The Defence Committee has made public whistle-blower evidence submitted by an anonymised team responsible for providing clinical and occupational health care and advice to Service personnel across the Armed Services.

The particulars of the team and cases within the evidence have been made anonymous.

This evidence, now fully accessible on the Defence Committee website, seeks to “provide the Committee with an indication of both the nature and impact of sexual abuse that continues to be perpetrated against women in our armed forces.”

It concludes that “a significant proportion of Servicewomen experience unwanted sexual behaviour in Service” and “many are reluctant to report or seek help.”

The evidence includes several case studies. In one instance, a junior servicewoman reports being “raped on base by someone with whom she’d been in a casual relationship.” The evidence states that a “GP advised her to ‘choose her partners more carefully in future‘.”

After reporting the incident, the servicewoman says she “was moved across the country, out of that elite Unit, against her will” and was then “medically discharged from the Service, again against her will.”

In another case, a servicewoman “was groped, forcibly kissed, and exposed by a male colleague at a Unit Christmas party.” After deciding to report the incident to her Chain of Command, she was told it was Christmas, and a party, so “she should understand that things get a little out of hand” and nothing was meant by it.

In a third case, a young servicewoman in training found a male training staff member in her room “smelling her underwear“, the evidence states. “When she finally reported him to the senior training lead” she was “advised that her training would be cut short“.

Commenting on the disturbing revelations, Chair of the Defence Sub-Committee on Women in the Armed Forces, Sarah Atherton MP, expressed deep concern: “The cases outlined in this evidence are heartrending and demonstrate serious failings within the military justice system and Chain of Command.

Atherton further stressed that “sexual assault and rape are heinous crimes“, and servicewomen often feel compelled to ‘put up and shut up‘. They are made to feel as though they must choose between justice and their career, while abusers seem to be protected.

Almost two years ago, the Defence Committee’s report ‘Women in the Armed Forces: Protecting those who protect us’ was met with a largely positive response from the Ministry of Defence. However, Atherton states that this new evidence “shows that serious problems persist“.

She suggested the need for a thoughtful and strategic response, led by respected figures within the military, to combat what she describes as “a wider culture of institutional misogyny“. Atherton concluded by expressing gratitude to the witnesses and all those who had the courage to share their experiences.

George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison

25 COMMENTS

  1. Where I would be even more worried is that male on male assault is likely to be just as prevalent and it is also not seemingly being reported.

    I’d also assume that female on male assault is a thing and that guys won’t generally report that either.

    Never mind the, equally unpleasant and unwanted advances, made on other gender identities.

    There is an element to this of having a load of young fit people in a pressure cooker environment where marginally senior people have, what appears to be, incredible levels of power.

    Well, we are back to the usual Met Police Zoo excuses now.

    But more worrying is the chain command victimising the victim which will amplify the trauma.

    My concern is that young people who want to serve their country should be allowed to do so in a professional environment and any illegal impediments to that environment are aggressively moved out of the way. Not the other way around.

    • Yes it’s a massive issue, if you have senior people who do nothing or subvert and hide things like this to protect the service you are in a downward spiral. Theses cases of individuals being essentially punished for speaking up is profoundly worrying.

      The sad truth is you always get people willing to harm and abuse others in every workplace..be that a rogue nurse or doctor, police officer or in the military… But the fundamental test is how the leadership and institutions deal with it and it’s sad to say that from the NHS to the army our institutions first reactions would seem to be to rather bury it than be held to account and hold those that harm to account.

      The big problem is power dynamic what the Dr, Nurse, Police officer or more senior service personnel have over their victims is power, influence and knowledge..if the service and seniors in it therefore also act in a way to compound this utter tragedy occurs….we know the names shipman, Beverly allit, Wayne Couzens, Jimmy savile, Sam Evens.

      Then we have the example of why you must never ever let this go..( not only for the fact allowing this to happen is immoral in itself) The entire Russian army an institute build on the abuse and assault of junior soldiers and conscripts by seniors…an example of what happens when you have an army based on abuse…shit at fighting an actual war but very high end when it to comes the rape and abuse of civilians.

  2. Gosh.

    If there was ever evidence of how ‘important’ this issue is and how much it needs to be pushed up the agenda in the view of the commentatiat: it is the lack of comments on this.

    We can manage ca 150 comments on a drone from QEC but we can’t manage a discussion about keeping people feeling safe from their own team.

