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He was perfect army material. Stuart William Newton was straight out of school, with a good family background, fit and keen and proud to be posted to one of the British Army's finest and most historic regiments. 

But last week a court martial heard how brutality and violence had turned a perfect recruit into a hunted man wanted for desertion. 

The transcript of the court- martial proceedings - a public document - reveals how the young rifleman from the King's Regiment went Awol after being humiliated in a twisted initiation rite and to escape a campaign of systematic bullying. 

Soon after arriving at the regiment, Newton and his unit were sent to Cyprus. One night at 2am the 17-year-old was awakened by violent banging on his door. Though he was nervous of initiation rites, he unlocked it carefully - only to be be grabbed by a group of older soldiers and dragged into another room. 

There, with two other new recruits, he was forced to strip and sing the company song with a crowd of soldiers jeering at his genitals. When he stumbled over the words he was forced to run naked around
 the barrack block. 

Far worse was to come. Over the next months his superiors in the unit subjected him to vicious bullying. The slightest infraction of orders - a less than perfectly cleaned room for example - resulted in punches to the head. 

On occasions Newton was made to stand with his eyes shut while a non-commissioned officer hit him with a clenched fist. When he was threatened with violence after discovering a money- lending ring among his fellow soldiers - with 100 per cent interest enforced by beatings by NCOs - Newton decided that he had to go Awol. 

His army dream in tatters, he became another statistic in the army legal services' log. The Army's Special Investigation Branch (SIB) has now launched an investigation. Lawyers for Newton refused to speak to The Observer
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Newton's case is by no means isolated. Though the Army has made strenuous efforts to tackle bullying, the problem still persists.Legal sources say that the SIB is now running more than 30 inquiries into bullying and initiation rights in the Army. 

Robert Peterson, a solicitor specialising in personal injury claims by serving and former personnel, says that his firm alone has 60 complaints under way. Though almost all experts say that bullying is less prevalent now than it was a decade ago, it is still widespread. 

In the last three years Peterson and other solicitors have been involved in cases including allegations of: 

• Women soldiers made to parade in T-shirts soaked in water by male superiors; 
• A recruit allegedly tied to a cannon, stripped and then whipped with belts by NCOs; 
• Recruits being tied to beds or trees and urinated on; 
• Recruits being forced to undergo the 'regimental bath' - dunking in a tub filled with urine, vomit and sometimes faeces; 
• Recruits being beaten so badly they need hospital treatment; 
• Mock executions of servicemen; 
• A recruit beaten and threatened with being drowned in the sea. 

Most of the rites and the bullying seem restricted to the junior ranks of infantry regiments but are not unknown in elite regiments, according to legal sources. 

With dozens of compensation claims to be decided by the High Court in the coming months, the Army faces a bill that could total several million pounds - but the impact will be more than financial. 

The Army is undertaking a massive recruitment drive and is committed to eradicating its image as racist, homophobic and full of bullying corporals. Every high-profile case makes changing that image harder. 

It is all a far cry from the vision of Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary. He has spoken of his desire for an up-to-date army offering an up-to-date career. Though many enlightened senior officers are trying to steer the Army in new directions, the military culture is proving resistant to change. 

Although the haemorrhaging of staff has largely been staunched in the last six months, the Army is still desperately short of men. Net recruitment is running at only 15 men each month and the 3,000 extra soldiers granted in the most recent Strategic Defence Review have yet to be found, and overall the Army is at least 7,000 under strength. 

An analysis of scores of courts-martial records reveals serious structural problems within the armed forces. Though many soldiers go absent to escape bullying, most unauthorised absences and desertions are caused by family problems. 

Soldiers are often serving a long way from their homes when a domestic crisis breaks and, senior officers admit, the Army is still poor at dealing with such situations. 

The courts-martial records - around 150 servicemen are court-martialled for absenteeism each year - are full of cases such as the infantry private prosecuted for going Awol to try to repair his relationship with his wife after tours of duty in Germany and Northern Ireland. His solicitor told the court that his client was "fully aware of the seriousness of the offence but felt he had no option but to save his marriage". 

