Moving tributes to ‘impeccable soldier’

AN INQUEST on Monday heard how a 20-year old Luton soldier died during an Army training exercise in Germany.

Private Scott James Mugridge of the Royal Anglian Regiment’s 2nd Battalion was thrown from an armoured vehicle in an accident in Bavaria on April 14 2008 and later died at Regensburg University Hospital.

Coroner David Morris recorded a verdict of death caused by multiple injuries, sustained in an armoured vehicle incident during the course of military exercise.

Colonel Simon Brown, one of the military personnel giving evidence, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Scott. He was an impeccable soldier, a man with great humility and an excellent sense of humour. No matter what rank you were he had the ability to make your life better. On the day he died I saw grown men crying, battle-hardened soldiers. Scott was a fantastic soldier, the reason he was doing that job was because he was the finest man to do it and I cannot have asked for anyhing more of him.”

For the training exercise Private Mugridge was the gunner for a Mastiff 1.5 – a heavily armoured, 27 tonne vehicle, which was travelling in convoy at no more than 40kph.

The court heard that the vehicle had two seats in the cockpit for the driver and driver’s assistant and seven seats in the back for other soldiers, one of which was a seat for the gunner.

However, due to stretched resources there were not enough vehicles for the training exercise so three extra men were put in Private Mugridge’s vehicle, two sitting on the floor and one in the gunner’s seat.

When the Mastiff began to descend a steep hill, it seemed to slip and then rolled over one or more times, landing on its roof.

Private Mugridge was thrown out of the vehicle via the turret where he had been standing as the gunner.

A second man, Private Mitchell Farley from Leighton Buzzard, was also thrown from the vehicle and suffered serious injuries.

The court heard that none of the soldiers were wearing seat belts, because they would not fit due to all the equipment they were wearing.

Captain George Wyndam, who was in the vehicle, said: “Private Johnston sat in the gangway to the cockpit, Private Farley to the right of the vehicle where radios would have gone. We could all sit down, even if not in a designated seat. We were shoulder-to-shoulder.”

Captain Wyndam described how the intercom for the vehicles wasn’t working and they had to shout communications.

He said: “You get what you are given and you have to make best do with the resources you have got.”

The court also heard that none of those involved in the training exercise in the Mastiff had been taught the ‘drop down drills’ they should have used. Sergeant Major Darren Hugill, who was not involved in the accident but works with Army vehicles, said: “The gunner is the most vulnerable and they are the one that would be carrying out drop down drills, but if you don’t know to carry them out you wouldn’t.”

He said that even if Private Mugridge had not been able to put a seatbelt on, if there had been a seat for him to get into when the Mastiff started to roll, it would probably have prevented him from going out of the turret.

The driver of the Mastiff, Thomas Wedge, told the court that although he had been on the standard eight-ten day training course, he felt he could have benefitted from more training before operating the Mastiff.

Major Peter Smith said he also needed more training before operating the vehicles, and that army resources were stretched.

He said: “I did not appreciate how complex they were. We all thought they were like any other armoured truck. They are not. They require a considerable amount of training. I had no idea that we were meant to leave a seat for the gunner. I hadn’t had enough training but what choice did we have? At the time the situation in Iraq was complex. we didn’t know what we were going to be doing and we had to prepare.”

Private Mugridge, who lived in Farley Hill, signed up to the Army when he was 18 and had seen frontline service in Iraq.

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