Deepcut: The Army's Shame

How would you describe Deepcut as a camp?

Dreadful.

Discipline was just slowly deteriorating.

What we were expecting was to be treated like proper soldiers,

but we were treat like shit...

from day one.

In the 1990s, thousands of young people came to Deepcut

to learn to be soldiers.

Four of them would die here in mysterious circumstances.

Today, a coroner said one, Cheryl James, had taken her own life.

We know her means of death, obviously,

but those last few minutes leading up to it,

I think, you know, for the rest of our lives,

there will always be a question mark about that.

After 20 years,

recruits are speaking out about a culture of bullying and abuse.

I felt the one hit...

AGONISED YELL

..and broke my fingers.

And that's the last I remember, really, of that.

He came up to me and whispered in my ear,

"I'm going to kill you if you say anything."

I thought, "I'm going to die. I'm going to die."

Because that's what he said he was going to do.

For the first time,

some of them break their silence about sexual abuse.

-TEARFULLY:

-And somebody forced themselves onto me.

I was trying to tell him to stop, but I couldn't

because I was just held down.

I used to watch an advert called "Frank".

It was a mind-blowing video - the dramatics, the sound effects.

I wanted to give something to the country, I wanted to be

proud of the country, I wanted people to be proud of me as well.

I want to be that guy on the telly.

I want to be that guy on the video.

-VOICE-OVER:

-If you want a job with a bit more adventure and excitement, to be Frank, join the army.

In 1995, the new recruits were told to report to

Pirbright training centre in Surrey...

..next-door to the sprawling Deepcut army base.

Here, the mainly teenage recruits would spend their first ten weeks.

They'd learn the basics of army life.

I was...scared,

but excited.

I think, for me, it was quite shocking.

Just it's the first time away from home for any length of time.

I remember standing there with my bag, thinking,

"Have I got enough socks and underpants?

"And who's going to do my washing?"

It was just like, "Wow, I'm here!

"It's just amazing! I'm going to start making friends."

And that was the start of the whole journey

of me being in the British Army.

And then, I remember they would say, "The fun starts tomorrow.

"Get a good night's sleep, get yourself unpacked."

And it was almost a false sense of security because they were

so overwhelmingly nice that you thought, "This isn't too bad."

MILITARY HORN PLAYS

-Who can remember what time you were told?

-Seven o'clock, Sergeant.

You are already late for day one.

-YELLS:

-Do you understand?!

-ALL:

-Yes, Sergeant!

This 1990s footage shows basic training

at another army base, Winchester.

SERGEANTS YELLING

The British Army has always instilled strict discipline

into its recruits.

-Go!

-Get a move on!

What was the regime like?

Um, very strict.

Very, very strict. You did what you were told.

If you start fucking fumbling about,

he will stand there all day and keep asking you more and more questions.

You had to make sure that your locker was clean and tidy,

your bed was made properly with your hospital corners...

Unlock your lockers.

If everything wasn't up to scratch, then you'd get things flung

out of your locker, your bed unmade and sheets chucked on the floor.

If somebody had let the team down then there would be hell to pay.

The usual kind of thing, really,

that you'd expect from joining the army.

-Get a move on!

-All right, what's this fucking orange stuff inside here?

What is it?

Rust! What's rust doing on it?

Corporals and sergeants were the instructors who led the training.

Rust! It's more rust!

So out of ten weapons, I've now got six that work!

The instructors at Pirbright,

they're the ones that'll turn you from a civilian to a soldier.

-Move!

-Clear out, get down!

They're pushing you to your limits,

they're screaming at you, they're shouting at you.

Basically, they're just making your life hell while you're there.

Prepare to move! Go!

Instructors at Pirbright were fantastic.

They were very hard, but fair.

Get changed, now! Let's go!

I can remember every day perfect.

And now, looking back, it was good fun.

It was hard at the time, but good fun.

However, that wasn't everyone's experience.

GUNFIRE

We had to make a shell scrape,

which is basically a shallow trench...

..and ours wasn't done deep enough.

It was...lopsided, basically.

The corporals stood around and basically shouted at us,

said it wasn't good enough and turned around and said,

"Shaw, lay in there!" So I laid in there.

Next thing I know, they all jumped in on top of me...like a bundle.

One of the instructors landed feet first on to Danny Shaw's back,

causing a hairline fracture.

