Inquest of soldier who claimed she was raped hears of bullying claims

Colleagues of Corporal Anne-Marie Ellement released box of live crickets in her room as part of bullying campaign, inquest told

Colleagues of a soldier who hanged herself two years after she claimed she had been raped released a box of live crickets in her room as part of a bullying campaign, an inquest has heard.

Corporal Charlotte Berrill also told the hearing in Salisbury, Wiltshire, that the army failed to investigate another soldier who acted “unprofessionally” by telling a colleague that Corporal Anne-Marie Ellement had “cried rape”.

Ellement, 30, was found dead at Bulford Barracks near Salisbury on 9 October 9 2011. Her sister, Sharon Hardy, has told the inquest that she had been left “absolutely devastated” by the decision by military investigators not to prosecute the two soldiers who she claimed had raped her in November 2009, while she was posted in Germany.

Berrill said Ellement had “desperately” applied to be posted back to the UK after she alleged she had been bullied by colleagues in Germany who accused her of “crying rape”.

Berrill, who became friends with her while they were posted together in Bulford, said that Ellement described how she had been targeted by other female soldiers in her barracks in Germany.

She said: “She had two pet bearded dragons, at one point, shortly after the rape allegation, she left the room to use the bathroom and a box of live crickets had been released in her room and they were everywhere.

“She told me she would get bangs on the door from the girls in the corridor and she said that Charlene [Pritchard] had said she had cried rape.”

She continued: “She said to me that she was no longer her usual bubbly self, she felt she couldn’t trust anybody, she didn’t want to go out anywhere because she felt she didn’t have any friends to go out with.

“She desperately wanted to come back on a compassionate and she was happy when she got that.”

Pritchard denied when she gave evidence to the court that she banged doors or said to Ellement that she had cried rape.

Berrill told the inquest that she had reprimanded a soldier, Corporal Craig O’Grady, for talking about the rape allegations at Bulford in April 2011. She said: “I heard him saying she was a bitch and she had ruined his best friend’s life by crying rape.”

She continued: “I confronted Cpl O’Grady and said that although everyone is entitled to an opinion, it’s not the kind of subject you should be talking about in a police station in front of other people who do not know what happened and you yourself do not know what happened.

“I thought is was highly unprofessional for somebody to talk about something so sensitive to people who had nothing to do with it.”

She continued: “I informed Anne-Marie about what I had heard and told her what Cpl O’Grady said, she was very upset about it and angry, she was clenching her fists a few times, her eyes welled up immediately.”

Berrill said that she was then reprimanded …read more