Jon Stoddart claims that the decision to release his remarks about a review of an investigation into the deaths young soldiers at the base, made following a Freedom of Information request, could jeopardise inquiries in the future.
Four soldiers died at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002. A coroner had recorded a verdict of suicide on one of them and open verdicts on the others.
Surrey Police had investigated the deaths and concluded there was no evidence of third party involvement. A review of the Force’s investigations was subsequently carried out by Devon and Cornwall Police in 2003.
Mr Stoddart was acting in his role as senior officer in the Association of Chief Police Officers’ Homicide Working Group when he was asked to comment on aspects of the review.
He wrote a letter to the then Deputy Chief of Surrey, Brian Moore, in 2005.
In the document, Mr Stoddart commented on concerns raised in the review that the lack of a “think murder” mindset may have “limited the focus” of the Surrey investigation.
He said in the letter: “Further to this is the criticism that the officers should have used the ‘think murder’ pretext from the Murder Investigation Manual as their guiding principal until they could disprove murder as a hypothesis.”
In addition, Mr Stoddart expressed concern at the “subjective” criteria used by Devon and Cornwall to address the issue of the mindset of officers.
He added that “a deal of the evidence” pointed towards suicide or accident and expressed concern at the length of time Devon and Cornwall Police had taken to carry out the review.
Addressing reporters following the publication of the letter, Mr Stoddart said: “I stand by my comments but I'm very disappointed that they have been made public in this way.
He emphasised: “It can seriously undermine the value of a review document if there is a possibility of its contents being placed in the public domain.”
A Devon and Cornwall Police spokeswoman said that the Force had acted within the terms of reference it had been given adding that it had been a challenging investigation.
A spokeswoman for Surrey Police said the force accepted the decision of the Information Commissioner to release the relevant parts of the Mr Stoddart’s letter.
But she said the Force was “disappointed” that there had been a failure to recognise that officers should be able to speak freely in complicated investigations.
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