A junior soldier died of heatstroke after being subjected to an informal Army punishment known as "beasting", a jury has heard.

Private Gavin Williams, 22, collapsed as he was being walked from the guard room at his barracks to the medical centre at Lucknow Barracks in Tidworth, Wiltshire.

He told three senior colleagues overseeing his punishment, which consisted of "exhausting physical activity", that he was "cooking up" and could not go on, the prosecution said.

Prosecutor Mark Dennis QC told Winchester Crown Court: "By the time Williams fell to the ground en route to the medical centre, the damage had already been done and his body was now reacting to the lethal effects of hyperthermia (overheating)."

Within half an hour, Pte Williams suffered a heart attack caused by heatstroke and was pronounced dead an hour and a half later.

Sergeant Russell Price, 45, of 2 Rifles, Sergeant Paul Blake, 37, and Corporal John Edwards, 33, both from the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Regiment, who carried out the beasting on Salisbury Plain, all deny the manslaughter of Pte Williams.

Pte Williams, from Hengoed in South Wales, who was part of the Second Battalion the Royal Welsh Regiment, died on July 3, 2006, one of the hottest days of that summer.

Mr Dennis, on the topic of beasting, told the jury of seven women and five men: "It was a practice which was occasionally used within Williams' battalion but which formed no part of Army law.

"It belonged to bygone days when there was perhaps less respect for the individual or individual human rights."

Mr Dennis said beasting was "a form of summary justice" used by the regimental police.

"The precise course and extent of any beasting was at the complete discretion of the regimental police, depending on the view taken of the purported misconduct or misdemeanour of a soldier and, no doubt, the view taken of the soldier," the QC said.

"In some cases it fell into two parts: firstly, a session of strenuous marching and drill manoeuvring under the direction of regimental police, followed by a session in the gym under the direction of a physical training instructor.

"A beasting was a somewhat crude disciplinary measure designed and intended to humiliate, push to the limit and hurt the recipient."

Price, according to Mr Dennis, supervised the beasting of Pte Williams, who he regarded as "a disgrace to the regiment".

Price, then the Provost Sergeant heading the regimental police team on duty that day, was "willingly" assisted by Edwards and Blake, a physical training instructor, Mr Dennis said.

The jury heard how Price, in police interview, said his job was to stamp out ill-discipline in the battalion.

If a matter involving a misbehaving soldier ever "gets to my desk then he's in a world of shite," Price told police.

"I'm the RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major)'s right-hand man."

Mr Dennis said: "During interview Price appeared almost to take pride in being what he considered to be the most hated man in the battalion because of his appointment as Provost Sergeant."

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