THE FAMILY of a soldier crushed to death between two armoured troop carriers have not ruled out taking the Army to court.

An inquest jury recorded a verdict of misadventure into the death of Catterick-based Corporal Eirion Rees yesterday.

The 32-year-old father-of-two was guiding an 18 tonne armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) as it was being reversed onto the quayside from a transporter at Tees Dock, Middlesbrough, for shipment to Iraq.

Corporal Rees, originally from Wales, was crushed when a second unchained and unmanned 18-ton AFV rolled backwards.

The Middlesbrough inquest heard that the vehicle, which had its brakes on, appeared to have been disturbed by the reversing troop carrier.

Speaking afterwards his widow, Andrea, 31, said she accepted the verdict but her solicitor, Chris Harrison, said he would not rule out taking further legal action against the Ministry of Defence.

Cpl Rees, of Allenby Close, Catterick Garrison, had been standing on the low loader, between the two armoured carriers, signalling to the driver of the reversing vehicle, when he was crushed in May last year. He died of internal injuries.

Coroner Michael Sheffield earlier summed up the previous two days of evidence from witnesses and experts.

The inquest had heard that a Health and Safety Executive report by investigator Ruth Bolton said that the army forbade soldiers to stand between two armoured vehicles during unloading but it was "custom and practice" to do so.

It also heard that there were no chocks to help keep the parked vehicles in place on the transporter once the chains anchoring them to the low loader had been unshackled.

There were no written procedures for loading and unloading troop carriers, no risk assessment nor any specific training programme.

PC Derek Walton, of Cleveland Police Crash Investigation Unit and Lieutenant Colonel John Nelson of the British Army's Land Accident Investigation team both identified the positioning of Cpl Rees and the unchaining of the vehicle as prime causes of the accident.

Cpl Rees, a member of the 1st Battalion, Kings Regiment, was said to have been "exhausted" after working round-the-clock to prepare the tracked AFVs for operations in Iraq.

Mr Sheffield told the jury that misadventure was the only possible verdict.