SAS march inquest: soldier denies falsifying logbook and timing

Record keeper for Brecon Beacons exercise says he didn’t notice three victims hadn’t moved for up to two hours because he was ‘checking everyone else’


Edward Maher, Craig Roberts and James Dunsby, the army reservists who died during a test march in the Brecon Beacons in July 2013. Photograph: PA

A soldier in charge of tracking the progress of SAS candidates during a test march in which three men died has denied falsifying an official log and providing an incorrect timing in a statement that could allegedly cover up possible delays in the rescue operation.

It also emerged that the soldier’s original logbook detailing the chronology of the day has vanished. He said he thought it would be locked away at the “lead regiment’s” [the SAS’s] headquarters in Hereford.

The inquest of Lance Corporals Edward Maher and Craig Roberts and Corporal James Dunsby has been hearing how the men suffered fatal heat illness as temperatures soared in the Brecon Beacons, south Wales, in July 2013.

It has been claimed the march was not called off despite the heat because

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. Candidates have given vivid accounts of running out of water and having to be helped by civilians.

Giving evidence from behind a screen on Tuesday, a witness identified only as 1C described how he was the record keeper – the “official scribe” – for the exercise and was in charge of monitoring the system designed to track the candidates’ progress.

It has emerged that it was around two hours after Maher’s tracker device showed him to be stationary before it was noticed in the command vehicle staffed by 1C and others. It was around an hour before it was spotted that Roberts was not moving and 40-75 minutes before Dunsby’s lack of progress was noticed.

The Birmingham coroner, Louise Hunt, repeatedly told 1C that he did not have to give answers that could incriminate him. But when she asked him why he had not noticed that Maher had not moved position for around two hours, he said: “I have to check everyone else. I couldn’t concentrate on one specific student.”

The coroner pressed him, telling him it was a “very long time” before he noticed Maher was not moving. He said he had no information from the checkpoints that anyone was struggling and had seen a group of candidates following the same route as Maher on top of a hill. “My attention was drawn elsewhere,” he said. “I focused on everyone. I was checking everyone.”

Hunt asked him if it was acceptable that he had not noticed Maher’s lack of movement. “At the time I was keeping watch on the rest of the students … I believed he was fine.”

He gave a similar answer when asked why he had not initially spotted that Dunsby had stopped moving: “I can’t follow one student.”

By the time Roberts’s “man down” button was activated, 1C had been on duty for nine hours. Asked by the coroner if he was tired, 1C said he had worked longer shifts in “operational environments”.

Hunt asked him about a series of entries in the log relating to the timings some candidates had left at checkpoints. She asked him if the list had been “created after this tragic event to clarify timings”. He insisted they had been made on the day.

Keith Morton QC, representing Dunsby’s father, David, asked 1C: “Were you really monitoring the tracker at all, 1C?” He replied: “Yes, I was.”

The witness said it was 4.40pm when the control team realised Dunsby had not been moving. Morton asked him why, in a statement prepared six days after the tragedy, he had put this timing at 4.10pm. He also asked if the statement time had been made up to given the impression that Dunsby’s lack of progress had been noticed earlier. 1C denied this.

Asked about the original logbook of the incident, 1C said it was held in a secure locker in the “regular unit’s HQ”.

Morton asked 1C if it would surprise him to hear that the original logbook could not be located. Hunt stopped 1C from answering but confirmed that the original log had not been seen by the police or the Health and Safety Executive. She asked 1C where the logbook was. He said: “As far I’m aware it’s kept under lock and key by the hierarchy.”

The inquest continues.