Gloucestershire: Inquest into death of Soldier during dive

L/Cpl George Partridge was described as an "exemplary soldier" by his commanding officer

A soldier died during an army diving lesson after a scheduled stage of his training course had been skipped by instructors, an inquest was told.

L/Cpl George Partridge, 27, was four weeks into the course when, on 26 March, 2018, he died at the National Diving Centre in Tidenham, Gloucester.

When he was brought to the surface his face mask was hanging off and his two air tanks were found to be empty.

The inquest, which started on Monday, is expected to run until Thursday.

On the day of his death, trainees had been scheduled to perform "Dive 19" in their course, going down to a depth of 21-23 metres, the inquest in Gloucester was told.

The National Diving and Activity Centre is a large flooded quarry at Tidenham, Gloucestershire

However, a decision was taken on the day to skip that exercise and go straight on to "Dive 20" of the programme instead, descending to a submerged helicopter at a depth of 26-27 metres.

The dive supervisor, Staff Sgt Justin Dolly, was questioned Eliot Woolf QC, representing L/Cpl Partridge's family, about the reason behind the decision not to go ahead with "Dive 19" as planned.

Sgt Dolly said: "We decided to dive to the wreck of the helicopter which was more interesting than what they had seen in the previous four weeks of training."

Lt Cpl George Partridge was stationed at the Wiltshire-based 26 Engineer Regiment

He also told the inquest jury that it was felt that the dive could be skipped because the previous week the trainees had already done two deeper dives, including one that was 30 metres.

The coroner said issues for the jury to consider over the next few days would include the equipment used by L/Cpl Partridge while diving, the systems in operation at the privately-run diving centre on the day, and the medical cause of his death.