    Those of us who have been there first hand have all seen plenty of blowing off steam and questionable behaviour. Also decent behaviour and people stepping in to ask ‘are you OK?‘

    • Been at work mate..just had my tea break and read it now…agree it’s a huge problem..for me it’s about institutions seeming to be willing to bury horrible things and pretend there is nothing to see here.

    • We may think the lack of drones in the navy is criminal, but that’s only metaphorically. This stuff is criminal literally, and it’s harder to speak on such matters off the back of a press release. I’d hope it was obvious that they should be condemned if true. If people have been allowed to get away with rape or sexual assault while their accusers are transferred, there will need to be some serious repercussions, not only for the perpetrators, but also for those who have covered it up. If despite being true it only leads to a few early retirements, justice will not have been served.

      Yet I find it difficult to speak to the cases outlined with no first hand experience of them. Should we be commenting anyway, to show we take it seriously? Yes, SB. I think you are right. We should. We need to encouraging the truth to come out, threading the needle between silence and hyperbole: an investigation, but not a witch hunt.

      It’s also too easy to blame it on a culture of whatever. It’s human beings who have to bear the responsibility for their actions. If “I was only obeying orders” isn’t good enough in law, how much less should “I followed the prevaling culture” be?

  3. The comments by some on this forum who identify as ex members of the army and of one regiment in particular is evidence enough if any more were needed.

  4. This s*** needs to stop I know it’s not entirely a armed forces issue, but the lack of support and trust is. Unfortunately this is a society problem and government needs to have a tougher Stance on this, entire life sentence, castrations or even death penalties then we see an adequate reduction

    • Yes, it needs to stop.

      Did it always wars go on? Yes.

      Is it now just more in the open because it is OK to make a complaint if you are assaulted? Yes.

      Are the stats there because these incidents have now got to be recorded? Yes.

      Is that a good thing? Yes.

      Understanding the dimensions of the the problem has got to come before deciding solutions.

      I think your proposed penalties are a little harsh. Miscarriages of justice do happen…

  5. So for me…you have the individual cases…which are profoundly horrible in themselves…but and this is important you will alway get evil bastards working everywhere…I have seen and been involved with cases of what I can only describe as evil and people with a proud need to harm others…that’s the reality of life…you never do know if the person you are talking to is a mass murder.

    The issue is what the institution does with this..does it support the victim and then in and open and transparent way ensure there is Justice or is it’s first reaction to worry about imagine, the public reaction and damage to the institution…my experience is it’s almost always the second case..this then leads to a paradigm of how do we protect the institution…which leads to at best institutional blindness to these potentially damaging evens ( if we cannot see it it’s not happening) and at worst actually trying to hide events…getting rid of victims..refusing to investigate properly or take action.

    I say this sadly but I believe almost all government institutions are guilty of worrying about perception and organisational damage over any harm to the victims.

    • Jonathan I fear your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs are wholly accurate of all government branches and public organisations. You only have to look at the high ranking Met police officers during the Wayne Couzons IOPC results today to see it again, Female Pc who had a case for a few weeks that could of been him if she really investigated, gets a gross misconduct charge, told she could of “prevented him killing”, press go mad. Sergeant who investigated Couzons for exposing himself had his name, address and car registration, who just so happened to work in the same station and regularly on the same shift as Couzons brother, had all that info for many months and did nothing gets cleared of all misconduct charges, “couldn’t of known” hardly reported despite some very questionable coincidences

      • Yes that one stinks particularly badly, the fact a very junior person was asked to ( set up really) Investigate something that serious says it all really.

  6. As a father of two daughters, I’m going to say I do think misogyny is a big problem in this country at the moment and it’s being made a lot worse by social media…my eldest pretty much reports every day that the teenage boys in her class are making misogynistic statements and verbal attacks on the girls..and I’m not talking about the innocent “did not know better” stuff lads talked about in the 70s and 80s I’m talking 15-16 year old boys telling girls to there faces ( in class and during lessons) how they would like to abuse them (and I’m talking abuse) …the school seems to do nothing to counter this…

    • My mum is a primary school teacher and she tells me stories of kids as young as 8 already idolising people like Andrew Tate. Unfortunately schools can only do a certain amount (which a lot of schools don’t even do) it’s very much down to the parents and social media.

      You also have the problem when schools do try to teach stuff out misogyny, racism, homophobia ect they get screamed at they are teaching a “woke” agenda.

      This is just my opinion in the view and I will admit I am biased.

