Soldier Gavin Williams 'died after "beasting" punishment', court told Chris Smyth An ill-disciplined junior soldier was “beasted” to death by three of his colleagues, a jury was told yesterday.

Private Gavin Williams, 22, of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh Regiment, died while being put through a session of physical exercise to punish him for his behaviour, Winchester Crown Court was told.

He collapsed and died of heatstroke on one of the hottest days of 2006, when temperatures hit 30C (86F).

On the Monday morning after a weekend of drunken high jinks, an order was given by Captain Mark Davis, the battalion adjutant, to have Private Williams brought to his office “panting like a dog”. The previous day, after the officers’ summer ball, an intoxicated Private Williams shouted at some guests, then squirted one of Captain Davis’s friends with a fire extinguisher. He later showed up drunk for guard duty, the court was told.

Receiving Captain Davis’s instructions was Provost Sergeant Russell Price, 45, of 2 Rifles, who led the beasting, “willingly” assisted by physical training instructor Sergeant Paul Blake, 37, and Corporal John Edwards, 33, both from the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Regiment, Mark Dennis, QC, for the prosecution, said.

The trio deny manslaughter at Lucknow Barracks in Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, on July 3, 2006.

Mr Dennis said that the three defendants unlawfully killed Private Williams by subjecting him to ill-treatment and physical abuse. The beasting involved Private Williams first being forced to engage in intensive marching and drill manoeuvring in the heat by Corporal Edwards. He was then taken by Sergeant Price to the gym where he was instructed by Sergeant Blake to carry out a half-hour session of heavy exercises. Sergeant Blake told police that he became concerned for Private Williams’s welfare and decided to take him back to Sergeant Price.

But Mr Dennis said that despite this apparent concern, he forced Private Williams to carry a heavy powerbag, used for muscle-building, back to the guardroom, stopping frequently to make the soldier lift the bag above his head. Mr Dennis said: “For that to have been imposed on someone who was plainly suffering and who was making it
Will we ever learn!!!

Clear that he was in a bad way, puts Blake, the prosecution would submit, on an equal footing with Price and Edwards with regard to their apparent lack of any real concern for Williams’s wellbeing.”

Private Williams collapsed as he was being walked to the base medical centre, the jury was told. Lying on the ground, he was overheard saying that he was “cooking up” and that he could not go on, the prosecution said.

In hospital, tests showed his body temperature was 41.7C, way above the norm of 37C, the court was told. The cause of death was given as a heart attack brought on by hyperthermia. Mr Dennis said that beasting “belonged to bygone days when there was less respect for the individual”.

The jury heard how Sergeant Price, in a police interview, said that if a matter involving a misbehaving soldier ever “gets to my desk then he’s in a world of s***”.

Mr Dennis said: “During interview Price appeared almost to take pride in being what he considered to be the most hated man in the battalion because of his appointment as Provost Sergeant.”

The trial continues
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