Naval officer ‘exploited drunk cadet’

A ROYAL NAVY ship’s captain took a teenage cadet back to his hotel room and raped her after colleagues tried to take her back to the boat “for safety”, a court martial heard today.

Lieutenant Rhys Christie was called a “predator” by the prosecutor after allegedly exploiting the young woman after two Navy nights out. He is accused of five counts of rape after nights out in Scotland and Kent, which he denies. The commanding officer of the Edinburgh-based naval ship HMS Archer “abused his position of authority”, William Peters, prosecuting, said yesterday.

Speaking at Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire, Mr Peters said the pair had been part of a group watching Six Nations rugby at a pub in Scotland.

“In the pub, the pair were sat next to each other and he started playing with her leg, making her feel uncomfortable,” he said. “Due to her drunkenness, she was sick all over the floor and table.

“While she was sitting there, she was drifting off to sleep. Too drunk, the prosecution say, to have the capacity to choose to have sex with Christie in his hotel room that night. She has no memory of being drunk in the pub and has a hazy recollection of walking up the stairs at the hotel and then nothing until the morning.” He added: “She was too drunk to choose to have sex with the defendant and that would have been obvious to him.”

Mr Peters said: “[A colleague] wanted to escort her back to the ship for her own safety. Christie intervened and said he would take her back to his hotel for her safety. It illustrate show much in need of a safe haven s he was when Christie pounced on her vulnerability and took her back to his room to exploit that very weakness. He was a predator.”

The alleged victim said Lt Christie, 28, had told her she had been “asking for it” after the first incident.

The court was told that three weeks later, Lt Christie raped the same woman in Kent. The lieutenant, who now serves on the nuclear submarine HMS Vengeance, denies the allegations that the sex was not consensual.

He was previously captain of the Archer-Class fast patrol boat HMS Archer, which is used to support University Royal Navy Units.

The trial continues.