British soldiers picked up Afghan prisoners on a forklift and drove at top speed until they fell off – for fun, an inquiry has heard. The allegations emerged as a whistleblower described special forces troops as having gone “feral” and likened the atmosphere on one base to “Lord of the Flies”.
Monica Grenfell, who worked with the UK Special Forces between 2015 and 2018 as a kitchen staff member and a storewoman, told the Afghanistan Inquiry that she had met a man – identified only as Name3 – before her employment. He recounted how he would put detainees on a forklift, raise it up and “drive very fast so that they fell off”. Grenfell said she was “appalled” that he “thought it was funny”. Asked by counsel Jonathan Polnay KC about the evidence, she said: “I mean, he wasn’t doing anything alone, but it was something they did for fun … jamming on the brakes so they fell off.”
“British special forces dropped Afghan prisoners from a forklift for fun, an inquiry has heard.”
Grenfell later encountered Name3 again at the military base. She described the culture there as “coarse and feral” – adding that she had “never been anywhere that was as bad as there”. “You felt that people had been let off the leash somehow,” she said, noting soldiers wore their own clothes and the language was the worst she had ever heard. Sexual banter “went on from the beginning of the day to the end”. Another colleague said the men in Afghanistan had “sort of gone wild” and referenced William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. Grenfell agreed: “It was just a group of men … who were, he felt, threatened by them. I think he was quite a sensitive soul.”
The inquiry is examining allegations of unlawful killings by UK special forces during operations in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, as well as claims of a subsequent cover-up. It also heard from whistleblower Christopher Green, an Army Reservist who served in Afghanistan from January to September 2012. Green was a “direct witness” to complaints from local village elders about the killing of three farmers in the village of Rahim. When he raised concerns, he was called a “Taliban-loving apologist”, the inquiry was told.
The revelations come as the long-running probe continues to hear evidence of alleged misconduct by British forces. The forklift incidents – described as a game – add to a growing catalogue of accusations that have shaken trust in the country’s elite units.