Snatch Land Rover Inquest

Chambers team Michael Rawlinson QC and Charlotte Law have just finished acting for two of the four families in the Coroner's Inquest in Wiltshire arising from the detonation of an Improvised Explosive Device under a Snatch Land Rover in which 4 soldiers (including the first female soldier to die in Afghanistan) were travelling.

The team were instructed to place before the Coroner the families' concerns over the inadequacies of the Snatch Land Rover for the mission on which it was involved at the time of the deaths, the inadequacy of provision of life-saving metal detectors and the deficient training in relation to their use and in mine detection more generally.

The Assistant Coroner for Wiltshire on 09.03.10, in a decision which has both been widely published and the subject of many questions to the Prime Minister in Parliament on 10.03.10, acceded to these submissions and has undertaken to make recommendations to the Ministry of Defence seeking, amongst other things, assurances that the Snatch Land Rover will not be used for such operations again in future.