Another soldier - a private in the 1st Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment - went Awol for nearly a year after his girlfriend told him to choose between the Army and her. A gunner in the 39th Royal Artillery Regiment disappeared after his girlfriend miscarried. 

Other soldiers - including experienced and motivated men - say they went Awol after being denied permission to take time off after finding that their parents or even spouses had fatal illnesses. Once absent, many men stay away from their units for fear of the punishment they will almost certainly receive. 

The Observer survey also reveals that many cases of absenteeism are provoked by lack of job satisfaction. Recruits who hope to be mechanics end up as gunners, in one case, or serving in infantry regiments. Despite training and 'life skills' being a major plank of army recruitment pitches, it is still often hard to establish any control over one's career as a junior soldier. After their attempts to transfer fail some run away. 

Senior military officers last week said that they were aware of both problems and a number of measures were being planned to improve welfare services on offer to servicemen. 

In a bid to ease the pressure on servicemen's relationships, the Government recently announced a bonus to be paid to soldiers with families who are separated from them for long periods. 

Many of the traditional barriers are starting to be broken down: there are now women artillery gunners and helicopter pilots and the number of ethnic minority troops is creeping up. 

The Government has also launched a series of measures to encourage recruitment. The ban on homosexuals has been lifted, there have been recruiting drives in young offenders' institutions and last week The Observer revealed that women were to be tested for combat roles for the first time. 

The Government, it seems, is prepared to countenance radical steps to tackle the problem. The question is whether they will be enough. 

Some time in the coming weeks the Royal Marines will follow The Parachute Regiment and pull out of the fetid Lungi airport and leave Sierra Leone to its dismal future. 

Their safe return - so far no British servicemen have been killed or injured - will be welcomed by more than just their friends and family. Recruitment officers throughout the country will breathe a sigh of relief. For the days when the prospect of a glorious death on the battlefield thrilled the nation's youth are long since gone. 

Experts all agree that any army reflects the society that produces it.  'In Vietnam the discipline of the American Army fell apart as a result of race and drugs - both societal issues,' said Professor John A. Jackson, a sociologist specialising in the military at Trinity College, Dublin. 'That provoked a huge change in the American Army and the British Army is going through the same thing.' 

The Army would have to adjust to a 'less deferential, less hierarchical, less patriarchal' society to attract young people. 

'The old structures imposing discipline are breaking down and that poses great difficulties for an organisation that relies on unthinking and unquestioning obedience to orders.' 

Others point to the quality of life enjoyed by modern teenagers. 'They are used to having their own rooms at home, to going out, to taking drugs, to having girlfriends,' said Eric Joyce, a former major in the Adjutant-General's Corps whose campaign to highlight the problems of the Army and subsequent dismissal became a cause célèbre . 

'As soldiers they live four to a room in poor accomodation miles from home - and miles from any girls who'll look at them. Neither the pay nor the lifestyle are really good enough to compensate for what they
have to give up. 

'Few soldiers want to be doing what they do. They leave as soon as they can,' Joyce said. 

Stories of recruits having to do their initial training in trainers because their feet are too soft to cope with army combat boots reinforce the image of a soft nation increasingly ill at ease with the hard facts of traditional military service. The revelation of high-profile cases of bullying and racist or sexist harrassment do the Army's campaign to change its image a great deal of harm. 

The new commanding officer of the Household Division - which includes the Guards regiments, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals - has made a point of implementing a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying among his troops. 

Jackson says that peace-keeping may provide one possible model for the future of the Army. 'It would involve emphasising different skills,' he said. 'Tolerance, problem-solving, compassion, flexibility and imagination as well as the use of force. It would be an army that is far closer to our modern, pluralistic society.' 

But such a change will take time. And it will come too late for Stuart William Newton. He was found not guilty because he was under duress - but his hopes of a life as a soldier are gone.