Soldier Michael Maguire killed by shot at range inquest told
A Shropshire-based soldier was shot and killed by a single machine gun bullet to the head at a non-combat zone within an army training range, an inquest has heard.
Ranger Michael 'Mike' Maguire, 21, originally from County Cork in Ireland, was hit in the temple by a shot probably fired by a fellow soldier attacking a static target one kilometre away.
The shooting happened at the Castlemartin Ranges in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, in May.
Army medics and civilian paramedics battled to save Ranger Maguire's life before he was urgently airlifted to hospital in Cardiff.
But the soldier, of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment based at Tern Hill near Market Drayton, was pronounced dead within 30 minutes of his arrival.
The inquest in Cardiff listened to a statement made by Ranger Maguire's father who said he loved and missed his son.
Mary Hassall, Vale of Glamorgan coroner, read the statement into the record to the inquest jury of six women and five men as Mr Maguire and his daughter, Sheila, and son Jimmy listened.
Army medic Corporal Michael Gleeson spoke of the frantic efforts made to keep Mr Maguire alive following the shooting.
Ranger Maguire had been standing in a designated administrative area, deemed to be secure, outside the training area with his armour and helmet off.
Cpl Gleeson arrived within two minutes of the shooting: "I was informed the wound was on the left side of the temple," he said.
Detective Sergeant Roger Smith, who led the Dyfed-Powys Police investigation into the death, detailed his own theory regarding what had happened and how Ranger Maguire had been shot.
A Ranger using the machine gun and shooting at a designated static target is assumed to have inadvertently shot Ranger Maguire, he claimed. The shot would have been from about one kilometre away, which is within the effective range of the machine gun, he said.
The inquest continues.
