BRITAIN'S former top soldier has condemned the death of a North-East soldier at the notorious Deepcut barracks as "inexcusable".

Sir Charles Guthrie, the former chief of the defence staff, stepped into the controversy by accepting there were "failures" in training at the Surrey base.

The comments, made during a Lords debate, come ahead of a fresh inquiry into the death of Private Geoff Gray, of Seaham, County Durham, and three other trainee soldiers.

Human rights lawyer Nicholas Blake, who has represented a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, will carry out the investigation.

Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank pointed to budget cuts - which slashed the number of Army supervisors at Deepcut - as the probable cause of the tragedies.

Last night, Geoff Gray, Pte Gray's father, said: "There seems at last to be a definite turn towards understanding what we and others have saying all along.

"What we have been saying is that if there is a wrong, there must be accountability.

"Somebody has to be held accountable for my son's death and the deaths of the other soldiers and nobody yet has."

He accepted that a lack of supervisory staff, due to cuts, was a factor, but said this was a "sideline".

He added: "The facts are that Deepcut was out of control. The lower ranking NCOs were running the camp and the officers did not have a clue what was going on."

Privates Gray, Cheryl James, Sean Benton and James Collinson all died from gunshot wounds in unexplained circumstances at the barracks, between 1995 and 2002.

The Army has insisted all four committed suicide, but an inquest recorded an open verdict on Pte Gray's death.

The parents joined forces to demand a public inquiry.

Speaking in the Lords debate on defence, Lord Guthrie said: "There have been failures and serious, maybe inexcusable, incidents in the training organisation, such as those alleged at Deepcut."