It was really, really, really, really painful.

You know, it was like someone had grabbed hold of my spine

and pulled it out - that's how it felt.

I was upset.

I was trying not to cry, basically. You know?

You're in that environment now, you're a soldier.

You don't cry, you don't cry.

I was the only black female within the troop.

In fact, I was the only black female in the whole squadron.

Go, go, go, go! Go! Come on!

Dawn says she was targeted from the outset.

GUNFIRE

I'd gone to collect my shells from the bullets.

I was told by a lieutenant who had eaten a banana to take

the banana peel and to place it in my pouch, "You monkey."

I then took the banana peel and placed it in my pouch.

I was quite weary.

Um...

Confused.

Um...

But I didn't want to give up. I didn't.

It didn't stop from there, really, from Pirbright.

It carried on from Pirbright to Deepcut, to my unit,

which was the worst time of my...

Gosh...

Yeah.

Um, it didn't stop then.

The word that they used to use was "nigger" -

that was the word.

And it was a word that they all used - "Nigger, nigger" -

and I just didn't understand why that would be a word

that the British Army would use.

They'd made it through their ten weeks basic training.

The recruits were now soldiers.

From Pirbright it was a short move to

the next-door barracks known as Deepcut.

Here, as members of the Royal Logistic Corps,

they'd undertake specialist training.

It got built up to be a place which was full of opportunity

and...a proud place to be.

But once we got there, it was a very different story.

A place where fear was instilled from the very moment

you walked through the gate.

What we were expecting was to be treated like proper soldiers,

to be given the respect that we thought we'd earned

during that ten weeks...

..but we weren't. It was the total opposite.

It was ten times worse than the basic training.

We were basically treat like shit...

from day one.

They did single out a few women, and a few boys as well,

that they didn't like.

There was one quite big incident, where a girl was pulled out

of the parade because she had some hairs on her upper lip

and under her jawline.

They humiliated her in front of everybody

and made her stand there and have a shave.

Julia Bolton was one of the few female non-commissioned officers, or NCOs.

She'd been to Deepcut eight years earlier

and was shocked at what she now found there.

-How would you describe Deepcut as a camp?

-Um...

Dreadful.

It wasn't a happy place.

Discipline was just slowly...

..deteriorating, I would say.

Not just between the NCOs, but with the recruits as well.

-Was it out of control?

-I would say so, yes.

There was a lot of bullying by instructors, that was obvious.

Some of the instructors were thugs,

in particular, Sergeant Gavigan.

Sergeant Gavigan? He was a brute.

He had a split personality.

You heard him before you saw Sergeant Gavigan.

If you saw him coming, you walked the other way.

Some trainees described Sergeant Andrew Gavigan as a role model.

His superiors also praised him for his compassion

and concern for young soldiers.

But those who got on the wrong side of him tell a different story.

There was an incident where Sergeant Gavigan and a female Lance Corporal...

And because I was friends with the female corporal,

Sergeant Gavigan didn't like that.

Dawn had offered to give evidence to support a complaint

the Lance Corporal was making against Sergeant Gavigan.

And because I stuck up for the Lance Corporal, because we were friends,

he came up to me and whispered in my ear,

"I'm going to kill you...

"if you say anything."

At that particular point...

..I became frightened, scared.

I thought, "I'm going to die. I'm going to die."

Because that's what he said that he was going to do.

Andrew Gavigan says he has no recollection of Dawn Benjamin

or this incident.

When he was trying to impose discipline,

Sergeant Gavigan would sometimes tell trainees

they were about to get a visit from his twin brother.

Who I actually thought was another person

because he changed in a split second.

He would go into the building, come back out

seconds later, absolutely red-faced, shouting, screaming, spitting.

He scared the shite out of me.

YELLING

When we were on a basic fitness test doing the mile run, he was in front

with one of the female recruits and he was really encouraging her.

I thought, "That's really good." You know, good example.

And he kept encouraging and encouraging her,

and then suddenly he just stopped and snapped, and the picture I have

in my mind is he didn't physically touch her, but he just

went for her verbally and it looked as though he went purple with rage.

And then he just stopped, and ran off and left her.

When I went back to the squadron, I just mentioned this

in the troop office and they just laughed and said,

"Oh, now you've met his twin brother!"

I didn't want to see it again and I didn't want it to happen to me.

