Hearing into Haverfordwest soldier's death in Iraq postponed

Corporal Desmond Joel Duckett, 36, form Haverfordwest, died while serving in Iraq on January 29 last year.

Pembrokeshire Coroner, Paul Bennett, held a pre inquest hearing into the circumstances surrounding his death today, Thursday, March 30.

Members of the MoD and members of Cpl Duckett’s family attended the hearing on March 30.

Pembrokeshire Coroner, Paul Bennet heard that a preliminary investigation had been completed by the MoD within the last week.

The matter has now been passed to the service enquiry division of the MoD. Mr Bennett heard that the time scale on when the next report would be completed and available was not yet known.

Sergeant Young, representing the MoD, said that he was ‘not privy to that information’ but would make email enquiries to try and establish a time frame.

Mr Bennett said that it would not be possible to make any more progress in the hearing until the reports were ready.

“The question of disclosure is entirely in the remit of the MoD,” he said. “Until such time as they present me with a schedule of disclosure or non-disclosure we are not going to make any substantial progress.”

Mr Bennet said that the family also needed to have an expectation of the time scale as to when the reports would be available. He asked that it be looked into within the next 24 hours and that 'some meaningful response' be produced.

He said that he would review the matter once he had the responses form the MoD and would hold another pre -inquest hearing as soon as it was possible to do so.

He extended he condolences to Cpl Duckett’s family for their tragic loss and apologised that the ‘inquest process is going to be somewhat protracted’.

“I will ensure that matters can progress as quickly as we can reasonably do so,” he said.

“I will review matters once I have a response from the MoD and keep the interested parties on both sides appropriately informed.”