Senior army officer who slept with subordinate guilty of breaching orders

Senior army officer Justin Putze slept with captain Carolyne Cappola while on deployment and has been found guilty by a court martial. The pair are now engaged. Photo / Facebook

A senior army officer who slept with a subordinate while on deployment has been found guilty by a court martial of breaching orders.

Lieutenant Colonel Justin Putze has been on trial in the court martial at Upper Hutt, Trentham since Monday. He denied charges of entering into a relationship with his subordinate, failing to report the alleged relationship, making a public display of affection with her, and lying to his superior about it.

The charges date back to incidents in 2018 when Putze was the officer in command of a contingent in the Sinai, where they were working to maintain stability at the border between Israel and Egypt.

He had a "one-night stand" with Captain Carolyne Cappola, but said they never entered into a relationship while still on deployment.

The pair are now engaged.

Giving evidence today, Putze said witnesses who claimed they saw him kissing Cappola in a bar in Dubai were incorrect and "extremely intoxicated". He said Cappola had kissed another man that night, but not him.

He said he gave her two hugs that evening to "comfort" her over an issue with her marriage.

The hugs are the subject of the charge of engaging in a public display of affection in a service environment.

Lieutenant Colonel Justin Putze on trial in a court martial in Upper Hutt this week. Photo / Melissa Nightingale

Putze said the "rumours" about the hugs were an added stress to his own already struggling marriage.

"It was hard enough to be away for 13 months and now to have what was a non-event turned into something far more sinister, it was the worst possible thing for our relationship at that time," he said.

The highest ranking officer in the army was called to give evidence earlier this week, where he explained how he spoke to Putze during a debrief and they discussed allegations of a relationship or inappropriate behaviour between Putze and a woman in his command.

Chief of army Major General John Boswell - who was a brigadier at the time of the discussion - said Putze clearly told him there had been nothing of an inappropriate or sexual nature.

Today Putze said he was honest in answering Boswell, saying the question had specifically been related to the hugs, not to his time on deployment.

"You cannot be telling this court that you did not think that when [Boswell] was speaking to you in May that he would not have been interested," said prosecutor Colonel Craig Ruane.

"I answered his questions exactly as he asked," Putze replied.

Ruane accused him of "tap dancing" with his answers, accusing him of "deliberately concealing" the one-night stand when he knew it would be of interest to superiors.

Putze said he made the decision not to tell Boswell about it because his wife deserved to be the first person to know.

He told his wife about the incident three months after the debrief.

In his closing address to the panel of military members, Ruane said Putze "lied and did so quite deliberately".

"His protestations that he thought that what had happened was a meaningless one-night stand ... was just nonsense," he said.

In the defence closing, Commander Christopher Griggs said all closeness witnesses saw between the pair were "the actions of close friends".

He said there were feelings between Putze and Cappola, but they both agreed not to take it further after the one-night stand.

The fact they are now engaged does not alter the truth of that, he said.

But the panel of three military members found Putze had entered into a relationship with Cappola at the time, unanimously finding him guilty on all charges.

He will be sentenced tomorrow.