Sergeant Gavigan wasn't the only individual feared by some trainees.

There was a wider culture of brutality at the base.

This is Sean Benton, filmed passing out from basic training.

Nine months later, he was found dead.

I went through training with Sean, me and Sean passed out together.

Sean Benton was from the seaside town of Hastings in East Sussex.

Determined to avoid a dead-end job, he joined the army at 19,

hoping to be a driver.

We were both in and out of trouble

and we just seemed to be drawn together.

There was always a little bit of a swagger.

He'd always have this... I can still see him now

with a smirk on his face, as he had to get the last word in,

even if it had got him into trouble.

More than once, Sean was punished for indiscipline...

..and he seemed to become a target.

I remember him telling me

that people had come into his room wearing respirators...

With a respirator, you can't see who's wearing it.

..and attacked him, basically, not bullied him.

Attacked him.

Beat him.

How can you report something like that?

For all you know, the person you report it to could have been

one of the persons in the room wearing the mask.

It's...

..scary to think that that could be the case.

Sean told his friends about other violent incidents,

including being forced through a first-floor window.

It really got to Sean.

He changed in the short time over at Deepcut

to what he was at Pirbright.

He'd still try and have the last word, but...

He wasn't as bubbly as what he was.

Sorry.

Sean Benton wasn't the only recruit to say he suffered physical abuse.

Dan Griffiths said he was the victim of an attack by an instructor.

He just came straight towards me.

He then... He didn't push me over with his hands,

he just pushed me over with his body.

You could see that he was angry and we didn't know why.

He then stormed back out.

30 seconds or so later, he came back in with a broom handle.

AGONISED YELL

I felt the one hit and broke my fingers.

And then he swung against my head,

and that's the last I remember really of that.

Dan Griffiths lost consciousness, but he says the attack continued.

I then learned that he'd gone into the broom cupboard,

and got the other half of the broom handle and come back in,

and then carried on whilst I was unconscious. He just beat me.

I remember walking to the medical centre in a lot, a lot of pain.

It hurt.

I remember not having the confidence to say what had actually gone on,

so I just said that I fell down the stairs.

After six months,

recruits were committed to at least four years of army life.

They couldn't leave Deepcut without permission and many say

there was no-one in authority they could go to with their problems.

Under intense pressure, some contemplated suicide.

I was getting bullied. It was getting too much for me.

I ended up having a knife, I would take myself to the toilet...

In my mind, I wanted to just end it all.

I just broke down crying.

And I think the person that actually talked me out of it

actually heard me crying.

Because he said, "Who's that in there? Are you all right?

"What's going on?"

All I remember is trying to distract him...

..trying to just get through to him on some level,

just to take his mind away from the place that he was in at the time.

He was saying, "It's not worth it, think of your family.

"Think of your friends."

And...

I think that's what made me realise, you know,

maybe it's not worth doing it.

Were you surprised to find somebody in that state?

Surprised?

Looking back, I'd probably say no

because of the pressure that we were put under.

By June 1995, Sean Benton was on the verge of being

kicked out of the army.

He felt a failure and was desperate

to see the military chaplain, the padre.

When Sean asked to go and see the padre, he was refused to leave camp,

because the Garrison Church is just off camp.

So if you want to leave Deepcut camp,

you had to go and ask permission.

And when he did that, he was told, "No, he's not allowed."

He wasn't who I had finished training with,

he wasn't the same person.

He was down.

In the early morning of June the 9th, 1995,

Sean Benton was found dead, with five gunshot wounds to his body.

I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral.

As a friend, it was horrible.

A short inquest and an army inquiry concluded Sean had killed himself.

There was no investigation as to why he might have done this.

We weren't allowed to speak to anybody about it.

We weren't even allowed to discuss it in phone calls home.

It was as if they were trying to control everything from the inside.

In the spring of 1995,

a new batch of recruits had begun their training,

many with the same high hopes of an army life.

Amongst them was Cheryl James.

Even when she was getting told off, she always smiled.

Most of the time it broke up that episode, whatever was happening.

It brought out the light and people stopped, and it was nice.

And that's how I remember Cheryl now, just always laughing,

always happy.

Keep going!

Jog right down to the end.

I met Cheryl James at Pirbright.

She's got that very infectious smile,

which is evident straight away.

She was just a very, very bubbly girl, right from the word go.

She was proud and I was proud of her,

and she looked very, very smart.

