The Portslade mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan thanked his colleagues and praised their efforts to save him after a blast in Helmand province.
Jacqui Janes, 47, of Flint Close, Portslade, told her son’s fellow guardsmen: “I know that you did everything humanely possible to save Jamie.”
She was speaking at an inquest into the death of Guardsman Janes, 20, at Brighton Coroners Court.
Her son, who was serving with the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, bled to death after the blast on Monday 5 October last year.
He was helping a fellow guardsman out of a river when a bomb – an improvised explosive device (IED) – went off underneath him.
Controversy followed Jamie Janes’s death when Gordon Brown sent a letter of condolence to Mrs Janes.
In the handwritten letter, the Prime Minister appeared to have misspelt Jamie’s surname.
Concerns were also raised about whether British soldiers were properly equipped and whether there were enough helicopters so that injured troops could be saved with prompt treatment.
Forensic pathologist Nicholas Hunt carried out the post-mortem examination of Jamie Janes’s body. He said that the young guardsman would have lost too much blood to be saved within 10 to 15 minutes of the blast.
The coroner, Veronica Hamilton-Deeley, said that there had been no failure of equipment or strategy.
She praised the selfless heroism of Jamie Janes and his colleagues and recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.
