A former corporal involved in a “beasting” punishment that preceded the collapse and death of a young private insisted that an officer had ordered that the private be brought to him “panting like a dog”.
John Edwards told an inquest that Mark Davis, who is now a lieutenant colonel, had wanted Gavin Williams “on the back foot” when he spoke to him following a night of drunken high jinks in the officers’ mess.
Edwards, who has since left the army, said he was watched by “high-rankers” – officers – as he vigorously marched the 22-year-old Williams around the parade ground in Wiltshire.
Then a corporal, Edwards was one of three soldiers cleared by a crown court judge of Williams’s manslaughter in 2008.
After the verdicts, the trial judge, Mr Justice Royce, expressed concern that while three non-commissioned officers had been prosecuted, Davis, who at the time was a captain, was being promoted.
When he appeared at Williams’s inquest earlier this month, Davis accepted that he had asked for the young soldier to be brought to him “hot and sweaty” but denied that he had said he wanted him “panting like a dog” or that he had ordered him to undergo the punishment beasting.
Edwards told the inquest in Salisbury that he received a phone call from Davis on the morning of the day Williams, of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh Regiment, died. “He wanted Gavin in his office and he wanted to speak to him,” he told the inquest. “He told me that he wanted him at his office panting like a dog.”
When told that Davis denied using the phrase, Edwards replied: “I stand by my statement. I will stick with ‘panting like a dog’. He wanted me to take him [Williams] for a quick march and to make him out of breath so he could speak to him. He wanted, I think, to have him on the back foot.”
The march lasted 20 minutes in a parade ground in view of many superiors, Edwards said. “The pace varied, it was a quick pace. I had him turning round, I had him marching forward, going to a certain point and then around.”
Following the march, Williams was taken into a gym for further physical exercise. Edwards said this was not his decision and had questioned it. “I thought Gavin had enough,” he said. “I am not a monster.”
Williams, from south Wales, collapsed of heatstroke and died after being punished for misbehaviour at an officers’ ball at Lucknow barracks in Tidworth, Wiltshire.
His family has campaigned for the inquest to be reopened following the acquittal of Edwards and two other soldiers involved in the incident, which happened in July 2006. The inquest is hearing from more than 100 witnesses.
Soldiers and civilians have told how Williams looked dreadful as he was marched around the parade ground.
In her witness statement to the inquest, the dead soldier’s mother, Debra Williams, 48, has described how she had waited nine and a half years to hear the truth about what happened to her son and that memories of seeing his lifeless body continued to haunt her.
She said: “I have been completely devastated by Gavin’s death. I miss him and think about him every day. I find it difficult to sleep or eat since Gavin’s death.
“I have a mental picture of him being punished, and have vivid nightmares about him. The memory of seeing Gavin’s lifeless body with marks around his face still haunts me.”
The inquest continues.
