Guilty, drunken naval officer in bar grope shame
A ROYAL Navy officer was convicted of sexually assaulting a junior sailor yesterday after groping her during a drunken night out.
Petty Officer Lee O’Donnell was accused of drunkenly staring at the woman’s chest, telling her she was ‘fit’ and saying he would like to lick her ‘up and down’.
The married sailor’s ‘crude’ behaviour left his victim questioning whether the Navy was the ‘right place’ for her, a court martial was told. The incident occurred when O’Donnell was an instructor on an aircraft engineering course at HMS Sultan, a training base in Gosport, Hampshire.
Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire heard O’Donnell arranged to meet some of his pupils at the base’s Gearbox Bar. He had
already drunk three bottles of wine at an earlier event before drinking cider and tequila in the bar, the board was told. O’Donnell was at a table with five sailors when he groped the woman. The court heard there was an ‘inside joke’ about staring at her nipples after a senior officer was caught doing so within two weeks of her starting in the Navy.
Major James Eveleigh, prosecuting, said O’Donnell ‘placed his hand on her leg and moved it up towards her groin’. He added: ‘His hand was slapped away (by the woman), but he put it back and began to squeeze.’ He ‘invited the party to admire how “fit” she was, and made crude comments about her’ before inviting her to ‘take him back to his cabin’.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police: ‘His left hand with his wedding ring on went on my leg. He... said he wanted to... lick me up and down. I did get a bit scared. I started thinking, is the Navy right for me?’
O’Donnell, who has since left the Navy after more than 22 years’ service, told police he could not remember anything about the night. He will be sentenced at a later date.
The hearing comes after the head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Ben Key, last week ordered an investigation into revelations in the Daily Mail of alleged bullying and sexual harassment against women in the Submarine Service.