The Army has said it "deeply regrets" the death of a young Paisley soldier who was shot during a live-firing exercise, following the publication of an official report.
Private Conor McPherson, 24, from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, died after suffering a head wound at the Otterburn Training Area in Northumberland at around 11pm on Monday August 22 last year.
A probe into the incident has identified eight "contributory factors" that made the accident more likely to happen that night, including a lack of effective supervision of the soldier who fired the shot.
READ MORE: Father of soldier Josh Hoole who died on fitness test calls for inquest to be re-opened
It has issued a series of recommendations aimed at reducing the likelihood of a similar accident reoccurring, which the Army is now said to be considering carefully.
Army spokesman Colonel Jim Taylor said: "The Army deeply regrets the death of Private Conor McPherson. What happened that night in Otterburn on August 22 2016 was a terrible, terrible tragedy."
A Ministry of Defence (MoD) service inquiry (SI) into the death was carried out by the Defence Safety Authority (DSA).
It found that Pte McPherson received a fatal gunshot wound at 10.57pm that night.
People on the range ran to assist - giving him CPR, tending to the wound and calling the emergency services.
He was later pronounced dead at the scene by a paramedic.
"It was confirmed by post-mortem that Pte McPherson received an unsurvivable injury, which was entirely consistent with a gunshot wound," the report stated.
The investigating panel said it is highly likely a solder named only as "firer 2" - a private who had been in the military for five and a half years - misidentified Pte McPherson as a target and fired the fatal round. This was identified as the "causal factor" in the death.
READ MORE: Father of soldier Josh Hoole who died on fitness test calls for inquest to be re-opened
Referring to the hour leading up to the incident, the report noted: "Due to the limited light levels and lack of experience of firing at night, the firers kept falling over and struggled to identify the targets. Some firers were surprised as they had expected illumination to aid in the identification of the targets."
In its 82-page report, the investigating panel set out eight "contributory factors" in the accident, defined as factors which made the accident more likely to happen.
"The panel concludes that the lack of effective supervision of firer 2 was a contributory factor in the accident," it stated.
It also highlighted the lack of a walk-through of the range, the "inexperience" of safety supervisors during the night exercise and some soldiers' lack of experience of night firing without illumination.
It further set out 13 other factors which, whilst they played no part in the accident in question, are noteworthy in that they could contribute to a future accident.
Writing in the report, Lieutenant General Richard Felton, director general of the DSA, said: "Private Conor McPherson a member of 3 Platoon, A Company, 3 SCOTS was killed during what should have been a fairly routine live-firing night exercise. The fire team (FT) level training he was conducting was early in an infantry unit's training progression and at the lower end of complexity.
"This perhaps makes his death even more tragic, but equally serves as a reminder of the unique dangers inherent in conducting realistic military training."
He also questioned why the company had been involved in an 18-hour day.
"The panel did not identify fatigue as a factor, but I question why such a long and busy day was necessary," he said.
READ MORE: Father of soldier Josh Hoole who died on fitness test calls for inquest to be re-opened
Responding to the report, Mr Taylor, of HQ Field Army, training branch, said: "Live firing at night is inherently risky but we have to do it to be combat ready. We welcome this service inquiry; it has done outstanding work to identify what went wrong.
"In particular, their reconstruction of the events that night has been invaluable in helping us identify what caused the accident and the factors which contributed to it. We are now carefully considering its recommendations.
"We care about our soldiers above all else and we do everything we can to reduce the risks to them as they conduct the essential training required to prepare them for combat operations."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here