Cadet was abused by a King’s Guard for wearing woolly hat under his helmet, military court hears

A King’s Guard abused recruits at an Army college for 16 and 17-year-olds, a military court was told yesterday.

Lance Sergeant Ryan Harley, 36, allegedly manhandled one cadet after he was found wearing a woolly hat under his helmet.

At the time he was an instructor at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, which has faced a slew of abuse claims. Prosecuting counsel Lieutenant Jamie Brotherton told Bulford Military Court Harley was ‘prone to flashes of anger’ and his punishments went ‘far beyond what was expected’.

In one incident, Signaller Lennox Clancy, who was 17 at the time, was punished by Harley for wearing a woolly hat under his helmet. The young recruit was ordered to ‘leopard crawl’ – where you move flat on your stomach in a movement like the animal – around a track but Harley accused him of doing the wrong manoeuvre.

Lance Sergeant Ryan Harley, 36, allegedly manhandled one cadet after he was found wearing a woolly hat under his helmet. He is pictured at Bulford Military Court

In one incident, Signaller Lennox Clancy (pictured), who was 17 at the time, was punished by Harley for wearing a woolly hat under his helmet. He is pictured at Buford Military Court

Signaller Clancy said: ‘I went [back] to the start. He stormed over at an aggressive pace and said, “Why are you giving me attitude?” He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me back. It was hard, enough to make me stumble.’

Craftsman Joel Ellwood added that he saw Harley grab Signaller Clancy ‘by the scruff of the neck and pushed him up against a tree’.

On the same exercise, Harley was also accused of kicking a female recruit over and dragging her up again ‘in an aggressive manner’. The court was told of two other alleged incidents against female recruits where one was kicked and shouted at in a dispute about equipment and another was assaulted for not knowing how to complete a drill.

Harley, from the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, denies four counts of ill-treatment of subordinates during a three month period in 2021.

He has admitted a charge of giving a punishment he wasn’t permitted to give in relation to Signaller Clancy.

The trial continues.