Iraq abuse inquiry: British soldiers 'stamped on dead man's head' After he and his colleagues dismounted they fought an intense gun battle to storm a ditch filled with Iraqi fighters, while coming under heavy fire from AK-47s and grenades. Mr Ashton said immediately after the clash he saw one comrade, Pte Steven Wells, get into one of the ditches and stamp on the head of a dead Iraqi. He said: "Pte Wells stamped on his head two or three times and screamed and shouted. I thought he was letting some anger go after the fire fight. He said he also saw angry soldiers kicking and punching a young prisoner, aged in his late teens or early twenties, in a nearby derelict building. Pte Wells and Pte Scott Barlow punched and kicked the prisoner in his face, shins and ribs, though appeared to be trying to "bully and intimidate" him, "rather than wanting to cause him any serious harm." Mr Aston was then ordered to collect weapons from the battlefield. He said two of the bodies in one ditch were still "flinching and twitching" and one had his eyes open, staring straight ahead without moving. The men were badly wounded and "drifting between life and death," if not already dead, he said. As Mr Aston and a colleague removed grenades and AK-47s from the bodies, their platoon sergeant, Sgt Paul Kelly came over "looking angry" and tried to open fire on the bodies with his SA80 rifle, but it jammed. Mr Aston said: "Then he took my weapon and used my weapon and fired it on full automatic, a whole magazine, into the piled Iraqis into the ditch." The twitching stopped, he told the hearing in central London. Sgt Kelly gave the gun back, and the incident was not mentioned between them again. Mr Aston, who has since left the Army, said: "I didn't feel that it was like he had shot people who with first aid might recover. For all I knew they may well have been dead already, but they were certainly going to die given the horrendous wounds to their chests. My thoughts therefore were that what he had done was a bit sick and degrading, but not something worse. Mr Aston said the Royal Military Police later quizzed him about his role in battle, but he did not tell them of what he had seen. He said: "At the time I didn't want to grass my friends up. I didn't feel it was the right thing to do. Col Adam Griffiths earlier told the investigation he had not heard anything about detainees being mistreated, and dismissed claims that bodies had been mutilated as "baseless rumours."