Trooper Samuel Tognetti admits to assault during bizarre army hazing ritual in Townsville
As aspiring special forces soldier has admitted to taking part in an “immature” and “humiliating” hazing ritual that a magistrate says should have been stamped out years ago.
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A group of half-naked soldiers forced a new member of their unit out of bed, made him get down on his knees with his hands zip-tied behind his back and talked about stripping his clothes off as part of a bizarre hazing ritual, a court has heard.
The Defence Force Magistrates Court in Canberra heard the victim of the “immature” and “humiliating” initiation ritual by members of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Townsville in last May was still getting over the ordeal.
Trooper Samuel Jake Tognetti, 25, was on Monday convicted, fined $2000 and formally reprimanded for his role in the ritual, after pleading guilty to assaulting the victim by chasing him.
Two other soldiers, Trooper Cody Hadden and Trooper Arthur Tecson have also previously pleaded guilty to assault and have been fined over their roles in the “reo challenge”.
Trooper Tognetti, an aspiring special forces soldier, admitted to chasing the victim in the dead of night after the group of howling and barking soldiers gave him a 30 second “head start”.
The victim used the head start to hide behind a truck.
Prosecuting Officer Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Edgeworth told the court on Monday that Trooper Tognetti’s showed “a gross lack of respect for a fellow soldier” and his behaviour should never be repeated.
Defence Force Magistrate Group Captain Scott Geeves said the victim should never have been pulled out of bed by a group of men “in various states of undress”, forced onto the ground and frogmarched towards an even larger group of waiting soldiers.
“This type of pack mentality … I find it displays a level of maturity and intelligence that is well below that expected of any member that is enlisted or commissioned in the Australian Defence Force,” he said.
Court documents show more senior soldiers were involved in what Group Captain Geeves described as the “inappropriately named … challenge”.
“There was nothing challenging about it,” he said.
Trooper Tognetti, a former private schoolboy originally from Orange, should have tried to put a stop to the activity, Group Captain Geeves said.
“I’m not going to pass it off simply as you following blindly and doing what you were told,” he said.
“There was always an opportunity for you and others to put a stop to this. You didn’t. You choose not to. That, in itself, is disappointing.”
He said the hazing ritual was exactly the type of activity military leadership had been trying to stamp out for years.
“It was cowardly behaviour and disrespectful in all of the circumstances,” he said.
More prosecutions are expected over the hazing activity.