A soldier broke down in tears as he told an inquest of the moment he accidentally gunned down a tank commander.

An inquest heard Trooper Gary Thornton tell how he aimed the Coaxial machine gun in his tank at an Iraqi man pelting rocks at Sergeant Steven Roberts, 33, of Shipley, who was on the ground at a vehicle checkpoint.

The gunner fired two bursts on the orders of his tank colleague Lance Cpl Scott Manley and saw the Iraqi drop down, he said.

Trooper Thornton collapsed in the witness box as he recalled the horror.

He said: "The Iraqi got back up and I saw his arm, roughly at the elbow joint, hanging off.

"That's when I heard over the intercom that Sgt Roberts was on the floor."

Sgt Roberts' widow Samantha listened intently as Trooper Thornton gave his account to Oxford Coroner's Court.

He said by the time he got back to base after the incident it was dawning on him that his shots may have killed Sgt Roberts.

Trooper Thornton said he had changed his machine gun from its long-range setting to its short range "pinpoint" mode.

Describing the moment he fired, he said: "The only person in my sight was the Iraqi. I had my aiming mark on him."

He said the civilian and Sgt Roberts were not both in view. He had to move his sights to lock on to the Iraqi, he said.

Earlier, a senior non-commissioned Army officer accused the Government of sending troops to war ill-equipped.

Squadron Sergeant Major Jeffrey Elson, of 2 Royal Tank Regiment, spoke out while giving evidence at an inquest into the death of his colleague.

Sgt Roberts was killed in the "friendly fire" incident three days after being ordered to hand back his body armour due to shortages.

Had he been wearing the correct protective kit, Sgt Roberts would have survived, Sgt Major Elson said.

Sgt Major Elson criticised the MoD's "just enough just in time" policy on kit distribution for servicemen going to war.

He said: "The policy that the Government has got is beyond what the soldiers can comprehend sometimes."

He said troops were better prepared during the Cold War than they were now.

"During the Cold War, stores (of kit) were prepared just in case the Russians came screaming across the border. But that was changed," he said.

Commenting on today's approach, he said: "You do not get the kit on time to do your job. And troops do not have enough time to familiarise themselves with the pieces of kit before they get into theatre and have to use them for real."

During the Iraq war in 2003 he said troops in his squadron were forced to use masking tape to hold their body armour on.

Those not forced to hand back their armour altogether had to slot potentially life-saving protective plates into their pockets as they did not have vests needed to hold them in place.

Sgt Major Elson said out of 110 in his squadron, 29 had to hand in their sets of body armour so infantry soldiers could use them.

"There was a distinct shortage of the larger size body armour," he said.

"It was unlikely, because all the larger sizes were removed, that the body armour would have fitted the larger blokes anyway."

He said most men had some items of protective kit but not all the necessary components.

When Sgt Roberts died at the checkpoint near Az Zubayr in March 2003 he was wearing training body armour, capable of stopping stab wounds or low-velocity bullets but not the machine gun rounds which killed him, the inquest heard.

Men on the ground, as Sgt Roberts was in this instance, should have been wearing enhanced body armour but due to the shortages he was not, the hearing was told.

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