A senior coroner has called on the British military to stop handing out ceremonial daggers to retiring service personnel after hearing how a couple were stabbed to death by a former soldier using one.
Collin Reeves was presented with one of the weapons when he left the army in 2017 and four years later used it to murder his neighbours Stephen and Jennifer Chapple after a row over parking.
Reeves was jailed for a minimum of 38 years for stabbing the Chapples in their Somerset home while their children slept upstairs.
The Somerset senior coroner, Samantha Marsh, has written to the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, and the Ministry of Defence expressing her concerns about the knives.
She wrote: “The murder weapon was a ceremonial dagger that had been presented to him following his retirement from the British army. The dagger was not a blunt replica, it was a fully functional weapon capable of causing significant harm, injury and, sadly in the Chapples’ case, death.
“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.”
In her letter, Marsh detailed how the Chapples were murdered at their home in Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton, in November 2021. “They became involved in a parking dispute with their neighbour,” she wrote. “It would appear that [he] took umbrage at Jennifer, in particular, parking her vehicle in a particular location and manner.”
She added: “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.
“In my opinion, urgent action should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you have the power to take such action.”
She said Wallace and the MoD were under a duty to respond to her report on the case – which was also sent to the chief constable of Avon and Somerset police, Sarah Crew – by 25 April.
