AWOL soldier loses appeal

An Abingdon-based soldier jailed for going missing when he should have been fighting in Afghanistan has lost an appeal against his sentence.

Joe Glenton (pictured) - who used to serve with the Royal Logistics Corps, based at Abingdon's Dalton Barracks - was sentenced in March 2010 to nine months at a military detention centre.

Glenton, who used to be a Lance Corporal, was also demoted to private in a hearing at a military court in Colchester.  The court heard he went AWOL for 737 days in June 2007 before he handed himself in.

The 27 year old, who has so far served 75 days of his sentence, said he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his first stint in Afghanistan.

At the appeal hearing in London on Wednesday 21 April 2010, it was argued on his behalf that because of a diagnosis of PTSD it had been "wrong in principle" to have imposed an immediate custodial sentence on him.

The court was urged to either suspend it or reduce it to allow for his release.  But the judges ruled that his sentence was neither excessive nor wrong in principle.