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UK soldiers cleared of rape in US

UK soldiers cleared of rape in US
06:30am 8th December 2005

A jury has acquitted two British Territorial Army soldiers of charges that they raped a local woman last summer while they were in Wyoming for training.
One of the soldiers was convicted of misdemeanour battery.

The Platte County District Court jury returned the verdict after deliberating for less than two hours in the trial, which began on Monday.

Andrew Leighton, 28, of Leeds, and Scott Aitken, 22, of Edinburgh, could have been sentenced to between five years and 50 years in prison on the first-degree sexual assault charge.

Aitken was convicted of battery and was sentenced to six months in jail, with credit for 133 days for the time he was confined to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne. Judge Keith Kautz also fined him 500 dollars and ordered him to pay 500 dollars to the Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

Aitken's attorney, Dave Serelson, and Leighton's attorney, Dan Blythe, both declined to comment, as did Aitken and Leighton.

Platte County Attorney Eric Alden said he understood and respected the jury's decision. "There were obviously actions taken by everyone involved that were unwise and not well decided," Alden said.

The defence rested its case on Wednesday morning after Aitken testified that the woman had consented to the sex early in the morning of July 27 at a Guernsey home where she was staying. Aitken also admitted urinating on the woman, which led to the battery charge.

"I don't know why I did it. I can't explain it, it just happened," Aitken said under questioning by his attorney, David Serelson.

Defence attorneys contended the woman consented to the sex but became angry when Aitken urinated on her. The woman testified that she never consented to the sex and that she feared resisting the two soldiers.

john
Seems they got done for pizzing about.
 
Glad that they're in the clear.

Just had a quick scan through the news sites obviously the fact that they've been cleared isn't as news worthy as when they were originally arrested (but not convicted) what a feckin surprise. :evil:
 
innocent of the rape but guility of being knobheads, once more riding the reputation of the cap badge takes a big man to piss on some one
 
So he got a battery charge for swamping the bed with her in it!?!? Half the brit forces should be locked up for that one then.
 
It was a bit more unpalatable than swamping the bed. An no, it has not got headline coverage in the Herald or the Scotsman like it did on Monday

Soldier: Sex was consensual
By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press writer
with correspondent reports

WHEATLAND -- A British soldier, one of two accused of raping a Guernsey woman while they were in Wyoming for training, testified Tuesday that sex between the soldiers and the woman was consensual.

Andrew P. Leighton, 28, of Leeds, England, said the woman had initiated sex, first kissing Scott Aitken, 22, of Edinburgh, Scotland, then kissing Leighton, then performing oral sex on Aitken.

Leighton testified that Aitken motioned for him to come over, and he did, caressing the woman before having intercourse with her.

"I was just making sure this was what she wanted happening," Leighton said.

Leighton and Aitken are charged with first-degree sexual assault; Aitken also is charged with battery for allegedly urinating on the woman. It is AP and Casper Star-Tribune policy not to identify alleged victims in sexual assault cases.

If convicted, the men could be sentenced to between five years and 50 years in prison.

Defense attorneys have said the woman consented to sex, but got upset when Aitken urinated on her.

Leighton said he, too, was disgusted when Aitken urinated on the woman.

"I wasn't happy about it," he said. "I pulled myself away from what was happening, and I pulled my pants up."

Leighton said after the encounter both men ran out of the yard and toward Camp Guernsey, where their contingent of the Territorial Army battalion of the Parachute Regiment was conducting training exercises.

Leighton said if he had to do it over again, he would have stayed and talked with her. He said he told Aitken as they were headed back to the base, “That was stupid what we just did.”

Asked why they ran, Leighton said he ran because he followed Scott, and because he felt guilty about what had just happened with the urination.

Prosecutors wrapped up Tuesday morning by calling several witnesses who saw the woman early July 27, shortly after the alleged attack.

Donna Dodge Otero, a friend of the woman, said the woman called her about 3 a.m. asking for help.

"She was shivering, she was distraught, she was white as a ghost, she was crying," Otero, of Guernsey, testified.

Otero called police.

Two police officers testified that the woman was at first reluctant to talk.

"You could tell on her face that she was real scared," officer Deanne Gardner said.

Gardner also testified she saw bruising on the woman's back, neck, buttocks, foot, leg and forearm, though she acknowledged that not all of the bruises showed up in photographs she took of the woman.

Officer Steve Steiner testified he did not see any marks on Aitken or Leighton even though he had overheard the woman tell Gardner that she had bitten both men.

A state forensic scientist testified there didn't appear to be any damage to the clothing of either the men or the woman, other than what appeared to be soil stains on the woman's shirt.
 
Nice bloke. Not. Nothing like p1ssing on someone to really cement the relationship.

Presumably, the fact that he's been convicted for urinating on somebody makes him an 'old lag'?
 
cpunk said:
Nice bloke. Not. Nothing like p1ssing on someone to really cement the relationship.

Still not rape, and he got punished more than enough for it.

She decided for a 3some with 2 Paras (ffs there's no accounting for female taste) and got a shitty on when one of them went OTT and cried rape as revenge.

I did know a lass that said it was good for the skin :lol:
 
So presumably the reliant, honest and just members of the press, especially the Scum will give equal prominence to the acquittal as they gave to the arrest and charge of these chaps - ie front page banner headlines etc etc......let's wait and see shall we?
 
Fuchs66 said:
Still not rape, and he got punished more than enough for it.

She decided for a 3some with 2 Paras (ffs there's no accounting for female taste) and got a shitty on when one of them went OTT and cried rape as revenge.

I did know a lass that said it was good for the skin :lol:

Of course, that raises an interesting question. Had she known how it was going to turn out, would she have consented to the threesome in the first place? Were I to get lucky and induce Monica Belluci and Gisele Bundchen into a threesome with me, what would happen if, at the end, the lovely Gisele had decided to do something unspeakable to me with a 12" strap-on? If I'd known beforehand, I wouldn't have joined in, no matter how much the toothsome lovelies had begged me, just as this bird probably wouldn't have gone for it, had she known that one of her two gentlemen friends was going to wazz on her.
 
oh you mean THIS Gisele Bundchen?
Well-known Brazillian supermodel for louche yankee undies firm 'Victoria's Secret '?
gisele_bundchen009.jpg


You can stop slavering anytime you like CP ...... :lol:
 
I take it then there's no reciprocal Status of Forces agreement that if a soldier is over on duty, he gets tried by his military unit, not the local courts?

NTM
 
California_Tanker said:
I take it then there's no reciprocal Status of Forces agreement that if a soldier is over on duty, he gets tried by his military unit, not the local courts?

NTM

Definitely not... I don't see the US courts allowing another nation any kind of extra-territorial jurisdiction in the US anyway.
 
BBC 3/9/05

They will be held in joint British and US military custody at Warren Air Force base until their trial on 5 December.

The men of 4 Para, the Territorial Army battalion of the Parachute Regiment, face 50 years in jail if found guilty.

Wyoming prosecutor Eric Aldan said that a request to be transferred back to the UK pending trial had been denied.

"It was discussed but the judge decided not to change any of their conditions," he said.
 

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