Corporal Danny Foster, and corporal Philip Beer,  are on trial at Portsmouth Military Court in England for ill-treatment of a subordinate after a lower ranked service member stepped forward and claimed that the two forced fellow marines to watch gay porn and masturbate in front of others as part of a bizarre punishment.

The “punishment” incidents are alleged to have happened between May and August 2014 at Faslane and Coulport naval bases in Argyll.

“You could be punished for anything starting from just leaving a pen lid on the floor up to operational things like not turning on your radio while on patrol. ‘A senior marine would stand at the front and would ask if there were any integrity shouts – which meant you would own up to a mistake you had made.” said one Marine.

According to testimony on the first occasion, there had been a map reading test which was made too hard and so a number of people failed. ‘We got lined up at the front of the room during family time and the corporals, who were at the back, were talking about what they would make us do. ‘They all laughed when Corporal Foster said we should wank to gay porn.  “I told Foster I wasn’t going to do it but he said to me ‘you fucking are’. ‘The porn was military themed porn, the men had berets on and people were watching us – we were told the last person to ejaculate would get another punishment. ‘I felt disgusted and degraded having to do it, it was massively degrading, I had no power against it; I could not say no.’

Foster denies the ill treatment of a subordinate.