone on a
field with legs spread. And then uh land rover military
vehicle being event very quickly towards him, uh between you know,
with the tires driving between his leg becoming dangerously close
to you know, hitting him in the genital area. So
(40:14):
there's obviously some um, some pretty heinous things going on there.
There were heinous things going on there at the Deep
Cut Deep Cut barracks. Um. And who's to say, you
know where these kinds of things are occurring in other
places around the world where military training is being was
(40:35):
taking place, or just in other places where there are
young people learning. Uh, you know, we've seen allegations of
all kinds of that type of abuse in colleges and
fraternities across the world. Um. It's rough stuff. It's really
rough stuff, and it has a deep psychological effects on
the people who are experiencing it on both sides. Actually,
(40:59):
so maybe this is a good time to to tell
people what has happened since Yeah, since all of these
events have occurred. Yeah, yeah, we've laid out a number
of the continuing claims here. The military was investigating itself.
It was criticized, and rightly, I mean, how could it
(41:20):
be impartial? The Ministry of Defense at the very least
denied valuable information when it was most needed. And um,
Having waded through so much stuff on this case, I
have to say it's pretty offensive to find that infamous
lack of accountability phrase kept popping up. You know, the
(41:41):
one mistakes were made. Note the beautiful, insidious structure of
the passive voice there. Then someone made a mistake, says
this kind of language, but not anyone specifically, and definitely
not not me the person writing it. Don't make me
responsible for the consequences of my actions. Uh. Look, there's
(42:04):
another important thing I want to hit. So there's a
ballistic expert named Ken Swan. He's independent, was working on
behalf of surviving family members, and he is one of
the reasons that the police have yet to release therefore
subsequent investigations, because he wrote to them and said, look, opinions, opinions,
(42:26):
emotions aside. I did the math. This is my area
of expertise. It is highly unlikely that any of these
four people committed suicide. He's there's an interview with the
Telegraph where he walks through his efforts. He physically went
to deep cut barracks, went to every position where these
four people um encounter these these fatal gunshots, and attempted
(42:50):
to reconstruct the wound patterns. What he found, if it
is true, is damning. He said. We have used some
of the best shots in the British Army in my tests,
but none has been able to recreate the same pattern
at the distances these suicides were supposed to have taken place.
In the case of Sean Benton, the wounding pattern can
(43:11):
only be achieved when firing at a range of fifteen feet.
That does not point to suicide, and the styles on
them just a bit in a quote I really appreciated,
he says. There is always the possibility that I may
be wrong, but I will believe that when someone can
forensically prove that I am wrong. Otherwise I will stand
(43:33):
by my findings. If that's not enough, there's another revelation.
A female private who served at Deep Cut admitted to
police in one of their investigations that she ordered a
colleague to shoot at one of the four soldiers who
are still alleged to have committed suicide. She she said
(43:54):
that she told her colleague to fire at Private Sean
Benton because she thought he had fired at her. That
speaks to how lacks the firearm regulation was in general.
There I believe in her account to the detectives. She says, yeah,
I told him, I told you know, a colleague mind
(44:15):
of fire at Benton, but I wanted him to hit
the legs. Benton, of course, is the one who got
shot five times in the chest. And it's bigger. This
is one of the other important points that we found.
This is bigger than deep Cut. Uh. There are multiple
reports of suspicious deaths in the UK military, non combat deaths, right,
(44:37):
so they're not in the field, they're not in a
armed conflict with an enemy force. Uh. And multiple parents
and loved ones who disagree with the official findings. And
just like the parents of the Deep Cut four, these
relatives are demanding answers, but they are often left unsatisfied
with the results of these investigations. We found two other
(44:58):
deaths that are indirectly linked to Deep Cut. Not saying
this is all like some kind of um Peppe Sylvia situation,
but these deaths were considered part of the Deep Cut
four because they didn't occur on the premises. Yes. Private
David Shipley, twenty years old from Barrow in Furnace, found
(45:21):
unconscious and face down in an assault course pool in
Germany on August seventeen, two thousand two, just days after
he left from deep Cut. Um Private Alison Croft, twenty
two from Bradford was found hanged at Dalton Barracks in Abington,
Oxfordshire in October of two thousand two. And although Croft
(45:43):
had no official connection with deep Cut, officers from the
two barracks often socialized together. Not not to not to
overstate the case as that being some kind of connection
or applying this to some kind of suicide pact or something.
