Major fined £5,000 for cadet’s death

A WAR veteran in charge of a “shambolic” army cadet training exercise in which a 14-year-old girl drowned was fined £5,000 for health and safety failures.

But calls from the dead girl’s family for others to be prosecuted were last night rejected by the Crown Office.

Sheriff William Taylor, QC, described George McCallum’s role in the “shambolic” expedition in the Western Isles – where cadet Kaylee McIntosh, of Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, died – as “a cog in a much larger wheel”.

The 52-year-old, a veteran of the Falklands War and Northern Ireland conflicts with the Parachute Regiment, had previously admitted contravening health and safety regulations.

The sheriff had deferred sentence to consider the “overall picture” of McCallum’s part in the tragedy as Inverness Sheriff Court was told the accident on Loch Carnan in August 2007 had been an “organisational failing”.

Kaylee was trapped under a capsized boat for 90 minutes before anyone raised the alarm.

Sheriff Taylor detailed a “shambolic lack of safety training” resulting in the loss of a “beautiful young woman”.

He said senior cadet officers had failed to ensure a risk assessment had been undertaken by McCallum. In particular, he named Colonel David Taylor, the commandant in overall charge of the cadet camp in South Uist, and Major David Adams, who was responsible for the training programmes of the cadets.

He said: “One of the matters that came very clearly to the fore was the striking absence of risk assessment. It is quite simply common sense for those organising the expedition to sit down and say, ‘What are the risks here?’”

The sheriff, while also noting the Ministry of Defence enjoys immunity from any prosecution, added: “It is my hope that matters will not end here today.”

The sheriff also named Vicky Lorimer, another adult on the exercise, who told Kaylee while under the capsized boat she would go and raise the alarm, but “astonishingly” told no one about the youngster.

After the sentencing, the teenager’s parents, Lesley and Derek, said: “Major McCallum is only one of a number of people who have to answer for their actions. Our campaign does not stop here. We will continue to press the Crown Office to bring charges against several others implicated in the death of our daughter.

“We would like to say that today, like the many other steps there have been on our road to justice, is about one person, our daughter Kaylee.

“No parent should have to endure what we have – the taking away of one so young and so dear for the very worst of reasons: that those she thought were there to provide for her safety, to look after her, to see her back to the warmth, love and safety of her home, could not be bothered taking numerous basic yet fundamental precautions any one of which, if taken, might have seen Kaylee still with us today.

“We would like to thank Sheriff Taylor for his kind words and for making us feel he is as outraged as us regarding what happened to Kaylee.”

The Crown Office last night ruled out further prosecutions.

A spokesman said: “The death of Kaylee McIntosh was tragic and avoidable. It has been the subject of a full inquiry involving the Health and Safety Executive, the police and the Crown.

“The death has been the subject of a Fatal Accident Inquiry and the successful prosecution of Major McCallum. The MoD is the subject of a censure issued by the Health and Safety Executive.

“Crown Counsel have concluded that on the available evidence there is insufficient evidence to prosecute any others.”