The British major-general who carried the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s late husband, Prince Philip, has been stripped of his rank for sexually assaulting a girl while intoxicated, the Independent newspaper writes.
According to the publication, the former major general James Roddis Roddis admitted to kissing a girl on the lips without her consent while leading a foreign military delegation. According to the prosecution, Roddis drank with members of the delegation, then moved to a restaurant and then to a karaoke bar, where he began touching a certain girl’s hair, which was caught on video, and then kissed her.
“This behaviour, which lasted a few minutes, brought about the collapse of a career she had built over 30 years, a distinguished career for which she received numerous awards. He did not understand that she wanted him to stop, and when he tried to kiss her and got nothing in return, he… apologised.” — the newspaper quotes Roddis’s lawyers as saying.
According to media reports, Roddis resigned of his own volition in July.
According to the Independent, the officer was awarded a Knighthood of the Order of the British Empire and the Distinguished Service Order, and twice received the Queen’s Merit for Distinguished Service. Until recently, he was responsible for strategy at the UK Strategic Command and in 2014 was the commander of one of the Scottish battalions taking part in the fighting in Afghanistan.
As the paper notes, Roddis was sentenced by a military court on Thursday to six months’ suspended prison sentence for the incident.