It's just interesting. There's clearly more to the story than
the official investigations have revealed that I think we can
(46:05):
say with some degree of certainty. Yeah, And there are
also other deaths within the military that should be looked
at that aren't necessarily bullying, but perhaps would be considered
extreme tactics of punishment that are doled out sometimes in
these in these areas, these barracks, these facilities. There's one
(46:28):
that you can look to if you'd like, a private
named Gavin Williams who died after experiencing what is called
beasting b e A S t I n G. Where essentially,
as punishment you're made to exercise um beyond the extent
of what any soldier would normally do or any trainee
(46:52):
would normally do UM. And he died as a result
of this. And we have to remember the point I
don't think we hit here that I know all of
our fellow listeners are thinking about during this exploration today.
These are kids, these are these are teenagers. You know,
they're they're putting an environment. Like you mentioned, Matt, that
(47:13):
UM has a lot in common hormonally and socially with
things like fraternities or college days. So there's partying right
and and partying alone and and like everybody who's ever
been that age, uh, I ask you you don't have
to tell us about it, but I ask you to
(47:34):
think back to all the dumb stuff you did as
a kid. Uh? And does that mean does that mean
that you should have died? It doesn't. And and I
think you know, to that point about diving into UM
the full extent of these people's personal lives, I think
sometimes investigation no, you know what, why couch it? I
(47:56):
know sometimes that investigations tend hand use that that information
as a kind of posthumous victim blaming, which is reprehensible.
I mean, that's unclean, but but it happens in multiple
cases far beyond the Deep Cut for I'm I'm interested
in hearing you guys ideas on this UM. I mean,
(48:21):
do you think the UK and the US. I don't
want to be unfair. The UK has a huge problem
with their reports. We were talking about this a little
bit off air. Uh. They have a habit of, like
reports on child abuse rings have a series of inquest
and very formal, official sounding language that lead nowhere, and
(48:44):
the reports disappear and the evidence is gone and they
hope that the news cycle moves on. Do you guys
think that there will be revelations on this Deep Cut
four case or do you think it's going to be,
you know, like Operation you Turee or something can just
consigned to history. I don't know. Well, if you think
(49:04):
about the case of Eryl, she died in and there
was still stuff coming out in UM, but there are
these kinds of inquests that you're describing UM, where it's
a deep background look at what was happening in her
life up into the point when she allegedly committed suicide,
looking at every minute detail of her personal life, the
(49:25):
terrible things that had happened to her, the consequences of
those things, how she dealt with them, how other people
and her family dealt with them, her personal relationships. But
to your point about uh, you know, essentially using that
information to victim blame, which I would say it absolutely
has been seen to function in that way in the past.
(49:45):
I just wonder how you guys would try and prove
that someone committed suicide or not without looking at their
past of you know, possibly self harm, of suffering from depression,
of their personal interpersonal relationships. I don't know how you would,
at least after the fact, especially years after the fact,
how you would be able to prove one way or
(50:08):
the other if it was suicide if you didn't do that.
Did we discuss bend the what you had mentioned afair
about the five gunshot wounds to the chest, the justification
for that that that's the one that blew me away,
and we said we were going to come back to
Sean and his suicide note um and and some of
the weirdness surrounding that scenario. But wasn't it determined that
(50:28):
it was an automatic blasts or something like that, that
that the gun was an automatic mode and so it
shot a spray of bullets. Adam, Yeah, that's correct. That
was the official conclusion of UM one of the internal
inquest or internal UM investigations. Yeah, and it's interesting because
that story too, goes through a couple of different iterations
(50:50):
when you read about it, where there's one version that
says that he fired shots at another UH officer UM,
and then that he was talked down, he was attempted
to be talked down from like, you know, taking his
own life, and then he did it in view of
another officer and UH, it's it's a little like you said, then,
reading these documents can be very little tricky. UM. So
(51:11):
I'm not quite sure if I was, if I'm interpreting
this correctly, but that that's what I what I saw.
I don't know if you guys have had any other
research materials about that case. Well, the only thing I
would bring up here would be potential motive for covering
up a homicide within an army facility like that, UM.
(51:34):
And I think just it's worth a quick discussion here.
