Army major accused of rape claimed he was the victim

AN ARMY major accused of raping a female colleague claimed he was the victim when he was told his DNA had been found following an investigation, a court martial heard.

After he was arrested on suspicion of rape and questioned by Royal Military Police officers, Major Gregor Beaton, 33, said he was too drunk to remember having sex so he must have been assaulted. The Afghanistan veteran said: “I did not want sexual contact. I did not initiate it.”

When told his DNA was found inside the woman, he insisted that meant he must have been forced into sex and should make a complaint himself.

The court heard that he added: “She has assaulted me. That’s my understanding. I did not have sex with her.”

The woman previously told the court she was horrified when she woke up naked in her bed the morning after a drunken Burns supper next to Major Beaton 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 when she saw it was Major Beaton, whom she barely knew, she said she panicked.

The court heard that when she confronted Major Beaton, a Sandhurst graduate from the 14th Regiment Royal Artillery, he said he was “99 per cent sure” nothing had happened.

Giving evidence at Bulford military court yesterday, Major Beaton said he “didn’t have anything to hide” and had simply chatted to the woman, who had wandered into his room after previously being put to bed by a friend because she was drunk.

He said he took her back to her dorm and they chatted for a while about the soldier she had been “flirting” with, 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 but accidentally fell asleep.

The woman later went for a medical examination when it was revealed she had Major Beaton’s DNA inside her.

He was arrested in the early hours of the next morning and continued to deny anything had taken place between the pair.

Major Beaton denies a charge of rape. The trial continues.