Lance Corporal Jordan Morris is accused of raping a female soldier after the pair had a date and fell asleep, while they were on deployment overseas with the British Army
A Coldstream Guard raped a female soldier while she slept after a date and told her “shh, go back to sleep”, a court martial hearing has heard. Lance Corporal Jordan Morris and the woman, who cannot be named, were on deployment with the British Army overseas when the alleged incident took place.
After a first date the pair fell asleep after having sex and the alleged victim awoke around three hours later to find LCpl Morris raping her from behind the trial at Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire heard. LCpl Morris has pleaded not guilty to one charge of rape. Opening the trial, Commodore James Farrant said: “At around three to four o’clock the following morning, the complainant said she woke up to him raping her from behind.
She protested by putting her left hand behind her,” he said. “He said ‘Shh, go back to sleep’.
The couple went out to a couple of bars and had dinner. Afterwards they played pool and watched [a football game]. The defendant had a number of drinks, but was not intoxicated to the point of slurring words or stumbling.”
His alleged victim told the court she does not “typically drink alcohol’ and therefore only had half a cocktail. In a video statement played to the court, the alleged victim said: “I just felt shock, like I couldn’t move.
“I felt like I was using all the force that I had, but it didn’t feel like it did anything.” The alleged victim said she remembered feeling “very scared”, and she “didn’t know what to do”.
The pair went back to sleep, and the prosecutor said the woman was ‘trying to come to terms with what he had just done’. They woke up when an alarm went off and LCpl Morris left to go to work. Cdre Farrant said: “He kissed her goodbye as if nothing was wrong.”
In the morning, the alleged victim spoke to her friends about reporting the incident, and resolved to do so the same day. Witnesses believed she seemed like “someone who had been sexually violated and was struggling to come to terms with it”, according to Cdre Farrant.
The alleged victim also texted LCpl Morris the following morning. In her video statement, she told the court the text said: “Hi, thank you for the date, it was a lovely date, however I don’t appreciate waking up to someone having sex with me. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
The prosecutor said LCpl Morris responded ‘Omg, you should’ve just told me, you should’ve just turned around and slapped me, I’m so sorry’.
He also said he thought he had “honestly thought I had woken you up’, and ‘I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable’.
The alleged victim added he told her “I hope I didn’t ruin things.” Cdre Farrant said LCpl Morris told the police the alleged rape was consensual. He denied she was asleep at the time he penetrated her.
For the defence, Derek Johashen claimed after LCpl Morris did not ejaculate following the consensual sex, he said ‘perhaps we can try again later’, to which his colleague replied ‘alright then’.
The alleged victim said ‘That didn’t happen’ when this was put to her. LCpl Morris is a member of the Coldstream Guards, the oldest continuously serving regiment in the British Army. The regiment is famed for its high-profile ceremonial duties involving the Royal Family.
The trial continues.