Think about the pr blowback that would happen if soldiers
under your care as a commanding officer, you've got let's
say eighty of these UH, these lower ranking soldiers under
your care, you find out that there was a firefight
between a couple of your students. Essentially they're basically students. Uh,
(51:57):
there's a physical firefight between your students and one of
them died being shot five times. Would you, you know,
report that officially, as in the students that I was
meant to be looking after shot at each other and
one of them killed another one, or would you try
(52:17):
to make it look like a suicide. Um. I'm not
not saying, um, that that's definitely what happened. I'm not
saying that that is what would happen. I'm just saying
there is that is a I would say, a possible
motivation to want to make something like that look like
a suicide and officially become a suicide. Yeah. And and
(52:39):
you know that another interesting thing about his cases that
there was a suicide note that was found, but there
there's some inconsistencies with that. And and according to the note,
this is what the note said to sergeant gave again
again that the kind of villainous figure that we've talked about. UM,
I'm sorry for what I'm doing, but I just can't
(53:00):
accept being discharged. I'm too embarrassed to go home, and
I don't want to be on city Street. And I
don't want to have a factory job. I just wanted
a career in the army. I know it's my fault
for things I've done wrong. Only if I got a
week's leave when I applied for things I could have
been it could have been different. I could have calmed
down instead of building problems up and then getting drunk
(53:21):
and bursting into flames. It's terrible to read. So here
we are, and now now we're we passed this to you,
fellow conspiracy realist. What do you think are these tragedies? Yes? Absolutely?
(53:42):
What is there a cover up of foot uh? Do you,
like the parents of of these of these victims believe
that to be the case, or do you think it's
um you know, it's just a matter of tragedy and
perhaps well intentioned incompetence on the part of some investigators,
who are you know, of course themselves human and therefore fallible.
(54:05):
Or are these deaths the results of enormous stress leading
to suicidal acts or some of these deaths homicide? If so,
are these homicides in some way linked? And perhaps most importantly,
what happens next? It's and and none of these have
been solved to you know, universal satisfaction. UM, we would
(54:30):
love to hear your thoughts. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Twitter, you can find us
on the other one Instagram. Sorry, guys, we're conspiracy stuff
on most of those conspiracy stuff showing Instagram. Just mentioning here.
As we said at the top of the show, there
is a ton more that you can dig into with
(54:51):
each one of these people's deaths, and we recommend you
you do that if if you feel so inclined, UM,
and if you find something that you feel needs to
be brought to our attention and the rest of us listening,
please send it our way. One last important note here.
It's something UM we endeavor to include at the end
(55:13):
of any episode dealing with this content. Suicide is real.
It is a real and serious thing. If you or
a loved one are currently quarreling with or combating suicidal ideation,
you are not alone. You are worth it. There are
(55:33):
resources out there specifically for you. We like to recommend
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It is available twenty four
hours a day. Here is the number one eight hundred
two seven three eight to five five. Again, that's one
eight hundred to seven three eight to five. Thanks ben Um.
(55:55):
I think that's that's really important resource to have. Uh,
if anyone out there knows anybody that's going through any
of this stuff, I would also just say just be
a be a resource yourself, if you know. I mean
it's not always a parent, but if you see morning signs,
especially with someone that's very close to you, just check
on people and make sure they're doing okay, and just
just be try your best to be supportive and understand
(56:18):
because sometimes people are suffering in silence and then they
don't want anybody to know. But I think it's more
meaningful than one might realize. Uh, you know when someone
sees you and and really tries to connect in that way. Yeah.
The last thing I would put here is you You
can also go to some meraitans dot org s A
M A R I T A n s dot org
(56:38):
where you can talk to somebody, uh three and six
or five days a year, twenty four hours a day.
If you're in need, call them please. And if you
have thoughts on this episode or any of the topics
covered it it we would like to hear from you.
You don't have to use social media. If that's not
your bag of badgers. We also have a number or
(57:00):
where you can call us twenty four hours a day
and leave a message, especially with information on this or
any other topic. Uh. If the spirit so moves you,
we always like to give our own number out here.
You can call us. Our number is one eight three
three st d w y t K. You can leave
(57:22):
a message. You have three minutes. Anything you want to say,
We're we're here to listen to. If you don't want
to do any of that stuff, you don't want social media,
you don't want to call, but you do want to
send us information, please send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(57:56):
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