Dead soldiers brought home; WAR: Grieving mother raps Brown over lack of equipment.

Byline: Sam Marsden

SIX British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, including five shot by an Afghan policeman, will be returned to Britain today.

Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40, SergeantMatthew Telford, 37, and Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, fromthe Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote, 22, and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, from the Royal Military Police.

They were shot dead by a "rogue" Afghan police officer in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand Province on November 3 in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

Two days later Sergeant Phillip Scott, 30, of 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by an explosive device near Sangin in Helmand.

The soldiers' bodies will be flown into RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire today. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was confronted over the lack of equipment for British troops by the mother of a dead soldier when he called to offer his condolences.

Hewas said to have been "mortified" when told of Jacqui Janes' distress over errors in a hand-written letter of condolence, immediately arranging a telephone call to say sorry.

ButMrs Janes confronted Mr Brown, telling him that her son Jamie could have survived, according to a transcript in The Sun newspaper.

"I know every injury my child sustained," she said.

"My son could have survived but my son bled to death.

"How would you like it if one of your children, God forbid, went to a war doing something that he thought, where he was helping protect his Queen and country and because of lack, lack of helicopters, lack of equipment, your child bled to death and then you had the coroner have to tell you his every injury?" Mr Brown said he wanted to offer his condolences, rather than interact in a political debate.

CAPTION(S):

Guardsman Jamie Janes.