There wasn't a hair out of place.

It was as if to say, "Look at me, mum."

She could have been the poster girl for the army.

They were all sent off to their different camps and things,

and I can remember thinking they were just youngsters, children, really.

And what sort of a soldier was Cheryl?

She was great. She was kind of the glue of our troop, really.

-SOLDIERS:

-Lift up, 2-3-4-5, down, swing!

We spent all our time together and we had some really honest chats...

..and we just really bonded.

On the 27th of November, 1995,

just over a month after her 18th birthday,

Cheryl was on routine duties at the base.

Monday morning, we were both on guard duty.

I was on the front gate, she was on the rear gate,

so we had to report to the guardroom at 6.30.

She was her usual bubbly self.

We were actually stood outside the guardroom chatting

for a while, just laughing,

until one of the sergeants tapped on the glass

and said, "Oi, get a move on."

I was there as soon as the gate that Cheryl was guarding was open.

I spoke to her for a few minutes.

She seemed quite happy.

And then she said to me that she was going

to see her boyfriend the following weekend...

..and then was about it and I left.

I got to about the top of the hill, away from the gate.

GUNSHOT

I heard one single gunshot.

It was close by. It was unusual to hear just one shot.

A few minutes later, the gate was reported unattended

and a Lance Corporal went to investigate.

He saw a camouflage jacket on the ground by some trees.

It was Cheryl's body.

She'd died from a single bullet wound to her head.

The doorbell rang and there was a police officer

and an army officer, both in uniform, standing at the front door.

It's a horrible, horrible feeling.

You're not even part of the universe.

It's just... Everything's swirling around

and you can't... It's intangible.

You can't... Nothing is real.

So many questions and nobody there to answer them.

The policeman went.

-This was a temporary... What sort of army officer was he?

-A local.

Yes, he was just in the sort of...

He'd just been asked to come to the house.

-There was nobody from the camp...

-Nobody from the camp or anybody that...

..either visited or telephoned.

-There was no contact from the camp.

-Nothing at all.

It was all done by the guy who knew nothing,

other than she'd taken her own life.

The army decided that Cheryl had killed herself...

..but an inquest recorded an open verdict,

which raised questions over whether it was a suicide.

My question all these years has been,

if they investigated it as a suicide, doesn't that beg

the question that the evidence must have been overflowing?

Clearly.

But...there wasn't any.

And all of those things became questions that just burned

away then, for years and years.

Cheryl James and Sean Benton's deaths seemed destined

never to be properly investigated.

But seven years on, that changed.

Two more young soldiers, Geoff Gray and James Collinson,

had apparently killed themselves at Deepcut.

The BBC programme Frontline Scotland

linked the deaths for the first time.

'Tonight, we investigate disturbing claims about the climate

'of fear and intimidation at Deepcut.'

It aired the families' questions about why their children had died.

I hold the army totally responsible for Geoff's death.

The army owed Geoff a duty of care

and they failed in that duty of care.

We looked after him 17 years...safely.

The army had him for seven months...

..and he was dead.

The four families were brought together for the first time.

There's Sean Benton -

he was found shot...

..with five bullets to the chest.

My daughter Cheryl died at the same camp in November 1995.

When we first got together,

we clearly had this common bond that all the families had experienced.

And of course...

the context had now become not two deaths 19 weeks apart,

but four deaths and some of them almost seven years apart.

The families believed the army and the police

had failed to investigate the deaths properly.

The parents were questioning whether they really were suicides.

For the army to turn around and say suicide and expect us

to accept it, they're not on.

I mean, we'll go to the ends of the earth to find out

what happened to these kids.

Now under pressure from the families and the media,

Surrey Police began looking at all the Deepcut deaths.

We have absolutely no intention of rushing the investigation.

We'll be as thorough as we possibly can

and it will conclude as and when we feel that we've satisfactorily

gathered as much evidence as is available to us.

Cheryl's family still believe there was a possibility that she

hadn't killed herself,

but they felt the new police inquiry wasn't open to that.

Officers were asking witnesses in the early days of their

investigation, "Why do you think Cheryl James took her own life?"

That was the first question.

And no-one will ever convince me that investigation

was open-minded, ever.

One of the senior officers involved

in the reopened investigations agrees.

I was staggered, I was appalled,

because, to paraphrase it, the tenor of the report, to me,

was, "We know these were suicides,

"will you just get on and prove it, please?"

