A COLONEL accused of fraud after claiming nearly £100,000 in Army allowances to send his children to public schools has been acquitted.

A court martial board of five senior officers - a lieutenant general, two brigadiers and two colonels - took just over two hours to find Colonel Roddy Lee, 52, not guilty of fraud after a seven-day trial in Bulford.

Speaking afterwards, Col Lee's solicitor Lewis Cherry said: "He is greatly relieved that this matter is now at an end.

"He has always protested his innocence and the trial has shown that he acted completely within the rules."

Col Lee claimed £98,306.80 in 2015/16 in continuity of education allowance (CEA) to send his two elder children to Marlborough College and two younger children to two prep schools in Wiltshire and Dorset.

The allowance enables service personnel to send children to boarding school to prevent disruption to schooling caused by postings around the UK and abroad.

Prosecutors alleged Col Lee became ineligible for the allowance because he was posted in 2015 to Army Headquarters in Andover which was less than 50 miles from his family home at Littleton Panell, near Devizes, Wiltshire.

Col Lee, late of the Royal Artillery, told the court he wanted service accommodation in the Hampshire area, and was allocated a home in RAF Odiham , because of the future uncertainty of his posting and whether he would be working in Andover, Whitehall or Aldershot.

He added that this would help his wife, who at the time of the alleged offences was a medical student in London with placements in the South East and now works as a junior doctor.

Col Lee had originally faced three charges.

At the close of the prosecution case the indictment was amended, with the third count being removed from consideration by the board and the second count becoming an alternative to the first count.

Mr Cherry criticised the decision to bring the case, describing the investigation by the Royal Military Police as "flawed".

"I was astonished that this prosecution was brought at all, it went against sheer common sense when the evidence was considered as a whole," Mr Cherry said.

"Although neighbours said they had seldom seen him or his wife and appear to have been the source of the tip-off that commenced the investigation, when the police raided their home they found the family dog in the house and his wife arrived home from work during the search.

"The prosecution conceded at the start of the trial that the Royal Military Police investigation was flawed.

"They failed to properly gather the information that would have shown the whole basis of investigation was wrong.

"The issue at trial finally focused on the '90-day rule', which has been criticised by the Army Families Federation as adversely affecting employment by the service spouse, and specifically addresses the issue of spouses working night shifts at their employment.

"This affected Mrs Lee, who was a doctor working night shifts at a hospital, which the prosecution counted as being time away from their service accommodation. A lack of sheer common sense.

"The court heard that immediately after the initial arrest, his entitlement to the allowances were reviewed by the military authorities and deemed correct. They have been reviewed a further three times since then and continue to be paid."