Downfall of a war hero: Master sniper who took out Taliban chief a mile away faces court for attack on girlfriend
By Paul Harris
Last updated at 12:43 AM on 23rd July 2011
Fall from grace: Christopher Reynolds
was ordered to pay £500 compensation
to his former girlfriend Catherine Aitken
following an attack on herHis selfless bravery and outstanding skill made him a hero of the war in Afghanistan.
Corporal Christopher Reynolds’s repeated acts of gallantry – plus an extraordinary sniper shot that took out a Taliban commander from more than a mile away – earned him the Military Cross.
But when the Queen presented him with his medal last July, his pride hid a dark depression. The 26-year-old Black Watch sniper commander was battling a breakdown.
This led to a vicious attack on his live-in girlfriend, whom he repeatedly punched in the face before throwing a glass at her.
Had it not been for a judge’s understanding of Cpl Reynolds’s plight, he would today be behind bars.
However ‘the strain of warfare’ and his deteriorating mental health were accepted as being to blame for the assault a month before the medal ceremony on 29-year-old Catherine Aitken, who was said to have been ‘put through hell’.
This week at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, he was ordered to pay her £500 compensation but avoided a prison sentence.
The harrowing tale of a hero’s descent into depression began after Reynolds, who had already served in Iraq, embarked on a six-month tour of duty with the Black Watch in April 2009.
According to his medal citation, in one incident he stood up in the face of ‘considerable’ enemy fire, emptied his sniper rifle, picked up another one and started firing it – then grabbed a machine gun to spray a Taliban strongpoint from a rooftop ‘while fully exposed to enemy fire’. The sniper’s ‘outstanding technical ability’ helped to credit him with taking out 32 insurgents.
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