A TRACKER system operator who failed to spot that a dying SAS test march candidate from Wiltshire had not moved for two hours has denied falsifying official records of the exercise.

The Signals Regiment soldier, codenamed 1C, told an inquest that timings relating to the march in July 2013 were not added to a log book at a later date.

The inquest has heard that special forces hopefuls  James Dunsby, from Trowbridge, Edward Maher and Craig Roberts died after collapsing during "heatwave" conditions on the Brecon Beacons in south Wales.

Cpl Dunsby, who was a reservist with Swindon-based A Squadron The Royal Yeomanry, died in hospital 17 days after the test march and two other reservists were pronounced dead on the hills.

During the 17th day of the hearing in Solihull, it emerged that the original copy of the march's log has never been seen by the police or the Health and Safety Executive.

Soldier 1C, a Signals Regiment soldier who was observing up to 78 soldiers' GPS beacons on a laptop, told the inquest the original log was handed over to his organisation's "hierarchy" and stored at its headquarters in Hereford.

Asked if he had "created" hand-written timings after the tragic events to clarify what had happened, Soldier 1C told the Birmingham coroner, Louise Hunt: "No ma'am. This list was produced on the day when those times were."

Under further questioning from a barrister representing the father of Cpl Dunsby, 1C said of the original logbook: "That got given to Soldier 1A and that got given in to the hierarchy of our unit.

"The last time I saw the log was when myself and Soldier 1B wrote our witness statement. As far as I am aware, it was kept under lock and key by the hierarchy."

1C, who was repeatedly warned that he did not have to answer potentially incriminating questions, further denied changing a note of a time at which a 999 call was made.

Soldier 1C acted as the designated "scribe" of significant events during the 16-mile test week march, and was also responsible for logging times at which candidates passed through checkpoints.

During questioning by Ms Hunt, 1C was asked to explain why he had not noticed that Lance Corporal Maher, from Winchester, had gone "static" from 2.16pm until a time as late as 4.40pm.

Speaking from inside a witness box constructed to shield military witnesses from view, 1C told the inquest his tracking screen inside his command vehicle had given him no indication that the reservists who died were "in any kind of distress".

The soldier said: "The only thing I can say is that we were tracking the rest of the students and trying to relay information (from another soldier about L/Cpl Roberts) to the emergency services.

"Everybody was fine, everybody said they were fine."

Referring specifically to L/Cpl Maher, 1C said his tracker dot was on a screen showing a group of soldiers climbing a steep hill on the course.

"I saw a group of them at the top and then my attention got drawn to everybody else on that route. I had to constantly look at other people," 1C said.

Explaining why he had not spotted that Cpl Dunsby had stopped moving for around an hour, 1C added: "I can't fixate on one student because I would lose situational awareness of everyone else.

"He was moving at good speed downhill (from the top of Pen y Fan) so I had no concerns that he was any risk."

L/Cpl Roberts, originally from north Wales, and the other reservists who died were attempting "selection" for a specialist unit referred to at the inquest as reserve unit 1.

The commanding officer of the SAS reserve unit, which takes recruits from southern England and Wales, also appeared anonymously at the inquest.

The officer, using the cipher 9L, began his evidence by passing on his condolences to family members present at the hearing.

"We are all deeply shocked by this incident," 9L said. "Some of the training staff who work for me have been deeply affected by it.

"I know that pales into insignificance compared to the loss of the families. We were, and still are, deeply sorry for the deaths of Corporals Dunsby, Maher and Roberts."

A total of 37 reservists took part in the march on July 13, 2013, alongside 41 regular soldiers attempting "selection" into a special forces signals unit.

The inquest has heard that reservists were not subject to the same regime of "build-up" marches in the week before the exercise and may not have been sufficiently conditioned for the test march.

But, 9L said, the reservists had done the equivalent of seven weeks' preparation training, including a weekend in which they had covered more than 37 miles during marches.

Responding to questions about the "wisdom" of ordering that reservists should take part in a reduced length march on July 14, 9L said: "We considered it extremely carefully. We took those decisions with mitigations in place."

Invited by Ms Hunt to give his view as to whether it was safe to continue with a march on July 14, 9L went on: "I absolutely considered it was a reasonable decision to march.

"Given the fact that we had halved the distance, it was well within their capabilities. All the students were capable of conducting that day safely."

9L said it was easy to look back and attribute the "terrible incident" to differences in training.

But he added: "I think there were a number of factors and that is without doubt one of them.

"While it is easy to see this in hindsight, it is not as easy to have seen that before. I think it's fair to say that we could not have seen this accident happening.

"We certainly didn't. If we had, we would have made changes."