Father of Afghan hero says the MOD covered up the cause of his son's death

Corporal Joshua Hoole was the epitome of a modern-day soldier. Fit, reliable, and emotionally intelligent, the 26-year-old had served his country with distinction, deploying on operations to Iraq, Mali, and twice to Afghanistan.

His experience and leadership qualities had seen him spend two years as an instructor at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick, where he shaped and moulded recruits who aspired to be just like him. "I called him a modern day alpha male," his father told me, "He was a thinking man's soldier, he didn't just act, he used to think before doing so. He would call me and say 'Dad I've got this bloke...' to see if could help him help his soldiers, he was really going places and was looking at promoting to sergeant when all this happened."

As Josh came to the end of his time training recruits, he was preparing to enrol on the Platoon Sergeants Battle Course (PSBC), an arduous course which those aspiring to become senior non-commissioned officers must pass.

Held in the Brecon Beacons, it is renowned for being arduous and ensuring a high level of soldier and leadership ability among the British Army's most experienced soldiers.

On July 19, 2016, Josh collapsed near the end of an eight-mile annual fitness test (AFT) being run by his regiment in the Brecon Beacons to prepare soldiers for the course. When he died, Josh was carrying 25kg plus his weapon and water on a day when temperatures hit 20C by the march's start time at 7am.

An inquest later concluded that the temperature that day, the hottest the country had seen that year, "should not have gone ahead."

Josh was one of more than a dozen fit and healthy infantry soldiers who failed to complete the test, with a catalogue of safety failures contributing towards his death.

Phillip, who also served a full career in the military, becoming a sergeant major, said: "The day he died, I got home and saw two men in suits and ties. When I opened the door to them, I said, 'Which one?' because both of my sons are serving.

"Then they said his name, and it was just like somebody had grabbed my heart and just squeezed it, and it didn't matter which one it was; he was gone. Then, when they told me it was on an AFT and it was run according to policy, there were no problems with it.

"He just suddenly collapsed near the end, he wasn't in pain, and he died, and that's what I was told, but that's not what actually happened."

An AFT requires soldiers to carry 25kg plus their weapon and water over an 8-mile course within two hours. Josh conducted an AFT just two weeks before his death and was known among his peers as a fit soldier.

Phillip was told that his son had died from a genetic heart condition that had not been detected during his medical when he joined the army. The news led Phillip to blame himself for passing on a condition that ultimately killed his son, until a year later when he was given a report on the circumstances of Josh's death.

Phillip said, "I started reading it on a Friday evening, and I never went to sleep that night. I read through it, and I just took notes all the way through, and by the time I finished, even though its conclusions were completely different by the end, I knew that it was off.

"It was wrong and I knew that I hadn't killed him and I knew that he didn't die of a genetic heart condition even though we'd all had our heart check and we're all perfectly It was a presumption basically, they could have done genetic tests on his DNA, but they didn't do them."

Phillip's experience as a sergeant major with experience in planning exercises and tests, such as an AFT, meant that he was able to identify the failings that he believed caused his son to die of heat stroke.

An inquest found that staff leading the event were not trained to do so, they failed to complete a risk assessment, were unable to monitor the temperature, lacked basic safety equipment and failed to understand the risk of heat injury when the first casualties were sustained.

In other workplaces, such a safety failing would likely lead to criminal prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, but the MOD enjoys Crown immunity, meaning that it cannot be prosecuted criminally.

Instead, they can only be subject to investigations and enforcement notices by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which Phillip believes removes the organisation's incentive to enforce changes.

The pain is evident in Phillip's voice, and it seems that time will never come close to healing it.

He says with tears in his eyes: "When he went to Afghanistan, he wrote several letters in case the worst happened. When he came home, he told me to get rid of them but I kept the one he wrote for me, I don't know why.

"After he died, I opened it and that was when I realised how much I actually meant to him.

"The last text I ever got from him said 'I love you Dad' and I left it on there for donkeys but in the end, I had to just delete it all because it wasn't really doing me much good.

"I even had to change my living room around because I used to see him sitting on the blooming sofa."

By this point in the interview we both have tears running down our faces. I'm annoyed at myself for letting my emotions get the better of me, although I knew in advance that it might happen. I'm not just crying at Phillip's powerful description of a love between a father and his son but because it is opening up trauma I have avoided talking about for so long.

A week after Josh died, I also collapsed with heat stroke in eerily similar circumstances and was rushed to the hospital with a core temperature of 42C. It could so easily have gone the other way - and speaking with Phillip forces me to confront the severity of the injury, something I have managed to consciously avoid.

My own son's birth just says later, and a year of recovery to undo the damage to my internal organs allowed me to compartmentalise what in reality was a traumatic experience.

I know from experience that at the time of Josh's death, heat injuries were not taken seriously by the vast majority of people in command. If anything, they were celebrated as proof of somebody's ability to "push through", as if training which pushed soldiers to the brink was in some way something to be proud of.

In the nine years that have passed since Josh's death, Phillip has fought tirelessly to ensure that no family ever has to go through the trauma of seeing a loved one return home from war only to lose them in a training event which did not need to be unsafe.

Phillip is now calling for the Ministry of Defence to lose its immunity from prosecutions, known as Crown Immunity, for incidents conducted in non-operational settings.

He added: "I'd like that crown immunity for the Health and Safety at Work Act to be removed and brought into line with criminal law because, as it stands, it's a blanket immunity.

"Currently, the system doesn't want to make sure that if something goes wrong and you die in normal training for the wrong reasons, you will get justice, and you don't get justice the way things stand at present.

"If there is an issue, the only place that people can go to is the chain of command.

"If it's the chain of command that's actually at fault, it's not going to go anywhere else.

James Broomhall, senior associate at Grosvenor Law believes that reform of the law is possible but would likely require new legislation.

He said: "Reform is possible, but it would require Parliament to amend Section 48 of the Act. This could be achieved through new legislation or by extending the reach of existing law to include the Crown.

"While politically sensitive, the idea has gained traction in recent years, including recommendations from parliamentary inquiries such as the 2016 ' Beyond endurance? Military exercises and the duty of care inquiry.

"With growing public scrutiny and pressure from bereaved families, the legal route to reform is clear, even if the political remains uncertain."

A Ministry of Defence Spokesperson said: "Our thoughts and sympathies remain with Corporal Josh Hoole's family and friends.

"The coroner's inquiry identified an underlying cardiac susceptibility as being the causal factor in Josh's death. However, we recognise that heat and a high workload were significant contributory factors.

"Lessons were identified from this tragic event, and we've made a number of changes and improvements to minimise risks to personnel."

Phillip disputes the MOD's claims of underlying cardiac susceptibility, which he believes were made without experts having all the information to hand.

An independent review of Josh's death in 2019 found that the pathologist was "uncomfortable" with the original diagnosis which he said was given by a "well-respected cardiac pathologist, funded by a SADS charity."

He concluded: "For the purposes of the inquest, I consider the death of Cpl J Hoole was due to heat stroke."

Phillip added: "Two pathologists said that there was nothing wrong with his heart. They still don't want to admit the truth."