- Content warning: This article contains discussion of suicide and sexual violence.
The details that emerged from Jaysley Beck’s inquest last week were truly horrifying. But for our journalists, who have spent much of the past year investigating the extent of sexual abuse in the British military, they were sadly not surprising.
Nineteen-year-old Beck took her own life in her room at Larkhill Barracks on 15 December 2021. A coroner has now ruled that the army’s handling of her complaint about a serious sexual assault played “more than a minimal contributory part in her death”.
Among the disturbing findings we have made in the past year was the fact that a quarter of cases heard in the military courts since 2018 related to sexual offences, with 77% of men tried for rape in court martials found not guilty – compared to around 30% in civilian courts.
We have also exposed how hundreds of men have been sexually abused while serving, and how the armed forces are failing to enforce their zero-tolerance policy designed to prevent sexual abuse abroad. And we told the story of Jessica, who faced a 22-year fight for justice after being abused as a child growing up on a British Army base.
Our investigations confirm that Beck’s experience of sexual abuse, and her tragic death, is part of a troubling pattern of abuse, unaccountability, victim-blaming and a closed-rank culture within the military, which all serve to deny victims the justice they deserve.
Military women and suicide
Beck was one of 12 military women who took their own lives between 2016 and 2022, according to Freedom of Information data obtained by openDemocracy. Four of those women, Beck included, died in 2021 – the deadliest year for female suicide in the British armed forces.
At least three of the 12 women had suffered gender-based violence or sexual misconduct. They included Olivia Perks, 21, who was found dead in her room at Sandhurst military academy in Berkshire on 6 February 2019. A pre-inquest review heard that the sexual misconduct allegedly perpetrated against her was “clearly” on Perks’ mind before she died.
Perks’ death prompted an investigation into seven Sandhurst senior officers accused of failing to support the 21-year-old recruit, despite her being identified as vulnerable, with welfare provisions at the world-famous military academy found to be inadequate. None of the seven commanders faced disciplinary action.
A 2022 inquest into Lisa Bateman’s suicide two years earlier found a senior member of staff had harassed, undermined and assaulted her while she was serving as an instructor for combat medics in York. Bateman, who had served in Iraq, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Her father described his daughter as a “generous, sweet and well-meaning individual” and confirmed that the harassment and assault caused her “huge distress”.
Other cases identified a failure by the armed forces to provide welfare support for women who were recognised as vulnerable.
Twenty-three-year-old army gunner Sophie Madden died by suicide in 2022, weeks after her boyfriend, who was also in the army, took his own life. The army had placed Madden, a survivor of an alleged domestic assault by a previous partner, on a 'vulnerability register' in 2020 after she was observed self-harming. She was removed from the list months before she died.
Jayne Hill, 19, took her own life the same night she believed she was spiked by an “unknown civilian male” while out with her army colleagues. Her family’s solicitors confirmed that none of her colleagues had reported the potential spiking to the army’s medical staff or the guardroom, which can provide welfare support on a military base.
Hill’s mother was also concerned that her daughter was being bullied, after a Snapchat video sent to a friend warned that “people are starting on me” at the base, though the coroner declined to consider the footage as evidence. Hill had recently suffered a significant bereavement.
A charity to try and prevent such tragedies was set up in memory of Laura Hyde, a 27-year-old Royal Navy nurse who died by suicide in 2016.
It is inaccurate to blame one single factor for someone taking their own life, and we are careful to quote coroner’s verdicts and family testimony rather than speculation on causes. Suicide and “injury or poisoning of undetermined intent” is the leading cause of death for women aged 20 to 34 years in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Military sexual trauma
The reports from the inquest into Beck’s death make harrowing reading. They detail how the teenager was grabbed by a Royal Artillery Battery Sergeant Michael Webber, aged 43, who tried repeatedly to kiss her and left her feeling so scared that she fled and slept the night in her car in case he came looking for her.
When she followed military protocol and made a formal complaint the following day, her superior Major James Hook told her to “think very carefully” before making “such a serious allegation”. He accused her of making the complaint to get out of exercise. The incident was eventually dealt with via an administrative action that led to a letter of apology from Webber to Beck. Despite his behaviour, Webber was later promoted.
Beck was also subjected to sustained harassment from her line manager, Bombardier Ryan Mason, aged 40, who sent her 4,600 WhatsApp messages confessing his feelings for her in two months. Her pleas for him to stop went ignored. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Beck did not report Mason. After what happened with Webber, she had no confidence that she would be taken seriously and was deeply worried that she would be seen as the problem: a serial accuser.
Beck’s experience with Webber was reminiscent of Jane’s story, which openDemocracy reported in July last year. When Jane alleged she was grabbed and forcibly kissed by a senior member of her base, she was bullied for speaking out. She was later subjected to horrific harassment by their colleagues and, like Beck, was warned about the impact of her complaint on the alleged perpetrator’s life and career.
