The British Army has been urged to stop giving out weapons as retirement gifts after an Afghanistan War veteran used a ceremonial dagger to murder his neighbours.
Former Commando Collin Reeves, 36, stabbed to death teacher Stephen Chapple, 36, and his wife Jennifer Chapple, a 33-year-old café worker, at their home in Taunton after a row over parking spaces.
The murder weapon was a ceremonial dagger handed to Reeves as a “commemorative token” when he retired from 15 years of service in the British Army in 2017.
Somerset coroner Samantha Marsh has now written to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, urging him to stop the practice of handing out weapons to potentially traumatised soldiers.
“The dagger was not a blunt replica, it was a fully functional weapon capable of causing significant harm, injury and sadly in the Chapple’s case, death”, she wrote, in a report warning of future deaths if action is not taken.
“Please reconsider the appropriateness of providing anyone leaving the British Army, regardless of rank or status, with what is (to all intents and purposes) a deadly weapon.
“Such presentation/gifting has essentially put a deadly weapon in the community (where I understand it sadly remains, having never been recovered as it was removed from the scene prior to police attendance) and I am not persuaded that this is appropriate.
“During the trial, evidence was adduced by defence team to allude to the poor mental health of (Reeves) because of combat and tours of war-torn countries.
“This is not an uncommon feature of those serving in and/or leaving the Army and adds further weight to my concerns around the appropriateness of such items (whether ceremonial or not) being issued in the first place, but secondly being issued to those who may have a propensity for mental health issues.”
Reeves was convicted last June of the double murder, and is now serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years.
He had been locked in a dispute with the couple, his neighbours at a residential development in Norton Fitzwarren near Taunton, over designated parking, and had taken to placing bins in Jennifer Chapple’s space as an act of petty retribution.
Police had been called over the feud, but no action was taken as it was deemed a civil matter.
On November 21, 2021, Reeves phoned 999 and told the operator: “I went round with a knife, I’ve stabbed both of them.”
The couple had been stabbed repeatedly in their own home, while their children slept upstairs.
At his trial, Reeves claimed he was triggered into action by the brightness of the Chapples’ security light flashing on, reminding him of flares in a war zone.
He said he had been stationed at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and witnessed colleagues being brought back from patrols horrifically wounded.
Reeves, described by his mother as a “closed book” who did not openly discuss his emotions or what he had experienced at war, tried to argue he was only guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
However experts concluded his depression was not sufficient to qualify as an abnormality of mind, and jurors convicted him of the two murders.
The Defence Secretary has been given until April 25 to respond to the Coroner’s report.
