Cheryl James inquest: Boyfriend 'told her to pick between lovers'

Private Paul Wilkinson said he and Private James, from Llangollen, had already been caught in bed by her boyfriend Sapper Simeon Carr-Minns and that he wanted the love triangle at the Surrey base to end.

Mr Wilkinson, then aged 16, told Woking Coroner's Court he spoke to Private James, 18, about 20 minutes before hearing she had been found dead with a bullet to the head on November 27, 1995.

Mr Wilkinson described Private James as "happy and laughing" and "a bit hungover" when they spoke for 45 minutes to an hour in a cabin while she was on guard duty.

Of that secret meeting, Mr Wilkinson said: "I just remember saying 'Pick one of us, if you want to be friends that would be fine if you want to stay with him.'

"She said that she did not. It (the conversation) was over in a couple of minutes, she said she did not want to be with him."

They were cuddling and trying to sort things out, he told the inquest into her death.

Private James, whose parents Des and Doreen live in Llanymynech, near Oswestry, was one of four recruits to die at the base in seven years.

Mr Wilkinson, who was wearing civilian clothes, said he was not trying to avoid being seen while he was in the cabin and that he was just sitting in a chair.

He said they were talking about their fledgling relationship and it was not a showdown because Private James had offered sex to a friend of his the night before.

He thought that Private James, whom he described as a very spontaneous person, had only been joking about her sexual comments to his friend the previous night.

Mr Wilkinson was eventually spotted by a major, who was riding his bicycle in to the barracks, and told to leave because he should not have been with Private James while she was on guard duty.

He said the officer "pretty much escorted me back to the barracks".

The major has previously told the inquest that he definitely did not march Mr Wilkinson off the barracks.

That was the last time he saw Private James and he did not feel alarmed when a colleague told him she was not at the gate.

On being told she was dead, Mr Wilkinson recalled: "I said 'It cannot be'. I was talking to her about 20 minutes ago. I said 'I think you are talking daft'."

Mr Wilkinson said he and Private James had been caught naked in bed by her regular boyfriend, Mr Carr-Minns, then known as Jim, just days before she died.

Mr Wilkinson remembers being "upset" and "angry" when Mr Carr-Minns, who was stationed at another base, walked in on them at the barracks. Private James had told him she was splitting up with Mr Carr-Minns.

Alison Foster QC, for the James family, suggested to Mr Wilkinson that he was "not just angry" but also "humiliated" when Mr Carr-Minns turned up as there were other people in the room who began teasing and laughing at him.

Being caught in bed by her boyfriend "is not what you want", Mr Wilkinson said.

The inquest continues