'Disgust' over cadet death findings
The parents of a teenage army cadet who drowned in a boating accident have said they were "disgusted" at the findings of an inquiry into her death.
Lesley and Derek McIntosh said their 14-year-old daughter Kaylee had been "murdered".
And they said Sheriff Alasdair MacFadyen had not produced the "tough recommendations" needed in the wake of Kaylee's death.
They repeated their call for criminal prosecutions to be brought as a result of the tragedy.
Sheriff MacFadyen said a series of failures had contributed to the death of the schoolgirl during a boating exercise. Her death could have been avoided if a number of precautions had been taken, he said.
Kaylee died after she was pinned under a boat in Loch Carnan, South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides in August 2007. The schoolgirl, from Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, was one of 34 cadets taking part in the three-boat exercise. A rescue effort was launched after the boat carrying Kaylee capsized in choppy waters.
But an error in the head count by organisers meant she was trapped under the boat for 90 minutes before it was noticed she was missing.
An investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has already identified a number of failings, including that Kaylee was given a life jacket not approved for children, which kept her pinned under the boat.
In his findings following a fatal accident inquiry into her death, Sheriff MacFadyen found that if a number of precautions had been taken by the organisers, the accident and subsequent death of the teenager might have been prevented.
In a report, he said: "I have thought it appropriate simply to identify firstly the failures in respect of which reasonable precautions could have been taken and, secondly, the factors which, in my view, amounted to a failure in systems of working which contributed to the accident or Kaylee's death."
