UK News 30-11-2004 Horror Of Deepcut Army Bullies who: Surrey police what: Leaks shocking dossier of alleged abuses by Deepcut army trainers where: DEEPCUT when: Yesterday snippet: Leaked documents from Surrey Police have revealed more than 173 detailed allegations of ritual humiliation and sexual abuse of women soldiers at the army`s Deepcut barracks, reports The Guardian. The recruits variously claim to have been gang raped, bullied and sexually harassed. "The documents describe how one female private recalled `how she was made to run around the parade ground naked whilst wearing a belt with mess tins attached to it`," writes Richard Norton-Taylor. "Another soldier said she was forced to get out of the shower `naked and wet` and made to go on parade with other soldiers in mid-January." "Allegations were made in confidence to police investigating the deaths of four Army recruits who were based at Deepcut," explains The Times. "The soldiers three men and a woman died from gunshot wounds between 1995 and 2002." Other recruits said they had been urinated on during the night, molested in their beds, made to swim in a cesspool and used as a human dartboard. The culprits appear to be groups of NCO instructors nicknamed the Respirator Gang - because they wore gas masks to avoid being identified - and the Black Card Club who, says The Mirror, "would give a card with a cross on it to a recruit due a beating". "One recruit was said to have placed a gun in his mouth, having been driven to the brink of suicide by ill treatment," says The Telegraph. "The report will feature in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary to be screened on Thursday at 9pm." [... more]

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