A TEENAGE soldier who swung an axe into his corporal's head was "a bomb waiting to explode", it was claimed today.

Private Karl Nelson, 18, of Nelson, spoke out over the case of Grant Kenyon, who attacked him and broke his jaw following a row during a tour in Canada in September 2002.

Four months later, Private Kenyon attacked 27-year-old Corporal Konrad Bisping, of Clitheroe, during a training exercise on Salisbury Plain.

Kenyon, 18, of Mill Hill, Blackburn, was jailed for four and a half years at Bristol Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the corporal.

A jury had earlier cleared him of attempted murder.

Today Pendle MP Gordon Prentice demanded an immediate Ministry of Defence Inquiry into how Kenyon had been allowed to stay in the army after the first attack and added: "It should take steps to prevent anything like it happening again.''

A spokesman for the Army Prosecuting Authority (APA) said today that he was unable to comment on why Kenyon was allowed to continue serving in the army after the attack on Private Nelson until the case had been fully considered.

But he said that court martialling the soldier for the earlier attack was still an option, despite his jail sentence.

Karl said: "I didn't think that Kenyon should even have been with us on the exercise after what he had done, least of all been allowed to hold a weapon.

"He should have not been in the regiment. He was a bomb ready to explode. I heard what he did to Corporal Bisping and thought -- that could have been me."

"All that time since the attack on me there was someone in the army like that and they gave him weapons. It was just silly.

"If they had dealt with him before he may have been kicked out and the second attack would never have happened."

Today, Kenyon's second victim's mother, Kathleen, said "I don't won't revenge and I know a longer sentence will not make Konrad better.

"But how would this guy feel if his life had been ruined, if he couldn't drive again? If he couldn't play sport again?

"I don't understand how the legal system works but I would have thought he might have got a longer sentence."

Karl, had only joined the Queens Lancashire Regiment in August 2002 when he was posted out to Alberta in Canada.

He was taken to hospital where an X-ray revealed that his jaw was broken in two places.

Doctors wired up his mouth and he was eventually allowed to return home to East Lancashire accompanied by a nurse. It was three months before he was able to return to full duty at the regiment's barracks in Catterick, North Yorkshire.

Ironically the first training exercise that Karl was to attend on his return was the fateful trip to Salisbury Plain.

Karl was told that Kenyon was to be charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The action was confirmed in a letter from the Army Prosecuting Authority dated December 2002 - just one month before Kenyon attacked Konrad Bisping.

The letter also said that Karl would be asked to attend a court martial to give evidence. But he said he had heard nothing since and now feared that the matter had been forgotten.

Karl's mum Tina Gribble, 40, said: "I don't think the axing would have happened if he had not been allowed to go back into the army after the attack on Karl."

Col Philip McAvoy, internal prosecutions for the Army Prosecuting Authority, said: "We will give consideration to this matter. It is still possible for him to be court martialled. Even if a soldier has left the army he is still subject to military law.

"The reason nothing has happened sooner is that the matter has been subject to civilian authority and they have been exercising their jurisdiction."