Surrey Police strongly deny they had a closed mind-set.

After an 18-month investigation, they said there was no

evidence of anyone else being involved in the deaths.

Then details of statements were leaked.

The Deepcut culture became part of a review by a senior lawyer.

A report into the deaths of four young soldiers has highlighted abuse

and institutional failures at the Deepcut army barracks.

Nicholas Blake QC recommended independent scrutiny of army life.

An armed forces ombudsman should be appointed...

..independent, that is to say, of the military units.

The report also criticised a culture of bullying at Deepcut,

but stopped short of saying it had played a part in any of the deaths.

It fuelled the families' demands for a public inquiry.

There's never been a meaningful inquiry into all of those allegations.

There's never been a meaningful inquiry regarding

the culture of the camp.

How did it happen?

When did it happen? How long did it last?

None of that's been answered.

Clearly, nobody has been made accountable for the culture

that pervaded that camp and was allowed to pervade the camp.

There's not been one person.

For Cheryl James's family,

all that was left was to campaign for a fresh inquest.

In February this year, that finally began.

What the family wanted was a public examination of all

the evidence and a verdict that they could have confidence in.

We felt that the only thing we could do was gather all the evidence

that was out there and it is some consolation,

that at the end of the process, you can say to yourself,

"Well, you know, we've done everything we possibly could."

The inquest focused on Cheryl's state of mind before her death.

The court heard she'd been trying to choose between

two soldier boyfriends and that other trainees had been critical

over the way she was treating the two men.

It also looked at whether bullying was a factor in her death.

Dan Griffiths gave evidence about something he says

he witnessed some time before Cheryl died.

I saw Cheryl one night, as I came from the NAAFI.

ANGRY SHOUTING

I heard a lot of shouting and I thought, "That's a bit strange."

This is at night-time.

It was very close, but very loud.

And so I popped my head round to see what was going on.

Straightaway, I knew I shouldn't have been there.

It was... Sergeant Gavigan was shouting at Cheryl.

She looked very scared. She had her back up against the wall.

He was only a couple of feet from her,

he was shouting at her very loud. She was very upset, she was crying.

I decided to wait there for Cheryl.

And when she came back round the corner,

I just mentioned, "What was all that about?"

Straightaway, she said to me, "You're better off not knowing."

At the inquest, Sergeant Gavigan

was asked about his relationship with Cheryl James.

He denied knowing her, or that he'd reduced her to tears.

He was also questioned about his behaviour more generally.

Were you aware that many of the recruits were petrified of you?

No.

There was two sides of me.

There was my natural side - my caring, my supportive side -

and that's how I'd always, throughout my army career,

managed and led people.

Sergeant Gavigan denies that he abused or mistreated trainees.

He says he only needed to shout at them sometimes

because there was only one of him and up to 300 of them.

So, at times, I would have to be verbal

and I would have to conduct myself in a way that was

different from how I would like to have conducted myself.

The allegations against Sergeant Gavigan only relate to bullying.

Cheryl's family also wanted the inquest to investigate

whether there was sexual abuse.

Jane Warboys gave evidence about something that happened

to Cheryl while she was on a driving course.

I could see straightaway that there was something wrong with her.

She was visibly shaken and upset even then.

It was just this one sergeant who locked her in the office

and I think he wanted to have sex with her,

and she was describing a situation

where she was running around the desk to get away from him.

The inquest heard from over 100 witnesses.

Crucially for the James family,

other soldiers' evidence their lawyer wanted to introduce,

including allegations of rape, was excluded.

The coroner said it wasn't a public inquiry.

We made submissions to the coroner

because there were some concerns that there were patterns

of behaviour, or other incidents described,

which could be relevant to issues affecting Cheryl

and, unfortunately, the coroner decided that that was not

going to be a suitable subject for his investigation.

But now soldiers have come forward to speak

publicly for the first time about what they suffered.

Alison was 17 when she joined up.

She's asked us to conceal her identity.

She says that, during basic training,

non-commissioned officers, NCOs,

bragged to her about sleeping with trainees.

The NCOs that were there at the time, I mean,

they were quite predatory in their pursuit of young recruits.

I was told, at my passing out parade,

two of the NSC told me

that I'd be having sex with them in my formal dresswear...on that day.

It was...

