AN Army officer told a grieving family it would have been “too much paperwork” to cancel a special forces test march which led to three deaths, a coroner has heard.

Former Sussex student Corporal James Dunsby, 31, was one of the three to collapse and die while in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales on one of the hottest days of 2013.

Lance Corporal Craig Roberts, 24, and Lance Corporal Edward Maher, 31, were the other two soldiers to die on July 13, two years ago.

In a family statement read to the hearing by her lawyer, L/Cpl Roberts’ mother Margaret questioned why her son was “sent up there in that heat”.

The family of the officer, who had been working as a teaching assistant, was informed of his death at 11.30pm on the day of the exercise.

In their statement, family members said they later visited a hospital in South Wales, where they asked a commanding officer whether the timing of the march could have been changed.

“He replied there would be too much paperwork,” the family statement added.

“We were so angry with this answer. We were being told that the march wasn’t cancelled to save on paperwork.”

The inquest, being heard in Solihull, West Midlands, will examine risk-assessments, briefings and the amount of water given to soldiers before the 16-mile (26km) march.

L/Cpl Roberts, originally from Penrhyn Bay, Conwy, was pronounced dead on the mountainside, while L/Cpl Maher and Corporal Dunsby were taken to hospital.

L/Cpl Maher, who was born in Winchester, died later the same day in Merthyr Tydfil’s Prince Charles Hospital.

Cpl Dunsby, from Bath, Somerset, died on July 30 after being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The widow of Cpl Dunsby, who was an analyst for the Ministry of Defence, gave evidence at the inquest and described her late husband as tall, dark and handsome.

She added he was charming, with many friends and “an exceptional all-rounder”, gifted academically and at sports.

Bryher Dunsby also said the Afghanistan veteran was extremely fit, a trained combat medic and first joined the British Army as a reserve in 2005, having previously served with the Australian Army.

She said Cpl Dunsby, a University of Sussex graduate, had been “a delightful, eccentric mix between Flashman, a PG Wodehouse novel, and a Noel Coward play”.

“He loved the British Army,” she added. At one point she paused in her evidence, turned to the coroner and said: “I have to do right by him.”

The inquest, which is expected to last four weeks, continues.