Chilcot Report: Red Cap's mum expects no 'proper answers' over why son was sent to Iraq War

By Kris Jepson

On Wednesday 179 families will learn why their sons and daughters were sent to war in Iraq when Sir John Chilcot publishes his long-awaited Iraq War Inquiry Report.For one mother from Jarrow, her nightmare began 13 years ago outside a police station in Majar al Kabir, near Basra in Iraq.

Pat Long's son, Corporal Paul Long, was one of six Royal Military Police officers (Red Caps) who were set upon and killed by an angry 400-strong mob of Iraqis.

She told ITV Tyne Tees: "There was no need for it. I miss him. This is all I’ve got now.” Tapping the plaque on her son’s memorial bench at the local beach she added: "The photographs and the memory".

Watch @krisjepson's report here:

Pat said coping with her loss never gets easy. She keeps herself busy by fundraising for a military charity. “It just gives me something to focus on”, she adds.

Still with no answers to why Paul was sent to a war which ultimately brought him to his untimely death aged just 24, Pat doubts that Wednesday’s publication will give her the answers and closure she craves, after a series of delays.

Pulling out a letter Paul wrote to her just weeks before his death, she begins to read it out.

Tongue in cheek, he berates the politicians who sent him to war, "Bush and Blair holidays. Never going on holiday with this club again. Brochure said state of the art war, luxury hotels... two to a room, communal toilets, the queues are horrendous… always a thousand flies before me.”

For Pat, his message could not be clearer: it was not the war he was told to expect. That is why she will be scrutinising the Chilcot Inquiry’s findings in detail, when the 2.6 million word document is published this week.

Watch @krisjepson's full report below: