A British soldier has been charged over a glass attack on her holiday friend in a Magaluf nightclub.
Sydney Cole, 23, faces a three-year sentence if convicted over the April 15 2019 incident which left Lance Corporal Sarah Garrity, 26, in intensive care after losing four pints of blood and needing 14 stitches to a neck wound.
Hertfordshire-born Cole was arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide and remanded in prison in Majorca briefly before being released pending an ongoing investigation.
Today, respected island newspaper Ultima Hora said she had been accused of a crime of wounding in an indictment submitted to a court in Palma and was facing a three-year prison sentence if convicted at trial.
Prosecutors in the Majorcan capital drafted their indictment despite Sarah, 26, telling Spanish authorities early on in the investigation she didn’t want to press charges and renouncing her right to compensation.
Sydney Cole (right), 23, faces a three-year sentence over the April 15 2019 incident which left Lance Corporal Sarah Garrity, 26 (left), in intensive care after losing four pints of blood and needing 14 stitches to a neck wound
Hertfordshire-born Cole was arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide and remanded in prison in Majorca
The trial date has not yet been made public but it is expected to take place before the end of the year.
The latest development in the long-running case comes 18 months after it emerged a Palma court had issued an international arrest warrant for Cole following failed attempts to inform her she was wanted for a new quiz under oath.
Judicial sources at the time said her indictment over the attack was ‘just a question of time’ and explained the Palma judge who issued the warrant had decided to take action after she breached bail conditions by changing address without notifying Spanish authorities.
It was not immediately clear today if the arrest warrant remained in place or Cole, based at Fort George Barracks in Inverness when she was arrested, had deactivated it by contacting court officials and making herself available for further questioning.
The female squaddie was held for allegedly throwing a glass at her friend’s face after the pair rowed at Banana’s Nightclub in Magaluf following an all-day drinking session.
She insisted after her arrest her holiday pal was hurt in an accident when she threw the glass on the floor during a fight with her and shards from it hit Sarah in the neck.
The latest development in the long-running case comes 18 months after it emerged a Palma court had issued an international arrest warrant for Cole
The pair were sharing a hotel room with another squaddie friend called Deborah Ferguson.
Cole, who told police she and the injured woman fought after Sarah tried to intervene in a problem she was having with Ferguson, was remanded in custody for two days before her former lawyer Miguel Angel Ordinas got her released from prison.
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Sarah, who was serving in the Royal Logistics Corps when she was critically injured, told Spanish police after her release from hospital she did not want to press charges.
Mr Ordinas, in his last comments on the case in November 2020 before he handed over the files to a colleague, said state prosecutors had yet to indict Cole.
But well-placed legal sources in Majorca insisted at the time they believed a trial would take place and the case had simply been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
One said: ‘Before state prosecutors indict her Cole has to be questioned again under oath.
‘The problem has been that the coronavirus pandemic kicked in and it has to be done via videoconference and it’s been suspended on more than one occasion.
‘No date has yet been set for the court quiz. It could be another month or two months away. But it will happen and it’s a simple bureaucratic formality that needs to precede the issuing of the indictment.’ Another added at the time: ‘I’d expect state prosecutors to indict Cole for attempted homicide given the investigating judge’s decision.
‘That’s punishable in Spain by a prison sentence of five to ten years.
‘The indictment could be for a lesser crime of wounding with a dangerous object although it would be unexpected.
‘But until the indictment is issued no-one can be 100 per cent sure..’ A relative of Sarah told the Sunday People at the start of November 2020 Cole had yet to apologise and the Army had let her stay on the same base for 11 months afterwards.
A source told the paper: ‘Sarah told the police not to charge Cole because she didn’t want to see a young girl banged up in a jail abroad.
‘She expected her to be full of remorse but didn’t even get an apology.’ The source also claimed Army bosses told Sarah to ‘get on with it’ when she asked them to consider moving Cole after she got back to work three months later and found her still on Fort George barracks base.
A family member of Sarah’s said: ‘We don’t feel the Army has looked after our girl.’ Cole is said to have left after having a baby and being given an Army house.
An Army spokesman told the Sunday People at the time: ‘An investigation is ongoing following an incident with a British soldier in Spain last year.
‘We take our duty of care to personnel very seriously. It would be inappropriate to comment further.’
State prosecutors in Majorca have always declined to make any official comment on the case, as is normal in Spain where only trials are held in public and the judicial probe that precedes the open court hearing is carried out behind closed doors.
