A Royal Navy chief petty officer was found guilty yesterday of raping a junior female rating on board a warship in the Mediterranean.

Phillip Coates, 30, a medical assistant who had visited the warship as part of a Royal Navy inspection team, raped the sailor after an evening barbecue on board the ship, a panel of five military personnel, acting as jurors, decided after a five-day hearing.

Judge Geoff Blackett, the Judge Advocate-General, told Coates, who is married, that he faced a long custodial sentence. He was released on bail until sentencing next Wednesday.

The court martial at HMS Nelson in Portsmouth had heard a tearful account of the rape from the 24-year-old victim. She said that “Chief Coates” had followed her into a room on board the ship late in the evening on March 8 last year, after she had been drinking for four hours during the barbecue.

She admitted having drunk a bottle of wine, two and a half glasses of punch and a vodka and lemonade, but denied that she was drunk.

She said that she did not find Coates attractive, but he had put his arms around her and started to kiss her and pull her trousers and pants down to her knees, before climbing on top of her on the narrow bed. He claimed that she had taken her clothes off voluntarily and that the sex had been consensual.

After 31/2 hours of deliberation, the jury panel, led by Commodore Ian Jess, found Coates guilty of the single charge of rape. It is the first time that a member of the Royal Navy has been found guilty of rape on board a warship since women were allowed to serve at sea after a decision to permit mixed crews in 1990.

Coates, who was of previous good character, told the court martial that he was aware that having sex on the warship put at risk his job, his rank and his eight-month marriage. Now, after his conviction, he can expect a prison sentence and dismissal from the Royal Navy.

In her evidence, the female rating said that she had found the whole incident repulsive but had not cried out while Coates was trying to have sex because she had been afraid. She felt that there was little she could do, although she struggled and wriggled while he was on top of her.

Coates abandoned the effort to have sex because the bed was too uncomfortable.

The female rating’s colleagues found her sobbing in the dining hall. She told one colleague: “He tried to rape me”, but was unable to give any details to those who questioned her.

She recalled what had happened only two months later, when she went for a therapy session with a doctor who used a controversial method to draw out her memory of the incident.

Since the mixed-sex policy was implemented in Royal Navy warships in the early 1990s there has been a strict no-touching rule between male and female crew members.

Commanding officers of ships have discretionary powers to intervene if they believe that relationships are being formed. On occasion, crew members are transferred to other ships for their own good.

Since the 1990s there have been several cases of alleged sexual incidents on board ships, but no one previously had been charged with such a serious offence as rape.

Under reporting restrictions imposed by Judge Blackett, neither the name of the warship nor the place in the ship where the rape took place could be made public.

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