Gong for Army officer blasted over bullying of injured Para
AN ARMY officer condemned in a report into the bullying of a paratrooper who lost his legs and an arm in a blast has been included in the New Year Honours.
Major John Chetty, 51, was censured by a Service Complaint Panel in 2014 over the abuse of Corporal Tom Neathway, 34, who was injured by a Taliban bomb in Afghanistan in 2008.
The panel found he made a ‘serious error of judgment’ in handling Cpl Neathway’s complaint and behaved in a ‘wholly inappropriate’ way towards witnesses in the case.
He also gave the wounded soldier a sickening ultimatum: either drop your bullying claim or be kicked out of your disabled accommodation. This move led to Cpl Neathway having to crawl 300ft along a corridor in order to take a shower.
Yet just three years after the details of the bullying scandal were exposed, the disgraced officer has been made a Member of the British Empire (MBE).
The Mail on Sunday understands Cpl Neathway feels ‘sickened’ by the award. But last night he declined to comment publicly because he wants to put the abuse he suffered behind him.
However, a fellow Para said: ‘Many people in the Army will be horrified. What message does giving Major Chetty an MBE send out about the Army’s attitude to tackling bullying?’
Cpl Neathway, from Crowle, Worcestershire, battled back from his injuries to train new recruits at a parachute training school at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, where Major Chetty was the Officer Commanding. When he complained to Major Chetty in 2011 about his mistreatment by Regimental Sergeant Major Alistair Hutcheson, Major Chetty dismissed Cpl Neathway’s claim as ‘vexatious’ and told top brass there was no case to answer.
In fact, and as the complaint panel later found, RSM Hutcheson was bullying Cpl Neathway and even mocked him for being disabled, saying: ‘You’re not much of a paratrooper any more.’
Eventually the panel concluded in 2014: ‘Major Chetty was, in our view, clearly partisan. We have concluded his conduct was wholly inappropriate.
‘We recommend Major Chetty’s chain of command consider taking such administrative [disciplinary] action as they decide is warranted.’
The Ministry of Defence later said it would appoint an officer unconnected with the case to investigate the recommendations. But it has never disclosed what, if any, disciplinary action was taken.
After the bullying scandal Major Chetty left the parachute training school and was made a company commander in the Parachute Regiment’s 3rd Battalion (3 PARA). Last night, the MoD refused to say what he had done to merit an MBE.