A Briton who died fighting in Ukraine saved the lives of other soldiers in his international unit before he was shot dead, an inquest said Tuesday.
Jordan Gatley, 24, died in the eastern city of Severodonetsk on June 10 after filing his complaint with the British Army and joining an international unit of fighters in the weeks following the Russian invasion.
A “skilled marksman”, Gatley had served as a lance corporal in the Rifles Regiment in Edinburgh, Scotland.
But after war broke out, Gatley told his parents he was determined to “do whatever he could,” his mother said in a statement to the Oxford Coroner’s Court.
He was “relentless… he was able to help the people of Ukraine with his skills,” and by early June the former corporal and other international volunteers were in Severodonetsk, a target for heavy Russian shelling.
He was fatally shot in the head by a Russian sniper while searching a bombed-out building for Ukrainian victims.
A Russian tank was then prevented from firing on its fellows after a fighter he had been training in anti-tank weapons managed to use a gun against him, his mother Sally Gatley added.
“They felt like Jordan ended up saving everyone else’s life,” she said.
– “Nothing that could have been done” –
Another inquest conducted on Tuesday found the first British volunteer to die in Ukraine was killed by mortar fire on April 22.
Scott Sibley, a 36-year-old former Royal Marines logistics specialist, was killed in the village of Lymany in southern Mykolaiv region.
His fellow campaigner, US citizen Gene “AJ” Smith, was quoted as telling a British consular officer that Sibley was “an excellent sharpshooter” who spent three days in his burrow.
On the third day a team came to relieve him, but a drone located them and moments later the foxhole came under heavy artillery fire and Sibley ran to the nearest dugout.
“As he was running, another mortar hit him, killing him instantly,” senior coroner Darren Salter said.
A post-mortem at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford found the father of three daughters who had served in Afghanistan died “instantaneously”.
“There is nothing that could have been done to save his life,” the coroner said.
– ‘Active Service’ –
Sibley had served as a petroleum operator with the British Logistic Support Squadron, Commando Logistic Regiment, before leaving the army and becoming a truck driver about five years ago.
His mother, Mary Sibley, said in a statement that her son “heard on the news about abuse of women and children[in Ukraine]that he wanted to help.”
“Scott would do anything to help anyone,” she said.
In April, his former squadron’s Facebook page said he “showed command spirit to the end.”
Chief Medical Examiner Darren Salter ruled that both men “were killed while on active duty in the Ukrainian army.”
The UK has also confirmed the deaths of paramedic Craig Mackintosh and ex-paratrooper Simon Lingard, who were killed near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine this month.
In England and Wales, coroner’s inquiries are conducted to try to determine the causes and circumstances of sudden or unexplained deaths on a probabilistic basis.
They do not establish criminal or civil liability, but present facts of public interest.
