Last year, 17-year-old Geoff Gray died from two gunshot wounds to the head at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey. The Army claims it was suicide. His parents disagree. Liz Lamb reports on the unusual circumstances surrounding his death.

IT is a moment every parent dreads. The day someone knocks on your front door and tells you your child is dead. For the parents of Private Geoff Gray, that moment changed their lives forever.

On the morning of September 18 last year, Diane Gray answered the door of her terraced home to find an Army priest and captain standing on her doorstep. After ushering them into the front room, and in the presence of her husband Geoff, Diane, 37, was told her teenage soldier son was dead. It looked like a suicide, they were told, he had a gunshot wound to his head.

Geoff Gray, senior, says: "It was a great shock to be told that your son has killed himself. At 9.30am sharp they knocked on our door, the morning after he had died. They immediately said 'Your son has killed himself.' We were shellshocked. As they were saying it, we were thinking Geoff would not do that. In our heart of hearts, we knew Geoff would not do that."

The Grays wracked their brains to try and find a reason why their son, who always wanted to be a soldier, would take his own life. They could not find an answer, yet they had no reason to disbelieve what the Army told them.

"It took the Army eight hours to inform us of our son's death. I think that is shambolic and a disgrace, but we had no reason to think, at that stage, that there was more to it," says Mr Gray.

Since he was a little boy, growing up in Seaham, County Durham, Geoff always wanted to be in the Army. A good athlete with ambitions, his dream was realised at the beginning of last year when he was accepted into the Royal Logistic Corps.

Geoff loved his training and he had been tipped for fast-track promotion through the army ranks.

"He was doing very well," says his father. "He was earmarked for promotion and was wanting to work with computers in the corps. Geoff was always full of beans, always has been since he was a little boy. He had plenty of money, no ties and a job he loved. It was a dream come true for a young lad."

Shortly after his death, the Grays were asked to identify their son's body at the Frimley Park Hospital in Camberley, Surrey. During the visit they began to have their first doubts that maybe their son's death was not what it seemed.

"Geoff had bandages around his head,", said Mr Gray, "and it looked like he had a black eye and marks on his neck."

The grief-stricken couple tried to put aside their doubts and concentrate instead on organising their son's funeral. On September 27 last year, more than 200 mourners turned up to pay their respects at a full military service at St John's Church in Seaham.

It was here that another seed of doubt was sown.

"One of the soldiers came over to me and said, 'Geoff was not there. Don't let this lie, one of us could be next.' I did not know what he was talking about," recalls Mr Gray. "We were grief-stricken and it did not really sink in until afterwards."

Geoff's last night at Deepcut was the night he died. He was due to travel up to Hull the next day to begin computer training and he was looking forward to the move.

The Grays had spoken to their son a few days before by telephone, on September 12. He told them that Deepcut had been put on full alert following the events in America. It was the last time the Grays heard his voice.

Mr Gray says: "We only began to find out that things weren't right at Geoff's inquest. The Special Intelligence Branch handed over some papers to us before we went in. We were unprepared for what we heard."

It was here that the couple first discovered that their son had been shot twice in the head. One bullet was enough to kill him. They heard that Geoff started his first two-hour stint of the night at 9pm. The shift was relatively uneventful, until around 10pm, when he was guarding the officers' mess compound.

Mr Gray says: "A civilian tried to get into the compound they were guarding but the soldiers would not let him in. He was very abusive towards them and they had to call for help. A corporal and Geoff took the man into the officers' mess and he was recognised and allowed in."

According to reports, Geoff then went off duty for two hours before he restarted work for another shift at 1am. Shortly after starting, Geoff went off on his own to patrol the perimeter fence of the barracks. The private was supposed to take another armed soldier with him but the soldier on duty was too scared to leave his post after the trouble earlier in the night.

Three minutes later shots were heard and, at round 1.10am, Lance Corporal Craig Filmer discovered Geoff was missing. L Cpl Filmer led a sweep of the perimeter fence and Geoff was found dead with his SA80 rifle at his feet.

Mr Gray says: "They checked all over and went around the fence four times until they found him. It was dark but they had torches and there were no bushes to block their views.

"They also reported hearing the sound of someone running away from the scene and a rattle of the fence as if someone was climbing over it. Geoff was found 30cm away from the fence - why did it take so many attempts before they found him?"

Since Geoff's death, the Grays have joined forces with three other families of soldiers who died in mysterious circumstances at the same barracks.

The first was Pte Sean Benton, 20, of Hastings, East Sussex, who died from four gunshot wounds at long range in June 1995. Five months later, Pte Cheryl James, 18, from Wales, was discovered dead from a gunshot wound close to the perimeter fence. James Collinson, 17, of Perth, was found shot dead in March this year, four days after Geoff's inquest. He was found near the perimeter fence with a gunshot wound to his head.

The Grays do not believe that their son could commit suicide. They think he was murdered.

Mr Gray says: "I do not believe that we will ever find out who killed him but myself and the other parents want a public inquiry and we want answers. We won't rest until we know what happened to our children."