The mother of a soldier who died in Oxfordshire when his parachute failed to open said her son would have lived had it not been for military "penny pinching".

Captain Daniel Wright, 25, of the Queen's Gurkha Signal Corps, died at Weston-on-the-Green, near Bicester, after falling 2,500ft in November, 2005, during his first day of training with the elite SAS regiment at RAF Brize Norton.

Instructors on the ground shouted at the soldier, who was not issued with a radio, to cut away his main chute, but by the time he deployed his reserve at 200ft, it was too late.

Requests had been made to military chiefs for radios - but were refused.

Today, Capt Wright's mother, Carol, said: "We ask the MoD to accept their penny-pinching in not providing the same level of safety equipment as is provided for civilian parachute students has resulted in a far greater use of public funds - for example, the cost of this court case.

"For the sake of a flipping radio they have lost a potential star among their ranks.

"It's such a terrible waste - he was a talented young man who was likely to have had a glittering military career."

Radios are now provided during military parachute training, bringing the armed forces in line with standard cilivian practice.

Recording a narrative verdict, Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker said instructions via radio could have saved the soldier.

He added: "At the time Capt Wright took the parachute course, requests for these radios had been refused as funding was only available for essential items."

Mr Walker recommended that an automatically-deployed reserve parachute should be used in future and novice military parachutists should jump from a higher altitude, like civilians.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said all parachute training from April 1 would involve radios.