‘Bullying’ Scots sergeant ‘left cadet pregnant’

A “BULLYING” army recruitment sergeant got a young cadet pregnant after raping her during a campaign of sex abuse against female recruits, a court heard.

Army recruiting sergeant Edwin Mee denies counts of sexual assault, rape and assault. Picture: PA

Edwin Mee, 45, allegedly carried out sex attacks on 11 victims as young as 15 while working at an Army careers centre.

The Scottish officer established a “pattern of bullying sexual behaviour that was repeated again and again”, a jury of seven men and five women at London’s Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday. Prosecutors say he had a preference for vulnerable black women born overseas.

One of the alleged victims, a woman in her early twenties, became pregnant when Mee raped her in a locked waiting room, the court heard.

Doctors found she had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy for which she was operated on after collapsing in hospital. When she called Mee to explain what had happened, he allegedly replied “I thought you were safe” and never spoke to her again.

Known as Jock, the divorced father of five is said to have carried out the attacks on women aged from 15 to their early 20s between October 2010 and September 2011. Mee would stay late at the careers centre and conduct interviews with applicants out of hours to “deliberately” target his alleged victims, the court heard. He ignored normal Army interview procedures to keep the complainants to himself and “gauge their vulnerability”.

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC told the jury the attacks had been an “abuse of trust and power by this defendant in order to bully and groom young women”.

He would speak to the women about sex, touch them and, in the most serious instances, rape those over whom he had established control, Ms Cottage said. She added: “A number of the complainants in this case were young black women, born outside the United Kingdom.

“Whether the defendant believed that this gave them a vulnerability in relation to their immigration status, or gave him an excuse to pretend that he had some power over them, the inference that the prosecution say can be drawn is that he deliberately targeted these young women.”

One of the complainants, aged 16 at the time, said Mee had asked to see the piercing in her stomach area the first time they met to discuss her application.

She claimed that later he slapped her bottom and, when she complained, told her: “It’s you who needs the Army.”

The woman decided not to pursue a career in the Army ­“because of the defendant’s ­behaviour”. Giving evidence behind a curtain, she told the court that Mee explained during their first meeting that his wife had cheated on him.

The youngest alleged victim was just 15 when she went several times to the recruitment office. He asked her for a date and tried to kiss her on the lips in a corridor, but she turned away and he “got her on the cheek”, the court heard.

Mee, of Croydon, south London, denies 17 counts of sexual assault, three rapes and one count of assault.

The trial continues.