From the Independent’s Matthew Beard.

An Army corporal accused of sexually harassing a female colleague excused his behaviour as Carry on Camping banter at a tribunal yesterday.

Corporal Stewart “Spike” Milligan (above) said he had not intended to intimidate Corporal Leah Mates when he spoke her name while pretending to masturbate in a communal tent while on duty in Kosovo. He told the tribunal that he was re-enacting a scene from the film When Harry Met Sally.

“It was just banter. I distinctly remember she was laughing along with the rest of us. I understand now I was making her uncomfortable but she didn’t ask me to stop.”

He added that Cpl Mates had made comments during the incident but said he believed she had only been playing along. He said: “She was joking along with it by saying ‘Oh shut up, oh, oh’. If she had complained straight away, I would have stopped. I took it as a ‘Oh behave’, a Carry On Camping kind of ‘Oh behave’.”