An RAF officer groped and propositioned his colleague’s wife on the dance floor at a Battle of Britain dinner, telling her ‘I’d only need five minutes’, a court martial heard today.
Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Gwynn allegedly told the woman he wanted to have sex with her to which she responded: ‘Well, my husband would have something to say about that’.
Prior to the alleged incident, the officer was said to have tried to throw sweets down the military wife’s cleavage during the formal dinner.
And while the pair later danced together he is accused of pressing himself against her and grabbing her bottom, leaving her ‘shocked’, a panel was told.
Flt Lt Gwynn was so drunk that by the time his alleged victim left shortly afterwards, he was asleep on the floor at the officer’s mess, the court martial heard.
The father is on trial at Bulford Military Court, Wilts, after pleading not guilty to one count of sexual assault.
Prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Chris Adair told the court that the incident happened at a ‘relatively formal’ Battle of Britain dinner.
There was music and dancing after the dinner portion of the evening, which the prosecutor described as a ‘night of heavy drinking’.
Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Gwynn allegedly told his colleague’s wife he wanted to ‘f**k you hard’
‘Flt Lt Gwynn pressed his groin area up against her and proceeded to reach around with his left hand and squeeze her left bottom cheek,’ the court heard
Lt Col Adair said: ‘[The alleged victim] found herself on the dance floor with Flt Lt Gwynn.
‘Flt Lt Gwynn pressed his groin area up against her and proceeded to reach around with his left hand and squeeze her left bottom cheek.’
In a video statement shown to the court, the woman said: ‘It was intentional, it was borderline aggressive.
‘And he leaned in and said to me ‘I want to f**k you, I want to f**k you hard’.
‘And I was absolutely… He was pushing himself, his groin area into me while he did it.
‘He was physically trying to get close to me when he did it.
‘I didn’t know what to make of it, I was just shocked by it.’
The woman, who wore a floor-length dress to the event, said that he was clearly drunk by this point in the evening.
‘He was very drunk, I don’t even know if he would remember it,’ she said.
Flt Lt Gwynn is on trial at Bulford Military Court, Wilts, after pleading not guilty to one count of sexual assault
‘I think I said to him, “well, my husband would have something to say about that” and he said to me “I would only need five minutes”.
‘And then I moved away from him.’
The alleged victim found her husband and told him what had happened – this was at about 12.30am – and she asked him not to make a scene.
The couple left about half an hour later.
Lt Col Adair said ‘Flt Lt Gwynn was blind drunk, and literally asleep on the floor in the foetal position’ by the time the couple left.
She told the court that Flt Lt Gwynn had been throwing humbug sweets towards her cleavage at the earlier formal dinner, and she believed he was already drunk at this point of the evening.
She said: ‘He did stop, but I don’t know, maybe he threw three or four times to try and get it at my cleavage.
‘No one joined in.
‘At the time I thought ‘God, that’s really inappropriate’.’
The woman said that before the assault, she had trusted the officer as he ‘dressed up as an elf for the Christmas family happy hour’, and supported families on the RAF base where they were situated.
Lt Col Adair told the court that Flt Lt Gwynn ‘strongly denied touching her in any way’, and denied that he was drunk.
Flt Lt Gwynn admitted that he was throwing sweets at the dinner table, but denied that they were aimed at the alleged victim.
The trial continues.
