Court martial hears a soldier threatened to put a 'barrel' in the mouth of another soldier and kill him

Threat made after a 'drunken' early-morning incident

A court martial has heard a soldier threatened to put a “barrel” in the mouth of another soldier and kill him after a “drunken” early-morning incident.

A court martial has heard a soldier threatened to put a “barrel” in the mouth of a less senior soldier and kill him after a “drunken” early-morning incident.

A witness told the court they went to the defendant’s room after hearing an “unmerciful bang” and opened the door to find another soldier standing over him with his fists raised, asking him repeatedly “why did you do this to me?”.

Earlier, the witness said they had gone to the room after the loud bang, because they claimed they heard the senior soldier tell the more junior soldier “I’m going to shove a barrel down your throat”.

The witness told the court hearing at Dublin’s McKee Barracks: “I told (the more senior soldier) to get out and he sat down in a chair in the corridor.

“He was very, very upset.

“He kept asking ‘why did he do this to me, why did he do this to me?’.

“He got up and was pacing up and down the corridor (outside the room).

“But then he went back towards the room, saying ‘I’m going to kill him, I’m going to kill him.”

The court heard the soldier then went back into the junior soldier’s room and he was seen “hitting” him.

Counsel for the Director of Military Prosecutions, Commandant Sean Coffey BL, said the accused had been drinking alcohol with the soldier accused of hitting him before they returned to his room.

They consumed a bottle of Grey Goose vodka between them before the row broke out.

Details of the incident that followed the drinking session were heard at the end of the second day of evidence in the case, in which the junior soldier is the defendant.

He has pleaded not guilty to a total of eight charges, which include three charges of sexual assault on two soldiers, and three separate charges of assault on the same individuals.

The accused, who cannot be named, is alleged to have sexually assaulted both a female and then a male soldier who had arrived to help calm things down after the initial altercation in the defendant’s room.

They had taken him to another room but it was while the defendant, who witnesses described as “dazed” and “inebriated”, was sitting with the female soldier that he put his hand between her legs.

He then tried to reach for her groin before she slapped his hand away.

When she left the room, the defendant was then alone with a male soldier, who described him as behaving in a “sexually aggressive” way towards him.

He said the defendant repeatedly used the phrase “one time at Band Camp”, which is a reference to a phrase uttered in the cult American sex comedy American Pie to precede stories told in the film that revolve around hard core sexual activity

The witness told the court: “He kept coming up to my face and saying, over and over, ‘just one time at Band Camp’.”

He said there was a bed in the room and the defendant got up “on all fours” at one point and urged him “go on, just this one time . . . Band Camp”.

The witness, who alleges the defendant tried to kiss him, added: “I feel it was all sexual.

“It was as if he was saying ‘I want to get some and I don’t care where I get it’.”

The case continues and is expected to last until next Tuesday.