THE family of a Royal Navy lieutenant from Kent who was killed in a helicopter collision in Iraq have told of their continuing fight for information about the crash.

Lt Marc Lawrence's mother, Ann, said the Navy had failed to respond adequately to a series of questions raised by the family last August after reading the official report into the accident.

Mrs Lawrence, from Westgate, near Margate, said: "We didn't actually get any answers. We just listened to a lot of platitudes. The Navy has no notion of our loss. We as a family and Marc himself invested 26 years in his life. He was just too precious to cast aside like this."

The Lawrence family were speaking after a report in the Independent on Sunday newspaper exposed a series of critical problems with the equipment, radar and safety procedures on the two Sea King helicopters that collided off the northern Arabian Gulf in March.

The newspaper says a classified report into the accident that claimed the life of Lt Lawrence and six other servicemen has warned Government ministers that a similar crash could happen again.

Mrs Lawrence said: "I have not seen this report. Why is it not made available to us?

"It won't bring Marc back but I think we are owed more than just being told he had a dangerous job. They have no right to mislead us."

Among the family's concerns is that the aircraft were a new model of Sea King that might not have been tested thoroughly.

The Ministry of Defence board of inquiry report apparently states that both aircraft and the Ark Royal followed procedures correctly, but that these procedures were out-dates and ineffective.

Neither Sea King had been fitted with night-vision equipment because it was not deemed necessary for the roles they were serving. There was also minimal use of radar, the report states.

Paul Tyler, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cornwall North, a constituency close to the RNAS Culdrose base where Lt Lawrence and his colleagues were based, is due to raise questions about the crash in Parliament.