A police investigation into the suicide of a Northern Ireland soldier in 2001 was correctly handled, the Police Ombudsman said today.
Nuala O'Loan said the death of Royal Irish Regiment private Paul Cochrane (18) at Armagh's Drumadd barracks, was investigated by detectives thoroughly and correctly.
Mr Cochrane, from east Belfast, shot himself after allegedly being bullied by two army officers but his father Billy complained to the Ombudsman that officers made a series of blunders including failing to preserve the scene and missing evidence.
However, Mrs O'Loan said: "There was nothing to suggest or indicate that anyone else was involved in Paul's tragic death. The only evidence was that he fired the gun himself."
The lethal bullet lodged itself in a sheet of asbestos and a decision was taken not to retrieve it. Mrs O'Loan said it would add little to the investigation of the Royal Irish Rangers corporal's death. "In actual fact the original investigation was not flawed, it provided the information required of it and its findings were corroborated by the investigation," she added.
The only two possible crimes were a suicide pact or whether another person aided, abetted or encouraged him to kill himself. "As neither offence applied in this case, the sole duty of the police was to provide information to the coroner for the subsequent inquest," Mrs O'Loan said.
"This they did and when interviewed the coroner expressed no dissatisfaction with the police investigation or the standard of documentation which had been provided to him." She also concluded that police carried out an appropriate scene and forensic examination of the scene of death.
The watchdog said there was no confusion between the police and the British army's Special Investigation Branch surrounding the remit of their probes. The Police Service of Northern Ireland reviewed the case after the Cochrane family expressed concern and amid the inquiry into the Deepcut army barracks deaths in southern England.