..apparently more special because I was a virgin

and it was a bit of a challenge.

For some instructors, it was more than just talk.

They were prepared to force themselves on unwilling victims.

Alison was escorted to a superior's office,

where she says she was, in effect, blackmailed.

They knew that I'd started a relationship with

a girl in my troop.

I was just taken down to his room.

He explained as well the fact that

if I didn't go through with what was going to happen in the room

then the girl that I'd started the relationship with,

she wouldn't pass out and neither would I.

Can you just explain what he did do?

He...

fingered me.

-He put his fingers inside you?

-Mm-hm.

And then he told me he'd been waiting for that for a long time.

-Did you...ever think, "I've got to tell somebody about this"?

-No.

No, I did not.

And why was that?

Because who would listen?

This wasn't an isolated incident.

Gillian was another teenage recruit.

We've disguised her appearance.

I was just... Just turned 17 the November before...

..and I was quite shy and quite sexually inexperienced.

The day of the passing out parade was exciting.

I was really proud that I'd finished my training.

My sisters and my parents were going to be there to watch me.

Everybody was excited.

A corporal who was one of my instructors asked me

to go back to the female accommodation,

so I went back and walked into the female room.

And he wasn't there.

And he called me from the shower room...

..and so I went into the shower room.

And he pushed me up against the wall...

..and he started kissing me.

And then he put his hand up my skirt,

and into my tights and into my knickers,

and he put his fingers inside me.

And with his other hand,

started fondling my breasts through my shirt.

-Did you attempt to fight him off?

-No.

One thing I'd learnt from training was that you don't talk back

to your NCOs...

..and you don't fight back.

The next thing I can remember is going back to see my parents...

..and everyone asking me where I'd been...

..and I told them I'd just been to collect my bags.

Halt!

The inquest didn't examine evidence of sexual assaults on young soldiers.

However, it did look at problems in the Deepcut chain of command -

this included sexual misconduct by a senior figure at the base.

This is Stephen Buchanan.

In 1995, he held one of the most important posts at Deepcut -

he was the Regimental Sergeant Major.

There was talk about...

..girls going up to Sergeant Major Buchanan's

room in the Sergeants' mess

and inappropriate behaviour at various dos.

There was definite feeling that he was over-stepping the mark

with his authority.

In the summer of 1995,

Sergeant Major Buchanan had drunken sex with a female private.

He would later claim he didn't know she was a soldier.

Rumours began to circulate and, by the Autumn, he'd lost

his commanders' confidence and was transferred to Catterick Garrison.

It's now emerged there were also question marks over

the calibre of some of Deepcut's other non-commissioned officers.

A lot of them were actually put there

because no-one else wanted them.

It sort of had a bit of a reputation of being a dumping ground to

get rid of unwanted NCOs.

In 1996, a new senior instructor, Leslie Skinner, arrived at Deepcut.

We were introduced to him as "Staff Skinner."

We were to address him as Staff Skinner.

He seemed a plausible guy, nice guy, full of stories,

and we thought he was just one of the lads.

In fact, Leslie Skinner wasn't a staff sergeant.

Two months earlier, he'd been court-marshalled for indecently

exposing himself to a teenager while serving in Northern Ireland.

He'd been demoted to the rank of private.

He'd often turn up, sit and have a drink with us,

which was fine, he'd have a laugh.

We didn't think anything unusual of him.

One evening just before Christmas,

Mark Harrison was alone in his room.

Skinner came in.

I thought he was just coming in to have a chat and stuff.

Then he just, out of the blue, out of nowhere, he just pounced on me.

He grabbed me by the back of my neck and

...was trying to kiss me, basically.

I tried to pull away, but he just held me harder

and...you know, quite, it was hurting quite a bit.

Erm...

And I was shaking at this point. I didn't know what to do.

You know, there's this guy in my room doing this.

You know, what was I to do?

You know, I didn't know whether to hit him and run or what.

There was all sorts going through my mind.

He told me to get dressed

and that we were to go to his room at the other side of the camp...

..which I felt might have been a bit of an escape route

because I thought, well, hopefully, I might see somebody on the way.

But that didn't happen, unfortunately,

and...

That's when we...we went up to his room.

And...that's where he abused me.

What did he do to you?

Erm...

Well, he...

-It's hard saying this on camera, isn't it?

-Did he rape you?

Yeah. Yeah.

