Major review of rape laws proposed

A military judge has suggested parliament should review the law on rape cases in which neither party can remember having sex after clearing an Army major of attacking a female captain. 

 

33-year-old Major Gregor Beaton, who served in Afghanistan, told Royal Military Police after his arrest on suspicion of rape that he was too drunk to remember having sex and suggested he may have been assaulted.

 

When he was told that his DNA was found inside the woman he insisted that it meant he must have been forced into sex and should consider making a complaint himself. Major Beaton said, "I did not want sexual contact. I did not initiate it". 

 

Jeff Blackett, the Judge Advocate General, said, "You have been found not guilty by this board. It is intolerable that this case has taken so long to get to court and that is unacceptable … This was an unusual case because neither party can remember having sex."

 

He added that, in his view, "Parliament should look again" at the law surrounding incidents where neither party could properly recall events, stating, "There must be a better way of dealing with these cases." 

 

The woman in the case previously said that she was horrified when she woke naked in her bed with "absolutely no memory" of what had happened. She had been "flirting" with another soldier during the evening and at first thought it was him, but said she panicked when she saw it was Major Beaton, whom she barely knew.

 

She confronted Major Beaton who said he was "99 per cent sure" nothing had happened. The woman later went for a medical examination which revealed she had Major Beaton's DNA inside her. 

 

Major Beaton, who denied the single count of rape, said he, "didn't have anything to hide" while giving evidence at Bulford military court. He stated he had simply chatted to the woman who had wandered into his room. He said he took her back to her dorm and they talked for a while before he fell asleep in an armchair.

 

He said he woke when the woman went to the bathroom, then sat on the end of her bed, and wrapped himself in a blanket, then fell asleep. 

 

The three-day trial heard the female officer had been so drunk during a Burns Night supper on a military base that a female colleague had to put her to bed. The court heard that during the event, the female captain drank red wine, Jägermeister, prosecco and whisky. Major Beaton drank two highballs of beer, a few glasses of white wine and a small glass of port. He also later drank Jägermeister and at least five measures of whisky. 

 

A Sandhurst graduate of the 14th Regiment, Royal Artillery, Major Beaton broke down in tears as the five-person panel of senior officers made up of one woman and four men cleared him of the accusations following deliberations of an hour and 45 minutes.

 

 

The Johnson Partnership

Derby Crime Solicitors