THE weekend before the Commons Defence Select Committee started its investigation into the Ministry of Defence’s duty of care to members of the Armed Forces last month, a black cab turned up unannounced at the house of Geoff Gray. His 17-year-old son, also called Geoff, is one of four young soldiers since 1995 to have died in mysterious circumstances at Deepcut barracks in Surrey. On the back seat of the taxi lay a hefty file detailing 173 shocking new allegations about conduct at the barracks, including gang rape, bullying and sexual harassment.

“It is a classic illustration of why there should be a public inquiry,” Gray says. The allegations were contained in supposedly confidential annexes to a report compiled by Surrey Police. “It’s appalling that documents like this come out in that way and just as appalling that the Ministry of Defence won’t sit down and talk to us about them.” Ministers have announced a fresh review of allegations of abuse and bullying at the barracks but they stopped short of a public inquiry as demanded by families and MPs. Gray rejects the new review and accuses the MoD of “a mixture of cock-up and cover-up” that warrants an inquiry.

Many lawyers specialising in claims against the Armed Forces share Mr Gray’s frustration. “Battling with the MoD for disclosure is like trying to grab water,” says John Cooper, a barrister at 25 Bedford Row, who is acting for the Deepcut families. “It slips through your fingers every time that you make a request and you struggle to get the co-operation that you’d expect from an opponent in litigation. There seems to be a culture of secrecy.”

It is an observation that Cooper reckons is borne out by other prominent cases that he is working on. He is advising the families of Gordon Gentle, 19, who was killed when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Basra in June, and Andrew Craw, 21, who died as he tried to unjam his gun at a firing range near Basra in January last year.

Other lawyers are even more outspoken. “It’s hard to tell where incompetence ends and deliberate obstruction sets in,” says John Mackenzie, a solicitor who specialises in claims against the MoD. What tends to go wrong? Army files go missing, there is a reluctance to disclose, and a widespread disregard for the civil procedure rules, he claims. Mackenzie is engaged in the court martial of a Grenadier Guardsman accused of assaulting three female recruits at a training centre next to Deepcut and has encountered problems obtaining all the evidence from the Army. “The MoD will do anything to keep at bay the hordes of lawyers representing people who want to make claims,” he says.

The military defends its reputation. “We make every effort to co-operate and work with opposing lawyers and we fulfil the disclosure requirements under the civil procedure rules and comply with any court order on disclosure,” an MoD spokeswoman says. She points to the class action by 2,000 former servicemen and women for psychiatric injuries resulting from the stress of combat that ended last year. In that case the MoD disclosed 36,000 documents. Last year the National Audit Office, in its report into the cost of compensation claims against the Armed Forces, surveyed lawyers and found that more than three quarters considered the MoD to be as good as, or better than, other organisations to bring a claim against.

Geraldine McCool, a partner with McCool Patterson Hemsi & Co, specialises in claims against the military. Yes, there are “major problems” with disclosure but she believes that the MoD is “more efficient and conciliatory than many other major defendants”. However, McCool is having problems with disclosure in her latest controversial cases. She is fighting the MoD on behalf of the family of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who became the first casualty of the war in Iraq when he was shot while trying to quell a riot in Basra. He had been told to hand back his flak jacket because there were not enough to go round.

Generally, cases against the MoD are dealt with by the insurer Royal & SunAlliance. “But Iraq is so sensitive that they have taken the cases back in-house and what I get from them is a one-line response about ‘combat immunity’ and I have to write back pointing out that that isn’t the end of their obligations,” McCool says. The Roberts case was “blue on blue”, she says. “It was our guys who shot him — there was no enemy around.”

After a number of attempts, McCool has now been contacted by Jef Mitchell, chief claims officer at the MoD, and compensation is to be paid. However, she is representing 25 families of servicemen based in Iraq with similar claims, and the concerns remain.

Cooper believes that the old culture surrounding the Forces of “unassailable supremacy and secrecy” is increasingly being challenged. “In dealing with the MoD one is coming up against an organisation that is bred on a culture of secrecy and makes litigation involving the military a war of attrition.”

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