In his article, Mr Littlejohn directly accused Commander Brian Paddick, the highest profile openly gay police officer, of using his sexuality to gain promotion.”You used to get nicked for cottaging Now it’s a career move. Virtually unchanged from her wartime appearance, she is typical of the Royal Navy escort vessels that protected convoys of merchant ships from U-boat attack,” said Mr Gretton. One was returning to Ark Royal from a mission and the other was flying out to take its place. Both had turned off their main identification light, because it caused problems for pilots flying at low level.The families of the British casualties are understood to be furious about the circumstances of the accident, after they were told that flight controllers on Ark Royal had watched the aircraft flying towards each other. Relatives of the dead believe the official board of inquiry into the incident has failed to uncover the real cause of the collision. At least one family, the parents of thepilot Lt Philip Green, has complained to senior Navy commanders but has so far had no response.The transcript of a private meeting to discuss the crash, between senior Navy officers and several families at RNAD Culdrose, the squadron’s base in Cornwall, reveals that the Navy knew they were flying in very poor visibility.”The crew were flying legally under the visual flight rules.

However, the conditions would have been poor, making life very difficult for them,” the minutes to the meeting, on 11 June last year, state.The transcript also reveals that Navy commanders admit the decision not to issue night-vision goggles (NVGs) to the squadron, known as 849 NAS, has to be reviewed “We do need to look at the procurement of NVGs. It is often down to [the] role of the aircraft that determines the need and no case has been made for the issue of NVGs to 849 NAS. There may, however, be a flight safety requirement.”The families were then told that a long-running problem with the helicopters’ exterior warning lights “may have been a contributory factor towards the accident”.The Navy admitted that Sea King pilots routinely turn off a high-intensity strobe at the front of the aircraft – similar to the landing lights used by commercial airliners – because its light bounces back into the cockpit at low level.The Navy’s investigation into the crash also raises significant doubts about whether Ark Royal had given the pilots adequate radar cover. It suggests there was confusion over the presence of another RN Lynx helicopter in the area, and over whether the Sea King pilots were told there were other aircraft near them.Keith Simpson, a Tory defence spokesman, said this new controversy raises further “critical” questions about the quality of equipment given to British forces. “Ministers must ultimately take responsibility for that,” he said.. On 14 May last year, a month after the coalition’s victory in Iraq, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was called to appear before the House of Commons Defence Committee. It was a performance that will come back to haunt him:There may have been the odd person who did not get the right- sized pair of boots.

There may have been the odd soldier who one day did not get his lunchtime ration pack. There may have been the odd soldier who did not like his ready-to-eat meal. There is not the slightest suggestion, however, that any of the stories that appeared so routinely in our newspapers stood up to detailed analysis against what was delivered.I checked routinely with the Chiefs of Staff whether they had those sorts of complaints [about kit shortages], and they assured me at every stage that there were no such complaints. There was sufficient clothing and protective equipment in theatre to deal with a force of this size.I have talked to them [the service logisticians] I do not judge them to be people who would dissemble… [they] were clear that there were not those kinds of difficulties.Geoff Hoon gives evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on 14 May 2003 I was aware that we did not have the body armour – we did not think we had the body armour – where we wanted it, in all cases, so we did a major redistribution and it is very hard to do a major redistribution …