An army sergeant involved in disciplining a young soldier has told an inquest how the private struggled and thrashed around after collapsing of heat illness during a “beasting” punishment.
Sgt Russell Price described the scene when Gavin Williams had to be restrained at the army medical centre Lucknow Barracks in Wiltshire, where he had been disciplined for drunken high jinks and other misdemeanours.
“It was horrible. I wasn’t trained for it,” Price said. “The way he was struggling, he just kept thrashing about. One minute he would be fine and then the next minute he would be telling people to get off him and he would be thrashing around again.”
Price, who was involved in disciplining Williams, apologised to the soldier’s family. “I am truly sorry and deeply sorry for what’s happened over the course of this event,” he said. “It breaks my heart and I am so sorry for the loss of Gavin.”
Williams, 22, a member of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh Regiment, collapsed and died in July 2006, on one of the hottest days of the year. He had been forced to undergo an arduous march around a searingly hot parade ground before being taken to a gym for more exercise.
Price, 53, was one of three soldiers prosecuted over the so-called beasting; he and his colleagues were cleared of manslaughter in 2008. After the verdicts, the trial judge, Mr Justice Royce, expressed concern that while three non-commissioned officers were prosecuted, Mark Davis, their commander and then a captain, was being promoted.
During Williams’ inquest at Salisbury, Davis, now a lieutenant colonel, said he had ordered Williams to be brought to him “hot and sweaty”. He admitted he had removed Williams’ regimental badge from his cap during the incident, describing this as a “pretty stupid thing to do”.
But Davis said he had not meant for Pte Gavin Williams to be beasted and said he felt betrayed by Price, who was in charge of discipline.
Price told the inquest, now in its fifth week, that Davis had ordered Williams to be “melted” and brought to his office. Williams was forced to march vigorously before being taken to Davis, where he was stripped of his badge.
Price said: “I was totally shocked and I have never seen anything like that before. It was absolutely disgraceful to take their cap badge off them. Given everything you go through to get a cap badge – it’s why you go to war. You wear it with pride and to take it off you is unbelievable.”
Price, who has left the army, told the inquest that when Williams returned without his cap badge he interpreted that as meaning Davis wanted him to receive further physical punishment – although nothing had been said directly to him – so he ordered him to the gym.
As Price marched Williams to the gym he was overheard telling him: “Two people in life you don’t fuck with – one is your mother and the other’s me.”
Asked to explain the comment, Price said: “I don’t even know why I said it. I apologise. I don’t know what was going on in my mind to make me say it.”
Williams was later taken to the medical centre suffering from stomach ache and diarrhoea and was visibly shaking. While there, he became increasingly agitated and aggressive and he was restrained and handcuffed.
“As soon as I walked in it was mayhem in there,” said Price. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
The coroner, Alan Large, asked Price what he knew of the use of unofficial physical punishments, outside army disciplinary regulations known as AGAI 67.
He said: “Whenever corrective military training was given out it was directed from a rank above us and it was always done in plain view of everyone – it was never done quietly.”
The coroner read from Price’s witness statement, in which he described a meeting early in 2006 when the regimental sergeant major, Lee Davies, allegedly discussed discipline. In the statement, Price said: “He [Davies] stated we could do whatever we wanted.
“We could make them, the soldiers, polish the tyres on the Wombat [anti-tank gun] or even clean our own cars or whatever. He would back us 100%. He was basically saying to us whatever we do as regards discipline, carry on doing it, and it worked.”
The inquest continues.