What happened after that?

He told me to get out.

And...

..I just grabbed all my stuff and ran.

Erm...

Basically, just got in the shower for a couple of hours.

And I couldn't think of a way out...

..so I decided to...

..carry on - go and do my guard shift...

..the next morning.

And...

..but that's when it happened again, the following night.

I didn't tell anybody.

I didn't trust anyone in authority.

It were just easier to brush it under the carpet,

for me, and carry on.

Subconsciously, you...you destroy yourself inside.

And, ultimately, it led to me...

..trying to take my own life.

You know, it wasn't a cry for help, you know? I didn't...

I didn't want to be here.

I couldn't live with...

with what he'd done to me.

How do you feel now, 20 years on?

I'm furious with the...with the Army.

You know, he didn't start this at Deepcut.

To be put into an environment with vulnerable...

..kids, basically...

to, to do what he wanted.

The powers that be knew...

and protected him, and that's what I'm very angry about.

In 2004, Leslie Skinner was given four and a half years in prison

for sexually assaulting young soldiers.

A charge of rape was left to lie on file.

The Army has accepted that, at Deepcut, there was

a morally chaotic environment,

with an abuse and misuse of power.

Today, at the Cheryl James inquest,

the coroner ruled that it was Cheryl who inflicted the fatal shot

and that she had intended to die.

He was critical of the regime at Deepcut

and the fact that Cheryl was placed on lone guard duty,

which was a breach of Army regulations.

He could find no evidence of any motive

as to why she might have killed herself.

He ruled out sexual abuse in her case,

but he did focus on a "sexualised" atmosphere at Deepcut.

We've found that, in this sexualised atmosphere,

young soldiers were subjected to violent sexual assaults,

including rape.

Suzanne was another young woman

entrusted to the care of the British Army.

I switched the light off and I got into bed...

..and I was, like, half asleep.

Then the next thing...

I was getting held

and I felt something being put over me head...

and I couldn't breathe, and I started getting punched at first,

and I was getting held down.

-SOBBING:

-There was more than one. I can't say whether there was...

I know there was definitely two.

And then I was...

forced on.

And it just seemed to last for ages and I couldn't breathe.

I tried to fight at first, get them off me, but I couldn't...

..and it just seemed to last for ages...

..and I didn't want them to.

I was trying to tell them to stop, to stop,

but I couldn't cos I was just held down.

I didn't tell anyone -

I was too frightened to.

I was just scared cos I didn't know who it was,

and you couldn't talk to anyone.

I could've be going to tell somebody who'd been in that room.

I still haven't been able to talk about it for the last 20 years.

At Cheryl James' inquest, the Army finally apologised to her parents

for failures at the camp that could have contributed to her death.

Today, her family describe Deepcut

as having a toxic and horrible environment for a young woman.

I think there is still

an enormous problem with sexualised culture within the Army

and you don't just see that in these stories that come out of Deepcut.

You still hear those stories today.

This sexualised culture remains an entrenched

and a very, very difficult problem for the Army.

The Army says its culture is changing,

but admits there's still some way to go.

No Army spokesperson would appear in this programme.

However, in a statement, the Army said one of its highest priorities

was to treat all soldiers with respect.

It also says it's addressed many issues relating to

the welfare of recruits,

and that all training sites are now inspected by Ofsted

and are rated either good or excellent.

In the space of seven years, four young people died at Deepcut...

..but we cannot know the full extent of bullying

and sexual assault at the base or other Army facilities.

I just don't want it to happen to any other young people.

You know, because I'm a mother myself now.

I just feel like, if I don't tell everything that went on there,

it's just going to go on and on and on, you know?

And I've got to the age, now, where I just want a normal life, you know?

I don't want to keep reliving it.

Something has to be done, that a camp was allowed to descend into

a culture where these things could occur -

not just the deaths, but...

a culture where so many of these very serious allegations

have been brought to light.

I'm sure there are lots of decent, good people in the Army,

who would want to have this, you know, sorted because...

..it's like a bad apple - it really can't be left.

It's a sentiment echoed by the survivors.

People should be held to account

and if by me doing this...

..which was a big step for me to take,

and I haven't taken it lightly...

this...I'm hoping that the powers that be...

..decide that there needs to be a public enquiry

into the establishment of Deepcut Army barracks...

..because there was a lot more gone on there than people know about.