A female soldier, Olivia Nelson, extinguished a cigarette on a colleague’s face after she rebuffed her advances, a court has been informed.
Olivia Nelson, a 21-year-old air trooper in the British Army Air Corps, is charged with multiple counts of sexually abusing a fellow soldier who attempted to provide her solace after a split.
Winchester Crown Court was informed that AirTpr Olivia Nelson assaulted her purported victim in an Army barracks and subsequently in a pub lavatory during an evening outing.
According to jurors, when the victim, whose identity is protected for legal reasons, successfully evaded groping, AirTpr Olivia Nelson extinguished a cigarette on her face.
AirTpr Olivia Nelson has been charged with five counts of sexual assault, one count of attempting to assault by penetration and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The Army Air Corps is the combat aviation arm of the British Army where Prince Harry served as an Apache helicopter pilot.
Opening the case on Tuesday, Mark Karpinski, prosecuting, told the court that AirTpr Olivia Nelson and her colleague “quickly became friends in a strictly platonic sense” when they met at Middle Wallop Army Barracks, Hampshire.
The alleged assaults took place several days after AirTpr Olivia Nelson ended her relationship with her girlfriend.
He told the court: “The [colleague] wanted to be supportive and offered [AirTpr Olivia Nelson] all of the comfort that you would expect from a good friend. A couple of days later the defendant went out drinking.”
Olivia Nelson returned to the barracks “intoxicated”, and tried to kiss her colleague, the jurors were told.
Mr Karpinski continued: “[The colleague] was in bed and [AirTpr Olivia Nelson] walked up to [her] bedside and initiated unwanted sexual activity without consent, particularly, she tried to kiss [her].”
“Some time later [the colleague] went to the communal toilet cubicles and showers.”
AirTpr Olivia Nelson followed her and tried to kiss her again, the court heard.
The alleged victim rejected AirTpr Olivia Nelson’s advances and tried to go to bed, but Mr Karpinski said it was there that she tried to undress her, “again without her consent”.
A few days later, during a night out at a pub in Andover, AirTpr Olivia Nelson allegedly followed her colleague into the toilets “grabbed her breasts and tried to kiss her”, before also trying to touch her intimately.
The colleague is said to have “managed to escape” but AirTpr Olivia Nelson went after her and tried touching her intimately again, over her clothing.
A short while later, Olivia Nelson “put a cigarette out by stubbing it on [the alleged victim’s] face”.
In a police interview, AirTpr Olivia Nelson answered no comment to all questions put by detectives.
She has denied all charges. The trial continues.
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