A former soldier has come forward with fresh claims of bullying at a British Army camp where four young privates - including a North-East soldier - died in mysterious circumstances.

Trevor Hunter, 27, said that he tried to protect his friend Sean Benton from vicious verbal attacks and humiliating abuse, which he believes led him to take his own life.

Pte Benton, 20, was found dead in June 1995 with five bullet wounds in the chest at the Deepcut barracks near Camberley, Surrey.

He was the first of four soldiers to have been found dead from gunshot wounds at the training camp.

In March this year, Pte James Collinson, 17, from Perth, Scotland, was found dead with a single gunshot wound while on guard duty at the barracks.

Pte Geoff Gray, 17, from Seaham, east Durham, was found with two gunshot wounds to his head in September 2001.

The body of Cheryl James, another private, aged 18, was discovered at Deepcut in November 1995 with a single bullet shot wound to the head.

Mr Hunter, a new recruit to the Royal Logistics Core alongside Pte Benton, said the Army driver was beaten up in his quarters, as well as being thrown out of his second-storey bedroom window, in a campaign of victimisation by training staff and other soldiers.

One sergeant, a Geordie, in particular tried to ''break'' Pte Benton because ''his face didn't fit''.

As a humiliating punishment, he would make him ''pray'', on his knees, to a jerry can painted in Newcastle United's colours, and ask ''Private Jerry Can'' for forgiveness.

An investigation by military police concluded he committed suicide, and his parents, Harry and Linda Benton, say the Army denied that he was being bullied.

Pressure from the families of the soldiers who died at the camp has led Surrey police to launch an inquiry.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence refused to comment, saying it would risk prejudicing the police investigation.