ARMY chiefs have been criticised after they admitted there were six times as many injuries at a North-East training camp as they originally said.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) statement yesterday revealed that 35 soldiers had suffered accidents at Otterburn, Northumberland, since January 2000.

It was issued hurriedly before MPs left Westminster for the election campaign, to correct an earlier written answer that said there had been only six.

Defence Minister Ivor Caplin apologised for the mistake, and said the MoD failed to properly compile the statistics because of confusion over where information was held.

He wrote: "This was brought to my attention when a branch of the department not previously known to hold information relating to this matter came forward."

But Tory frontbencher Christopher Chope, who tabled the original question, said he would write to the minister to demand a proper explanation for the mistake and the high injury rate.

He said: "How can it be that whoever is in charge at Otterburn training ground was not asked to give a response to my original question?

"It also appears to be a lot of accidents. I want to find out whether these people are sustaining accidents because parachutes are not opening, or whether there are gaps in their training."

Mr Chope said he was alerted to possible problems at Otterburn by a constituent, whose son said he had seen the deaths of two paratroopers in a parachute accident.

However, Mr Caplin said there had been no deaths at Otterburn since January 2000. Information before that date was unavailable.

Established in 1911 as an artillery range, the 60,000-acre training area has parachute drop-zones. Fighter aircraft and helicopters also practise ground attack firing.