      • Yet at the same time, you have large numbers of young men, aged 18-29, not having any sex. If a nice guy asks a woman on a date, she is likely to call him a creep & tell everyone he is a sex pest. So many young men give up. Meanwhile, those men who know they are “god’s gift” are chased by many women, so use them & dump them. Can we not find a way of getting some sanity back into dating?

        • I did write a lengthy reply but I’ll just say when you mix the pious virtue signalling and bullying of social media coupled with our sycophantic, folllowing of the ‘celebrity’ and you end up where we are.

          Facebook is Pandora’s box, a cess pit full of the base traits of human behavior-where the weak are churned up and spat out .
          Unregulated,unrestricted & accessed by the young who think its ok to say and do what they want which then percolates into their everyday-

          Who would want to be young today – its no wonder mental health issues are on the rise.

          A race to the bottom – welcome to the world.

          • All good points.

            I happen to view the rise in mental health issues as a good thing, hear me out.
            I think we may of actually reached the point where the stigmatism over mental health has dropped to the point people are willing to stand up and say the words “I need help” with much less fear.
            Similarly the increase in Sexual Assault reports can be attributed to the MeToo social media posts (I do see the good in social media too) and society being more supportive of the victims as the stigmatism has dropped.

            We won’t know for a few year as numbers level, if it’s an Increase in report that is.

  7. Wow this is a big and dangerous subject.

    It covers a complete lack of personal privacy, people in your own personal space & too close for comfort observing your bodily functions which may well be unavoidable on a battlefield to lack of professional behaviour to outright criminal acts.

    Perhaps the military has to say everyone gets privacy although I am not sure that is possible in the real world or maybe we say nobody gets privacy and you train to manage without it where individuals may well be attracted to other individuals but if you fail to act professionally and properly at all times the consequences will be dire.

    It may be that encrypted accommodation cameras, body cameras etc. may be necessary so that an independent panel can establish quickly the facts of any situation and take quick a decisive action.

    Certainly I think that the biggest problem is being indecisive. The military need to decide how it needs to work, just the rules if necessary and enforce rigorously.

  8. This is a simple 1 in my eyes any service member found to be committing sexual offences in service should spend the rest of their service locked in Berechurch and then to HMP. Any savings and pension they have should be given to the victim. Oh and they should be announced to every individual they served with as a rapist and then recorded in the Regimental records for all of history to see.

    Then any Officer or NCO found to be perverting the course of justice or using the position to retaliate, should immediately looses all pension rights, wages halved and service automatically extended until 65. List their names next to the rapists. Oh and using the words “boys will be boys” should be an immediate death sentence no questions asked that excuse has permeated for far to long on far to many subjects in military circles.

    HIT THEM WHERE THEY CARE, pride, pension and history books. If a person does end up falsely prosecuted then financials can be sorted and names removed.

    Some might say That’s too harsh but I actually believe sexually assaulting someone who is expected to fight next to you and for you, is so low there shouldn’t actually be a punishment listed. The victim should be allowed to do anything they like with anything in inventory.

  9. A grim horrible ‘topic’ to comment on. Everyone involved in this kind of activity, should be named, shamed and harshly dealt with. That includes those who fail to act, after a report is made to them.

    If found guilty, the perp should suffer an immediate dishonourable discharge. This should also be the case for anyone who fails to report such crimes. In both cases, the ‘perps’ should have all their assets taken from them, as well as the requirement to pay back every penny that they earned, whilst in the military.

    They should then serve a minimum of 10 years, at HMP Belmarsh, where everyone will be made aware of their crimes.

    Any and all acts of violence against fellow service personnel, should be stamped out once and for all.

  10. The ideal UK defence budget is 0%. The only reason it needs to be more than that is that we live in an imperfect world where things happen which really shouldn’t.

    The ideal number of cases of actual (as opposed to reported) sexual assaults in the armed forces is zero. However, we live in an imperfect world where at least for the foreseeable future they are likely to remain a grim reality for many.

    The focus in the comments has been on the consequences which must exist for the perpetrators of such acts. No argument from me there. But we must also think about the consequences and support for the victims. Military medical services are not necessarily well equipped to support victims through such issues, and the close knit nature of the services can mean that any pretence of anonymity for victims is soon lost in the reality of gossip and rumours.

    Much probably needs to be done to improve both the medical/ psychological/ post trauma support for victims, but also to educate communities about the need to care for one of their own who has been harmed in a way that they might not know how to support.

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