Family hit out after soldier's heatstroke death .

ROLCAM

Family hit out after soldier's heatstroke death blamed on 'obesity'.

A SCOTTISH soldier died of heat-stroke in Iraq partly because he was obese, an army board of inquiry has claimed.

The report into the death of Private Jason Smith, which has provoked fury from his family, said the 32-year-old weighed 112kg (17st) and was 180cm (6ft) tall, giving him a body mass index of 34 and "putting him at the higher level of obese".

He was serving with the Territorial Army in Mysan province in southern Iraq when, on 13 August, 2003, he collapsed and died in a corridor in temperatures of at least 50C.

The report quoted his army health instructor as saying that Pte Smith "would give up when the going got tough". However, the commander under whom he was serving at the time of his death said his physical fitness was no worse than anyone else's.

The branding of Pte Smith as obese has upset his Hawick-based family, who accused the army of blaming him for his own death. Instead, they have pointed to a coroner's findings which are highly critical of the lack of monitoring of acclimatisation for soldiers and lack of risk assessments from heat.

The army's board of inquiry has called for tougher fitness and medical tests for soldiers before they are sent into combat, including the use of "skinfold" callipers to measure body fat.

Obesity assessments were "particularly pertinent when deploying to a very hot country", the inquiry said.

In its report, the army also admitted the accommodation attached to Pte Smith's unit was "of very poor quality with no windows, doors or power... there were no air conditioning or fans available".

Pte Smith also received ten days' acclimatisation training in Kuwait, four days short of the recommended period. But he had already served in Iraq for two months before his death, the report said.

While Pte Smith was certified as ready for battle, Territorial Army soldiers had to run for only half the distance as their regular army colleagues before passing fitness tests, despite being asked to carry out the same operational duties.

Pte Smith's original fitness certificate had also gone missing. There was no record of him having passed a fitness test in 2003, and fellow personnel denied that any pre-deployment training had taken place.

Questions were also raised about the time of his death. Pte Smith was discovered in the corridor, but there is a four-hour discrepancy between the reported time that he was found. He was still conscious, but died later in hospital.

Catherine Smith, Pte Smith's mother, said her son was proud to serve in Iraq and was always going for runs and cycling. She said: "I feel so let down by the army. They are to blame for his death because they made him and the other boys live in unbearably hot conditions without air conditioning and proper medical facilities.

"The boys were dropping like flies from the heat but the army have tried to cover it up. They have tried to blame it on my son and say he was obese. I totally reject this. I am shocked by the way the army and the MoD have treated me."

She accused the Ministry of Defence of hiding investigation reports into his death and of losing his medical records.

Jocelyn Cockburn, of Hodge Jones & Allen, Mrs Smith's solicitor, also accused the MoD of "obstructive and misleading" behaviour, including withholding the inquiry report until after the inquest.

Information was withheld for three-and-a-half years and only handed over after legal action was threatened, she said.

The family is issuing a legal challenge to the inquest.

A spokesman for the MoD said it accepted there had been "administrative errors" which led to the failure to make the entire report available to the next of kin at the inquest. He added that the claim Pte Smith was obese "was not meant to cause offence, it is just a recognised term. The [inquiry] said he was towards the upper category of obese".

The spokesman added: "Health and fitness training is continually reviewed. There are standards TA soldiers are expected to meet."

• STRICT weight limits to screen out the heftiest troops have been relaxed in recent months by the Ministry of Defence.

Men with a body mass index (BMI) higher than 28 had been barred from joining the military.

But the threshold has been raised to 32, two points above the World Health Organisation's definition of "obese".

An inquiry by the National Audit Office found that the armed forces had changed their entry criteria after research found that a third of 16-year-olds would be deemed too overweight.
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Roland Camilleri

Moderator

Sydney , Australia.