Sergeant ‘forced cadet to crawl around track’
AN ARMY instructor has been accused of bullying after ordering a teenage cadet to carry out a battlefield crawling exercise as punishment during training.
L/sgt Ryan Harley ordered 17-year-old Lennox Clancy to “leopard crawl” around a running track for having worn a woolly hat under his helmet.
The leopard crawl involves soldiers pushing themselves along the ground by their elbows and knees to present the smallest possible target to enemy fire and is described as a “lifesaving skill” in Army recruitment videos.
L/sgt Harley, 36, is being court martialed over claims of ill treatment against Signaller Clancy and three other junior soldiers at the Army Foundation College, North Yorkshire.
The prosecution claims that L/sgt Harley went “beyond what was expected” in enforcing discipline and adherence to Army regulations during training sessions.
On being ordered to carry out the punishment, the young soldier proceeded to crawl on all fours around the track, rather than adopting the more prone leopard technique.
Sig Clancy said he was left “shocked” when L/sgt Harley “grabbed him by the neck” and admonished him for “monkey crawling”.
He claimed the instructor then pushed him hard enough to cause him to stumble.
Sig Clancy told Bulford Military Court: “He came over to me and said ‘why are you monkey crawling?’. I said I didn’t know and he told me to start again. I got up and went to the start.
“When that happened, he stormed over to me at an aggressive pace and said ‘why are you giving me attitude?’ He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me back. It was pretty hard, enough to make me stumble.”
L/sgt Harley, of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, is accused of having abused the four new recruits over a three-month period in 2021.
Lt Jamie Brotherton, prosecuting, told the court that L/sgt Harley was a “strict” section commander who was “prone to flashes of anger”. He said: “While strict discipline and adherence to the rules would be expected, L/sgt Harley’s actions went far beyond what was expected. Those actions were ill treatment of his subordinates.”
The trial continues.