IT is difficult for parents to accept that their child has committed suicide.

In such tragic circumstances it is natural for them to cling to the hope that their son or daughter did not take their own life.

Initially, this may have been the natural instinct followed by the families of the four young soldiers who died at Deepcut Barracks.

However, as time has progressed and their own investigations intensified, it is clear their campaign to overturn the suicide verdicts on their loved ones is based not simply on sentiment.

There are sufficient grounds to suggest these verdicts may have been flawed.

The Deepcut campaigners have highlighted the suspicion that the deaths of young soldiers are not as rigorously investigated as they should be. In turn, there is the suspicion of a cover-up.

It is a matter of public interest that these suspicions are thoroughly examined.

Official Ministry of Defence figures show that, in the past 12 years, there have been 1,748 fatalities in the armed forces, 188 the result of gunfire. This grim toll appears to be excessively high.

There needs to be a through examination of why so many young people should die in barracks.

And alongside such an examination, there should be a critical appraisal of how these non-combat deaths are investigated.

The bereaved and the public in general need to be re-assured that fatalities of young soldiers are subject to the same level of scrutiny as any civilian fatalities.

Because of the concerns raised over the Deepcut deaths, there exists a lack of public confidence that the Army is sufficiently attentive to the welfare of new recruits and sufficiently forthright in the prevention of bullying.

It is in the Army's interests that these questions are answered in such a way that any remote suspicion of a cover-up is eliminated.

The case for a wide-ranging independent public inquiry, proposed so powerfully yesterday by the parents of soldiers who have died, is overwhelming.