A royal military police officer has been kicked out of the army for sexually assaulting a female soldier.
Corporal Edward Gadd, of Woking, Surrey, asked the woman to have sex but when she said no, he attempted to ‘bargain’ with her to carry out other sex acts to get him to leave her alone.
When she refused, she saw the 30-year-old’s penis out of the corner of her eye as he touched her shoulder with it before pressuring her into making contact.
In a victim statement, the woman said the assault had left her feeling ‘anxious, nervous and scared’.
She said: ‘I stopped going to my flat at weekends because I was scared he might turn up and I felt safer staying on camp.
‘Whenever someone knocked on my front door I felt uncomfortable.
‘I have since had nightmares about [him] kidnapping me and torturing me.’
A trial, held in January, heard Gadd and the woman knew each other and on the day of the assault, he had been at her home.
The woman was kneeling in front of a mirror in her bedroom when Gadd approached her from behind.
Prosecuting, Commander Peter Barker said: ‘He reached again from behind her and squeezed her breast, she noticed around 30 seconds later the tip of his penis by the right side of her face on her shoulder.’
‘She moved forward and turned around and saw he had pulled his penis out of his trousers and it was erect.
‘He tried to make her move her hand on his penis and she told him to get off.’
The woman told the court: ‘I was facing towards the wall and he was just sat on the bed. He said we should have sex and I said no.
‘He then started bargaining with me with sexual acts that became less intimate. I said no to all his suggestions.’
The woman said she saw Gadd’s penis to her right side before it touched her shoulder.
‘He had pulled his trousers down. I saw it in my peripheral vision and I turned around at that point and said “get off” but he tried to rub my hand on there,’ she told the court.
‘So, I pulled it away. I told him it was unacceptable behaviour.’
She told the court he then went to her bathroom and when he returned she confronted him over his actions.
In a conversation she recorded in a video, she asked him ‘do you know what was wrong with what you did?’ and he replied ‘everything’.
Appearing at Bulford Military Court, Gadd sobbed as his almost decade-long career in the military came to an end.
He was reduced to the rank of Private and handed a three-year service community order including requirements of 220 hours unpaid work and attendance on a rehabilitation course.
Gadd was also accused of groping the woman’s breast and slapping her bottom but he was found not guilty of sexual assault on both charges.
Stephanie Painter, representing Gadd, told the court he had been an ‘exemplary soldier’ who was ‘determined to stay in the British Army’.
She added ‘his worst-case scenario would be being placed on the Sex Offenders Register, he has told me that would be world-ending’.
As a result of the three-year community order, Gadd will have to provide details to the police as a convicted sex offender for five years.
Judge Advocate Jane England said: ‘We are in no doubt your behaviour has damaged the reputation of the armed forces.’
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