Royal Marine drill instructor fined for ill-treatment of new recruits

Corporal Peter Clark admitted hitting one recruit in the groin and striking another in the face with a boot

A Royal Marine drill instructor who bullied new recruits, hitting one in the groin with a stick and striking another in the face with his own combat boots because they were dirty, has avoided a custodial sentence or demotion.

Corporal Peter Clark, who admitted ill-treating the recruits at the commando training centre in Devon, was fined £1,750 and given a severe reprimand. A court martial at Portsmouth naval base was told that Clark was overzealous rather than malicious and he had been trying to knock a failing troop into shape.

Sentencing 39-year-old Clark, the judge advocate general, Jeff Blackett, told him: “Young commandos and marines have to be trained to a very high standard and the training has to be tough.

“However, there is no place in training for physical and mental abuse that has the potential to harm the morale of recruits. The actions you took crossed the line of acceptability.”

But he added: “It is clear from what we have heard, what you did was of genuine overzealousness and you had the interest of the corps at your heart.”

Clark admitted offences against three recruits, Joshua Croxford, Adam Lushman and Matthew Phelps-Scott. Lieutenant Colonel Nigel Heppenstall, prosecuting, said Royal Marine commandos were among the most rigorously prepared assault infantry forces in the world but should not be bullied.

He said that Croxford was struck with a “pace stick” – carried by a drill instructor as a symbol of authority and used to set a marching pace during a parade drill.

Croxford had briefly looked to the right at the wrong moment, and Clark had asked him: “Why are you looking to the right? Is it your boyfriend? Do you love him?” Clark then struck him in the groin with the stick causing him to feel “sick with pain”.

On another occasion he struck Lushman in the face with his own combat boots because they had mud on the soles. The blow caused a cut lip.

In a third incident, Clark grabbed Phelps-Scott around the neck so hard that he struggled for breath then pushed him with such force that he slid for more than a metre.

Stephen Smyth, defending, said Clark had been overzealous in his efforts to install discipline in a failing troop and to assert his authority.

He said: “He could be described as an over-disciplinarian. He was doing his job as he saw it but it goes against the laws of what could be called the Playstation generation. What he did he shouldn’t have done but it was an effective way of smartening up what had been a poor troop.”

He said that many of the recruits felt that Clark’s techniques were to be expected from a marine training course.

Smyth said: “They are expected to go to some of the most tough and difficult places in the world therefore this course is a form of toughening up.”

The court heard that Clark, a married father-of-six, had gained …read more