A COLCHESTER-based soldier who won one of the UK's highest gallantry awards has been acquitted of "disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind".

Lance Corporal Peter McKinley, who is in his early 20s and holds the Military Cross, had been accused of "humiliating" a teenage soldier thought by troops to be a "coward".

But L/Cpl McKinley, who comes from Manchester and is a member of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, had denied any offence during a three-week military trial in Colchester.

Prosecutors claimed L/Cpl McKinley held down the teenager, after he had been stripped naked and handcuffed, while other paratroopers indecently assaulted him in front of watching soldiers.

The ritual, which prosecutors said was enacted in a tent in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2006, was known among troops as a "red eye", the court heard.

L/Cpl McKinley was decorated after braving a 15-minute barrage of grenades and machine-gun fire to treat the US serviceman during the same tour of duty.

*FULL STORY IN MONDAY'S GAZETTE