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All six, members of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers based at the Royal Military College at Shrivenham, were charged with ra after they took   a former barmaid back to the camp for a drunken orgy in May 1996

The 23-year-old woman went to police after incident and the six were charged. But the case against Captain Ian Barlow, 30, Captain Philip Bates, 26, Lieutenants Darren Bartlett, 25, and Matthew Tupling, 25, and Officer Cadets Andrew Stout, 21, and Nicholas Oettinger, 21, was thrown out at Oxford Crown Court in September 1997.

Yesterday; however the Army dismissed all six saying their behaviour had fallen below the standards expected of officers. The men, who had been suspended on full pay since the incident, were told of their fate after a meeting of the Army Board at the end of a two-year investigation by the service.

Their acquittal in 1997 was described as a 'hollow victory', such was the shame their behaviour brought on the Army. Senior officers were furious at the evidence of drunken debauchery and group sex that emerged.

Judge Julian Hall stopped the trial after two weeks, saying the evidence of the alleged victim was 'riddled with inconsistencies'. He ordered the jury to return verdicts of not guilty on all the defendants, who said the woman had agreed to the group sex.

After the case the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told reporters: 'I don't regret bringing the case - they were animals I just cried and cried when I heard the verdict. Now I hope they rot in hell.'

Despite the verdicts, the judge said: 'I think they brought the prosecution on themselves. if six men think it a good idea to have sex with one woman, they run the risk of being accused of rape.' But the defence team claimed the prosecution case had been 'hopelessly flawed'.

The complainant was with a boyfriend but agreed to go out Oettinger, Bates and another officer ten days before the alleged rape. She told the jury they later went to Bates's room and she had sex with Oettinger and the other officer as Bates slept in the same bed. But it emerged that she had not revealed this when she first made her complaint of rape, six months after the alleged attack. Nor did she initially admit having consenting sex with Stout only hours before the alleged rape.

After the trial, Tupling said. 'I am an officer for God's sake - integrity and all that. I would not have done anything to her if she had said anything.'

The MoD said last night: 'we expect all our people, especially officers, to conform to a certain standard of behaviour. 'In these cases we say those standards were not met.'