{"id":671,"date":"2025-06-19T16:47:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/?p=671"},"modified":"2025-06-20T09:46:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:46:02","slug":"widow-disappointed-her-soldier-husbands-body-laid-in-barracks-for-three-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/19\/widow-disappointed-her-soldier-husbands-body-laid-in-barracks-for-three-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Widow \u2018disappointed\u2019 her soldier husband\u2019s body laid in barracks for three weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\t\t\"Bernard\t<\/div>
Witnesses said Mongan was ‘spoken to in a despicable manner’ and ‘100% victimised’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The widow of a soldier who died in his barracks has said it is ‘unforgivable’ that it took three weeks to find his body.<\/p>\n

Father-of-three Lance Corporal Bernard Mongan’s decomposing body was discovered on January 23, 2020, in his bedroom at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

His widow Beth Mongan believes he ‘took his own life while in crisis’ after complaining of being bullied by senior officers.<\/p>\n

But senior coroner Jon Heath said at his inquest on Thursday it was ‘not possible to determine’ how Mongan died. He recorded an open conclusion.<\/p>\n

The inquest at North Yorkshire Coroner’s Court had heard that doctors couldn’t be sure of the 33-year-old’s medical cause of death due to the decomposition of his body.<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tSign up for all of the latest stories\t\t\t<\/h2>\n
\n

Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates<\/a><\/strong> newsletter or get Breaking News<\/a> <\/strong>alerts the moment it happens. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Beth, who was separated from Mongan at the time of his death, called the conclusion ‘an enormous disappointment’ and said her husband was ‘very badly let down by the Army’.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\"Bernard\t<\/div>
Mongan made two donations to a suicide charity before his death (Picture: Family handout\/PA Wire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other soldiers and officers told the inquest how Mongan had suffered bullying behaviour in the barracks.<\/p>\n

One former corporal Stephen Timmerman said ‘bullying would be an understatement’.<\/p>\n

He described how the lance corporal was ‘shouted, screamed and swore at’ and ‘forced’ to do extra runs in his lunch break without being given time to eat.<\/p>\n

Three other witnesses said he was ‘spoken to in a despicable manner,’ ‘100% victimised’ and ‘never spoken to respectfully’.<\/p>\n

The coroner’s found that Mongan had ‘on occasions [been] treated and spoken to by his chain of command in a way that caused him distress’.<\/p>\n

The last person to speak to Mongan described him as distressed, crying and drunk.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to when he was last seen, he gave away his Nintendo to a friend’s son and told another friend he ‘had bought pills but not taken them’.<\/p>\n

He also made two donations to a suicide charity.<\/p>\n

They added: ‘Bernie was supposed to be checked on over the Christmas period while he was staying alone in his Army accommodation.<\/p>\n

‘Astonishingly one of the men Bernie had accused of mistreating him was assigned to do those checks and he admitted at this inquest that he did not perform a single one of them. <\/p>\n

‘For that failure, he was ordered to perform an “extra duty” as punishment.’<\/p>\n

The coroner said Mongan was not checked on in his accommodation block over the Christmas period.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the inquest, Beth Mongan had been expecting the open conclusion because of ‘the Army’s failure of leaving him for so long’.<\/p>\n

She added: ‘I’ve come to my own conclusions over the years. It’s hard not having it for the kids.<\/p>\n

‘Knowing Bernie, and he did suffer with his mental health over the years and his treatment in the Army, I believe he took his own life.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\"JPN140\t<\/div>
Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire where Mongan was found dead (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘I believe (the Army) failed him, they didn’t investigate the bullying accusations the way they should have done.’<\/p>\n

The widow added that ‘it forever will be unforgivable’ that Mongan’s body was undiscovered for three weeks on a military site.<\/p>\n

‘I know they’ve apologised but that doesn’t take away the fact that they failed him on that front,’ she added.<\/p>\n

Mongan was due to start a deployment with 77 Brigade in January 2020, but they did not report him absent ‘as he should have been’ from January 7.<\/p>\n

He had been looking forward to his new deployment, Heath said in his findings, and had made a list of ‘things to do in 2020’ on a post-it note found in his room.<\/p>\n

Mongan had tired to kill himself several years earlier when his marriage was breaking down, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n

The coroner said of these previous suicide attempts were ’caused by feeling he was not going to see his children again’.<\/p>\n

Heath said this was not the same with Mongan’s death in January 2020.<\/p>\n

The two most likely causes of death were that the soldier poisoned himself or suffered sudden abnormality of the heart, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n

Barbiturates, a depressant drug, were found in the solider’s system. He had bought one of them illegally.<\/p>\n

Pathologist Dr Nigel Cooper was unable to decide which cause of death was most likely.<\/p>\n

He said: ‘I’ve thought about this long and hard but I just don’t think I can, I don’t think I have enough positive evidence to go in one direction or the other.’<\/p>\n

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Witnesses said Mongan was ‘spoken to in a despicable manner’ and ‘100% victimised’ The widow of a soldier who died in his barracks has said it is ‘unforgivable’ that it took three weeks to find his body. Father-of-three Lance Corporal Bernard Mongan’s decomposing body was discovered on January 23, 2020, in his bedroom at Catterick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mississaugaoffice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}