Appeal court clears airman of sex attack

Wednesday 23rd September 2009, 10:34AM BST.

courtroom hammer An airman who was locked up and kicked out of the RAF after being convicted of a sex attack on a sleeping woman at a Shropshire base has been cleared at the Court of Appeal.

Senior aircraftman Stephen Thomas Steele, now 27, was accused of assaulting the woman on a bed at RAF Shawbury last year.

At a courts martial hearing in January he was convicted, sentenced to 18 months’ detention and kicked out of the RAF.

But he won vindication, his freedom and the right to rejoin the forces when three top judges ruled that his case should never have been allowed to reach a guilty verdict.

Giving the court’s judgment, Lord Justice Hooper said the case should have been stopped because the prosecution had failed to provide a case for the airman to answer.

Evidence had been contradictory, with the alleged victim having given differing accounts of the incident. Despite this, the judge advocate rejected an application to halt the case after the end of the prosecution evidence. Allowing the appeal, Lord Justice Hooper said: “We have no doubt that the judge advocate should have referred to the evidence in order to decide whether or not a reasonable board, properly directed, could rely upon the evidence of the complainant.”

View more: RAF Shawbury news.