Damning evidence of the culture of Britain’s special forces, from their training camps in Herefordshire to the battlefields of Afghanistan, was released on Tuesday.

It was disclosed by the judge-led inquiry set up in the wake of detailed reports of unarmed civilians executed in cold blood in night raids by SAS soldiers.

A special forces soldier said prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq were put on the prongs of forklift trucks which were then raised and driven so fast that they fell off.

“It was something they did for fun doing this and jamming on the brakes so they fell off,” one of the inquiry witnesses said she had been told.