Portland death: Failures led to Royal Marine drowning, coroner concludes

Most of the inquest was heard in secret at the Royal Courts of Justice

Safety failures led to an "elite" Royal Marine drowning during a diving drill, a coroner has concluded.

Benjamin McQueen, 26, died on a training exercise near Portland Harbour in Dorset in 2018, the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice was told.

Judge coroner Sir Ernest Ryder said underwater entanglement, insufficient air and inadequate signal training contributed to the death.

Mr McQueen's parents, from Southampton, said his death was "preventable".

"His life was cut short because he was failed by the very organisation in which he put his trust," they said in a statement.

"We do not know exactly what happened in Ben's final moments, but we do believe Ben's death was preventable.

"His legacy will be significant changes in dive training and ethos across the forces and an inspiration for others to face their fears as he so courageously did."

'Missed opportunity'

Much of the inquest evidence and some of the judge coroner's findings have been kept secret due to security concerns.

In his narrative conclusion, he said Mr McQueen drowned in an accident during "arduous military training for operations with an elite unit".

He said the Royal Marine was involved in the second of two underwater exercises on 14 November when he "had to contend with becoming entangled underwater".

The judge coroner said: "The lack of requirement for all signals to be acknowledged was a contributory factor in Ben's death because there was a missed opportunity to abort the dive at an early stage when Ben started to get into difficulties and was not ready to proceed with the exercise."

He said "not topping up breathable gas levels between the two dives" also contributed to the death.

Sir Ernest Ryder said he would be writing a Prevention of Future Deaths Report.

He added that he had seen "detailed evidence from the MoD [Ministry of Defence] on the changes made to the relevant aspects of military diving training since Ben's death".

In September 2020, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issued a Crown Censure over the death, which the MoD accepted.

The censure is a record that the HSE found evidence which would have warranted a prosecution if the MoD had not been exempt.