Police officer on trial for rape

15 June 2011 Last updated at 13:43 GMT The case is being heard at Belfast Crown Court A police officer has gone on trial for rape in Belfast.

Gary Ervine, 30, whose address was given as PSNI HQ, was off-duty when he met his alleged victim in a Belfast nightclub on 30 March 2009.

He went back with her to her home in east Belfast where he allegedly raped her while she was asleep.

Mr Ervine denies one offence of rape and two of sexually assaulting the woman.

Police ID card

A crown barrister told the court that the girl had been out socialising with her friend when she met Mr Ervine in Thompson's nightclub in Belfast city centre.

In a conversation about jobs and work, the lawyer described how Mr Ervine "produced a card holder or wallet which had a police ID card in it".

At the end of the night when the two women were leaving, Mr Ervine said he would go with them.

The barrister said the alleged victim was "happy enough about that because her friend was with her and because he was a police officer".

He told the court that once all three arrived back at the alleged victim's home, she had gone to the bathroom but that when she came out, Mr Ervine was right in front of her and tried to touch her in a way she told him was inappropriate.

'Partly awake'

When her friend left just before 0400 , the alleged victim asked Mr Ervine "should you not be going home" but could not remember if he replied or not.

The prosecution barrister told the jury she said must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing she remembered was Mr Ervine allegedly touching her inappropriately.

"While she knew in her head that this was happening she couldn't do anything about it," said the lawyer adding that she "tried to shrug him off".

The barrister said that she then remembered Mr Ervine having sex with her before she became fully awake.

Mr Ervine appeared before a jury in Belfast Crown Court

He said that the alleged victim shouted at him a number of times asking him what he was doing and telling him to get out of her house.

'Completely violated'

He added that she "felt completely violated and was in a state of shock - she could not bring herself to look at him".

Mr Ervine then left the house.

in a state of panic, his alleged victim fled the house, leaving it unlocked and got a taxi to a friend's house from where the police were called.

The woman was examined by a doctor who found no recent injuries but the barrister told the jury that "is not uncommon in people who complain of sexual assault".

Mr Ervine was arrested and interviewed later that day. He told police "it was definitely consensual because she wasn't telling me to pull away - she had plenty of time to tell me otherwise".

When it was put to him that the woman had shouted and swore at him, Mr Ervine claimed he could not recall words of that nature and could give no reason as to why she would have fled her home.

The crown barrister told the jury that the woman could not have consented because she had been either asleep or partly awake.

"We say that when you have heard all the evidence that you will be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Gary Ervine on these charges," he added.

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Officer shocked at Afghan killing

19 May 2011 Last updated at 15:51 GMT The five soldiers had been mentoring and living with the Afghan police The killing of five UK soldiers at an Afghan checkpoint by a rogue policeman was "the single most shocking incident" a brigadier experienced there.

The men were shot at a checkpoint in Nad Ali, Helmand province, in 2009, when Brig James Cowan was the most senior Army officer in the country.

"I viewed the incident as appalling and I was deeply shocked," he told the inquest into their deaths.

He said it became the catalyst for changes to Afghan police training.

Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, and Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, from the Grenadier Guards, as well as Corporal Steven Boote, 22, and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, from the Royal Military Police, were gunned down on November 3, 2009.

Police training overhaul

Brig Cowan told the inquest in Trowbridge, Wiltshire: "I viewed the incident as appalling and I was deeply shocked.

"During the course of my tour 64 soldiers were killed but this was the single most shocking incident."

Of the aftermath, he said: "You do need to recover from that shock and you owe it to your soldiers to stay calm and to try and find the silver lining in the cloud."

He used the incident to push, via a commission set up by President Hamid Karzai to investigate the shootings, for changes to the Afghan National Police which was rife with drug taking, ill-discipline, insubordination and corruption.

He said a vetting system for the police was introduced, as well as compulsory drug testing and the use of biometrics.

Corrupt and ineffective police commanders were also removed from their posts and a police training college in Helmand Province was established, with graduates made to swear an oath of allegiance to Afghanistan on the Koran.

Brig Cowan said: "I cannot overstate the degree of shock and shame in Afghanistan at what had taken place. I cannot stress how shocking the incident was but also the degree of good that came as a result of those changes."

Heat injuries

The troops had been resting after a patrol at a police checkpoint and were not wearing their body armour or helmets - which are not compulsory to wear while off-duty.

Brig Cowan supported the decision by WO Chant to allow his men to remove their protection, saying: "I would have done the same, as he was only doing what was sensible to sustain his force for the next six months and not go down with heat injury."

Brig Cowan was asked whether it was "surprising" that WO Chant had not taken any action when two Afghan men were seen on a rooftop earlier in the day.

"Two men standing on a roof unarmed in a very, very densely populated area does not amount to a terrorist act.

"Indeed for him to have treated them as acting hostile would have been entirely wrong because the other part of what we were going is called 'courageous restraint' - the courage not to take action.

"If you had shot them and they had turned out to be two men fixing a roof, you would have not killed two terrorists but made 50 enemies."

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