An RAF chief has been cleared of forcing his tongue into the mouth of a fellow Nato officer after telling a military court: “I don’t even do that to my wife.”
Wing Commander Jolyon Goodwin was alleged to have kissed the female Scandinavian officer at an Eighties-themed fancy dress party near the Allied Air Command HQ at Ramstein airbase in Germany in July last year.
The highly decorated commander, who led an electronic warfare team as part of Nato’s fight against Islamic State, admitted kissing his colleague on the lips but was cleared of sexual assault.
He claimed it was the sort of kiss “you would give a friend’s wife” and said he had “misread her values” after she reacted angrily and pushed him away.
The complainant, a senior officer more than 20 years his junior, told the military court in Sennelager, Germany, that she had been the “plus one” of another RAF officer at the summer party and knew of Goodwin.
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She told the court she had spent most of her time on the dancefloor as “people had been drinking so much that I didn’t want to have any conversation”.
She continued: “I wasn’t on the dancefloor at the time it happened, I was in the dining area. He left the dancefloor with a smile on his face and walked up to me. He took my face in his hands with one on each cheek and he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was taken aback, I did not kiss him back, it is not something that I wanted and I pushed him away.”
The court was told that she told him “in no uncertain words” to “f*** off”.
Goodwin, who is married and originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, said the complainant had been drinking and was “bouncing and jumping around”.
The commander told the court that earlier that night he had danced with the wife of a squadron leader who was dressed as Luke Skywalker. He said: “We were running around whacking each other with lightsabers. Until this incident it was a great night.”
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He claimed that the complainant, who cannot be named, had a “tendency to really come in close” and he kissed her thinking that she had been leaning in to kiss him.
“There was lots of mention of me sticking my tongue down her throat. I didn’t do that, I don’t even do that to my wife,” he added.
The court was told that his wife was not at the party, held at the Kaiserslautern football stadium, as she had earlier collapsed from heat stroke following a race.
When Goodwin was confronted after the incident by a colleague he replied: “F***ing hell, I get like this when I am drinking. I have to stop drinking, I am f***ing my life up,” the court was told.
Judge Advocate Edward Legard cleared him of sexual assault but handed a “word of warning” to Goodwin before dismissing the court: “Tread carefully please in future, particularly where alcohol is in abundance.”
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Goodwin is a training chief for Nato and British forces and serves as branch head of the organisation’s “Lessons Learned” protocol. During his 26-year career he previously commanded the RAF’s resilience wing.