A soldier who won the Military Cross for rescuing wounded comrades and trying to retrieve the body of a colleague trapped in a Taleban ambush in Afghanistan was named yesterday by the Ministry of Defence as the latest victim of a roadside bomb.

Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett, 29, was one of a group of soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment who, on a previous tour of Afghanistan, attempted repeatedly during the night of September 8 2007 to recover the body of Private Johan Botha, who had been on his first overseas tour since joining the Mercians.

Their determination not to leave him behind followed a ferocious gunfight with the Taleban near the southern Helmand town of Garmsir.

Sergeant Lockett, who was a corporal in 2007, was killed on Monday after an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated while he was dismounted from his vehicle in the district of Gereshk in central Helmand. He was confirming the discovery of the IED when it exploded. Two other soldiers were injured in the same incident. He is the only holder of the Military Cross to have been subsequently killed in action in Afghanistan. Another soldier awarded the MC was killed in Iraq.

Sergeant Lockett was the 217th British soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2001, and the 212th since the campaign in Helmand began in 2006. He was from Monifieth in Angus, and took part in every operational deployment and exercise his battalion was involved in, serving in Bosnia and Northern Ireland. This year he returned for his third tour of Afghanistan.

He spent the majority of his career as a machinegunner but held many other qualifications, including jungle warfare instructor and military tracking instructor. His role in Afghanistan on this tour was to train and mentor the Afghan National Army. Sergeant Lockett was working and operating alongside soldiers of the Afghan National Army at Patrol Base Sandford in the Upper Gereshk Valley when the explosion occurred.

He was regarded as an inspirational leader. The MoD said: “Locky, as he was known to his friends, will always be remembered for his infectious laugh and prominence as a man. His leadership style was the exact mix of compassion and steel which garnered the respect of both those he led and those he served. He was nearing the end of his tour when he died \.

“He volunteered to stay on at his patrol base to ensure that the incoming soldiers knew as much as they could about the local area and they could reap the benefits of his vast local knowledge.”

He leaves behind his children Connor, 8, Chloe, 7, and Courtney, 5. Belinda English, his girlfriend, said that he died “for Queen and country”. His parents, Mal and April Lockett, said: “We are immensely proud of Mike, he was everything that we could ever have wanted in a son and was a devoted father.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Simon Banton, his commanding officer, said: “The Mercian Regiment has lost one of its brightest and its best, and a true hero. “Sergeant Lockett MC was one of the most impressive soldiers I have ever met.”

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