Tom Sawyer and Danny Winters

In the circumstances it is my statutory to report to you: _ Radio Equipment During the course of the investigation had access to hand written radio There were essentially 2 radio nets of interest in relation to the investigation of this incident;, firstly the BATTLE GROUP NET in respect of which had some of the logs secondly the FIRESNET in respect of which no logs materialised despite efforts to locate them and this even included attempts during the course of the final Inquest hearing: As indicated in Court find it hard to understand that in the 21st Century that there is still a huge amount of dependence o hand written radio logs in respect of which "Coms" are recorded subject to the judgement of that particular signaller relative to the skills of that signaller in recognising what is relevant and what is not One of the objectives of a Coronial Inquest where especially Article 2 is engaged, as was the case in this Inquest; is to consider matters with a view to the prevention of future deaths and of course this is an area which overlaps between my Coronial function and that of a Service Inquiry. The absence of recordsllogs in relation to the FIRESNET in my view was not helpful in getting to the bottom of what went wrong especially as regards the communication between Tom, as a Forward Artillery Observer with Zulu Company, and his Danish counterpart Soldier /". found that on a balance of probabilities that something a step away from express instruction to fire was said by Tom to Soldier which was then mutated when he relayed the signal to his colleague Soldier A, located on the rooftop of the compound providing over the watch where of cause the Javelin detachment which fired the Javelin missile was located. It was Soldier A who gave the order to fire. found on the balance of probabilities that there was ineffective communication between Soldier and Soldier A; Investigating such matters requires the best evidence available and as regards current technology am surprised that there is not the ability at leastat one end of the radio communications network to for example, securely digitally record the encrypted signals along the lines of say cockpit voice recorder, For security reasons such recordings could then be decrypted and made_ available to any subsequent investigation that needs to be carried out; Tel 01722 438900 Fax 01722 332223 key duty logs. and fully appreciate that such a system may not be appropriate for those actually on the ground for reasons of additional weight but it was clear to me that communications were monitored back at the Forward Operating Bases and that perhaps may be location where communications monitored/relayed could be recorded at the same time It may be the case that technology would allow some form of recording say on a 2 hour loop o equipment given to soldiers on the ground but as said earlier am conscious of the amount of weight soldiers on the ground have to carry in respect of their combat kit and weapon: It is worth noting that Tom and Danny's respective families were also concerned as regards the absence of FIRESNET logs. Monitoring of the BATTLE GROUP NET in such a way would have also been helpful although there were some logs in relation to communications over this net; The benefit of having accurate records of communications bolsters the integrity and thoroughness of any investigation and may have highlighted matters warranting further consideration with the view to the prevention of future deaths. am sure that such system would be beneficial to future investigations aimed at the prevention of future deaths_