AN accident which killed a young soldier on Dartmoor may have been caused by fatigue after troops had been on duty for 15 hours, an inquest in Exeter this week heard.

Cameron Laing, aged 20, died after being crushed between a four tonne trailer and a truck after a convoy got lost on its way to Okehampton Camp.

The vehicles went down a dead end road on the moor after being misdirected by a Sat nav system which had not been checked against physical maps, an inquest was told.

The trucks, which were delivering storage containers to Okehampton Camp, had been on the road since 5am and their crews had exceeded the Army's normal 13-hour daily work limit when the accident happened at around 10pm.

Private Laing was a father-to-be from Hucknall, Nottingham, who was helping to manhandle a trailer when the brake slipped on a truck which rolled onto him and crushed him.

The soldier from 7 Regiment of the Royal Logistic Corp died from multiple injuries at the scene of the accident at Bracken Tor in April 2014, the inquest heard.

An Army safety expert said a number of procedures had not been followed correctly in the run-up to the accident and it had been unsafe to uncouple the trailer without the driver and crew understanding its braking control system.

Ministry of Defence accident investigator Lt Col Ian Burton recommended that in future, routes should be checked with maps as well as Sat nav and new signs should direct vehicles away from the road to Bracken Tor.

He said: 'Fatigue may also have played a part. They had got up at 5am, left at 6am and this accident occurred just before 10pm.

'They had been on the go all day, although they had a break, and it is highly likely they would have been fatigued. The regulations stipulate a maximum operating duty of 13 hours and they had been operating for over 15.

'Taking that into account judgments may have been compromised. In my opinion this was not best practice as laid down in procedures.

'The prime causation of the accident was failure to comply with trailer coupling and uncoupling procedures contributed to by incorrect route selection and lack of understanding of the trailer braking system.

'There was a lack of adequate command and control, and fatigue may have been a factor.'

He said an initial army assessment of lessons learned included improved signposting on Dartmoor to ensure military vehicles did not go down the wrong road again.

The inquest verdict was due as the Times went to press yesterday (Wednesday).