My horror at PoW sex abuse pics
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/1,,2003250508,00.html
THE young mum who uncovered the Iraqi PoW sex snaps scandal said last night: “I felt sick to the stomach at those pictures.”
Kelly Tilford, 22, called police after developing a film in her photo shop.
The shocking pictures — revealed by The Sun yesterday — showed male Iraqis apparently forced into sexual positions by their British captors. In another a prisoner was suspended by rope from a fork-lift truck driven by a laughing Brit.
Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 18, of Tamworth, Staffs, is being grilled by the Army’s top criminal investigator — amid fears the scandal is the tip of an iceberg.
Disgusted Kelly said she knew she had to call police after seeing the horrific scenes in Gulf War II snaps she had just developed.
Kelly said: “I immediately realised something terribly wrong had happened and something had to be done about it.
“I started shaking and was panicking in case the guy came back before I could raise the alarm.”
She spoke out last night as Bartlam, of the 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was in custody.
ONE was apparently taken in a warehouse. It showed a man stripped at least to the waist and suspended high in the air by a rope attached to one of the forks on a fork-lift truck.
More rope bound him throughout the length of his body.
He was hanging horizontally and his frightened face was in close-up. A soldier driving the fork-lift truck could be seen in the background, staring at his victim and apparently laughing.
ANOTHER picture showed a pair of white legs and the head of a male Iraqi.
The hand of a man behind the Iraqi’s head appeared to be forcing him to perform oral sex.
The Iraqi was squatting and again appeared to be at least naked to the waist. The soldier’s face was not visible.
A THIRD picture showed a pair of bare backsides. One Iraqi man was on his knees on the floor with his body bent.
Another was pressed behind him, tightly moulding his body like a spoon in what seemed to be a sexual position.
THE FOURTH snap showed two naked Iraqis cowering on the ground as if thrown there.
Kelly, who has children aged two and eight months, said Fusilier Bartlam called at the Max Spielmann photo shop where she works in Tamworth, Staffs, on Wednesday.
The young soldier, who was home on leave after the war, left a roll of film to be developed into 7in x 5in prints within an hour.
She went on: “I went to the mini-lab. As you put the film through, you are meant to check the pictures on a screen to ensure they are printed properly.
“You have never got time to watch all of them, because you are inevitably doing something else. We had been very busy.
“I had already processed the films of one or two soldiers back from Iraq and had told them, ‘Congratulations, well done,’ when they came to collect their photos.
But when I started cutting the negatives on this batch, I looked at one and noticed immediately that it seemed a bit strange. I took a closer look.
“At first appearance, it had seemed like soldiers having a laugh.
“Then I realised it was a half-naked Iraqi being hauled high into the air by a forklift truck while bound hand and foot.
“I saw the look on his face. He was petrified.
“I will never forget that terrible stare. I immediately thought, ‘That’s not right’.
“Then I saw some sexual pictures. One looked like an Iraqi PoW being forced to give a soldier oral sex. I think the Iraqi was naked — you could just see the top half of him and the bottom half of the soldier.
“There was also a close-up of the naked backsides of two Iraqis, as if they were simulating anal sex.
“Another shot showed two Iraqis lying naked on the ground as if they had just been thrown there. There didn’t seem anything wrong with the other photos. They were just pictures of Iraqi soldiers surrendering — the sort of thing you saw on the TV during the war.”
Kelly, who has only worked at the shop for eight weeks, said: “It should have cost the guy £5.99 but he never paid for those pictures in the end.
“I was worried and waited for my colleague to come back from lunch. She just took one look and said, ‘Oh my gosh — we have got to call the police’.
“We phoned our area manager to tell him what we were doing.
“The lad was due back any minute to collect his photos, so we agreed to tell him they were not ready because there was a problem with the machine.
“He came back before the police arrived. We told him the machine was not working and it would be another half an hour.
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am i wrong, or is this just a little to much?