Quest for truth led Yvonne to her long-lost dad

New-found family are helping Deepcut tragedy mum cope with the pain.

The mother of a Scottish soldier who died mysteriously at a notorious barracks has revealed the tragedy led to her finding the father who had abandoned her as a baby.

Yvonne Collinson Heath spent 11 years squaring up to politicians and army officials desperately trying to find out what happened to her 17-year-old son James at Deepcut.

Ultimately her campaign ended in failure, with three successive governments ruling out a public inquiry into the Surrey barracks dubbed the “camp from hell”.

But it now seems it was not all in vain, with Yvonne revealing her decade-long quest for the truth brought an emotional reunion with her own father for the first time in 35 years.

Struggling to come to terms with the loss of her beloved son in March 2002, she became determined to forgive the man who had walked out on her when she was just one year old.

And when they finally met she discovered she had two step-brothers, two step-sisters and a half-brother, as well as a host of nieces and nephews she never even knew existed.

Yvonne, originally from Perth but now living in England, said: “Having lost James, my dad was the one missing piece of the jigsaw of my life and I needed to slot it back in.

“After James’ death I thought about my dad a lot. I was curious about whether he was still alive or if he had ever noticed me on TV or in a newspaper.

“But I didn’t know anything about him apart from a name on a birth certificate.

“I’d always hoped he would want to find me, then sweep me up in his arms and say ‘sorry’. I suppose I should have moved on. But I couldn’t, and I’m now glad I didn’t.”

Yvonne, 46, tells her emotional story in her harrowing autobiography, A Mother’s War, which also outlines her numerous attempts to force a public inquiry into Deepcut.

Her father, William Jeffries, had left the family home in Perth when she was a baby, leaving her mother to raise her alone, and she never had any contact with him after that.

In the spring of 2004 she found the courage to try to make contact, and eventually found him, via the phone book and electoral roll, living in Cheshire.

The pair exchanged letters and phone calls until, finally, they met face-to-face in September that year.

Yvonne said: “I discovered I had family I never knew existed. It was amazing. Dad said he had about 28 grandchildren in total, so there were quite a few names to learn.

“Meeting my long-lost family gave me a renewed vigour, particularly where Deepcut was concerned.

“Life was too short to mope around and dwell on injustice.”

Four soldiers died at Deepcut home to the Royal Logistic Corps and officially known as the Princess Royal Barracks in the space of just seven years.

Private Sean Benton, 20, from Hastings, Sussex; Private Geoff Gray, 17, from Hackney, east London; and Private Cheryl James, 18, were all found shot dead in similar circumstances between 1995 and 2001.

Pte Collinson was on guard duty on the night of March 23, 2002, when he became the fourth to be found with a gunshot wound to the head.

In all the cases, despite suggestions of foul play and a number of discrepancies, the army maintained the four soldiers took their own lives.

Mrs Heath’s book also charts her own harrowing life story, from a tortured childhood to the death of her son.

A large proportion deals with the secret sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a trusted uncle from the age of five.

Mrs Heath, who has moved to Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, to be near her new family, said: “People often say that time heals, but I’m not so sure.

“The pain of losing a child that will stay with me for ever. Deepcut will never go away.”