After a court martial found her alleged perpetrator not guilty, Jane was so distressed by the whole experience of the military justice system that she planned to take her own life. Thankfully, a friend who was concerned about her wellbeing contacted her and got her to a place of safety. In her service complaint, Jane wrote how she reported the attack to make sure no other women went through the same experience.
Jane’s story is one of hundreds. Our investigations found military police launched 1,423 investigations into rapes and sexual assaults against women between 2015 and 2024. A further 304 sex crimes were investigated where men were recorded as the victim. And our Freedom of Information requests to 22 police forces in England and Wales with a military presence in their areas revealed more than 200 rapes and sexual assaults at barracks or garrisons over five years.
These numbers are the tip of the iceberg. Most people do not report military sexual abuse. A government review into the treatment of women in the British military revealed that six in 10 women did not report bullying, harassment, discrimination or sexual misconduct. And fewer than a quarter of male victims report sexual abuse, according to data shared with openDemocracy by the charity Forward Assist.
Georgia Hinton, a civilian who was raped by a serving member of the British army and waived her right to anonymity, told openDemocracy how she felt under pressure from the military not to go to the police after the assault. “It’s very difficult reporting a crime like rape on a military base,” she said.
Those who do report are at risk of a culture of bullying and disbelief or feel under pressure to withdraw complaints due to concerns about the alleged perpetrator’s career.
That culture extends to the courtroom, where the military continues to be allowed to mark its own homework when it comes to sexual abuse.
openDemocracy compared the outcomes of rape trials in the military and civilian justice systems, finding that 77% of men accused of rape are found not guilty at court martial, compared to 30% in civilian courts. This has raised questions about biases and a lack of access to justice for victims of military abuse.
Unlike jury trials, court martial trials are heard by a board made up of up to six senior military personnel, which, until recently, could be all-male. We found numerous examples of men who had sat on court martial boards using misogynistic language on an armed forces forum, including board members defending convicted sexual abusers.
In effect, serving personnel who have lived and worked in a culture of normalised sexual bullying are being given the power to judge allegations of sexual assault. The disparity we uncovered in rape court martial outcomes, as well as the weight of evidence from Beck’s case and many more, show this closed system is failing victims.
Speaking out
A culture of silencing, shame and stigma is exacerbated by a ban on serving personnel speaking to the media. But as the inquest into Beck’s death made news headlines, hundreds of women and men took to social media to share their own experiences of military sexual abuse.
Testimony sent by direct message to the military banter ‘Fill Your Boots’ X account and then posted anonymously provided a space where victims could be heard. We have edited for typos and brevity but otherwise reproduced the posts as written.
“Whilst I was serving a [sergeant] kicked me to the floor, pinned me down, acted out a sex act on me in front of a WO [a warrant officer, a senior position in the British military] and nothing was ever done,” wrote one woman. “He groped me a number of times in front of colleagues, pinned me against a wall, stopped me from leaving a room in order to sexually harass and touch me […] The pain he caused still haunts me now! Along with the pain of trying to end my life!”
“Please keep me anonymous as I am still serving,” wrote another. “I heard a group of guys coming in from a night out. They tried all the doors to see if they could get in, eventually they gave up and I thought they had either left [or] gone to bed. The next minute my door was flung open and they had used a boxing bag to barge the door. I was petrified. I screamed at them to leave and made a huge commotion. I reported this to the [Royal Military Police] and was told [it] was my word against theirs and as there was no CCTV […] this will always leave scars on my service.”
Another woman, who said she is currently in the RAF, wrote: “Two years ago I was raped at my last unit by someone I knew very well, he worked at a different [Squadron] next door. I’d known him before I joined so five years in total and really trusted him. I took the legal route, I had so much evidence you couldn’t have possibly asked for anything more but it was dismissed by the military prosecution authority and never even made it to trial […] My rapist went back to his job full time, he’s a pilot so was told he was needed because he’s in an important role.”
Besides these anonymous accounts, these women and men have no public forum to explain the routine and sexualised violence they suffer.
Since Beck’s death, the Ministry of Defence has introduced a Zero Tolerance Policy against unacceptable sexual behaviours and changed the reporting process so that victims of sexual abuse and harassment no longer have to report to the chain of command.
But openDemocracy’s investigations have already raised questions about the success of the Zero Tolerance Policy in tackling sexual violence and harassment.
The policy was introduced in April 2022, but at least 153 serving personnel were sanctioned for unacceptable sexual behaviour between November 2022 and March 2024, according to data we obtained using Freedom of Information laws. At least three personnel faced sanctions for a ban on sexual relationships between instructors and trainees during the same time period, and at least 27 were sentenced for sexual offences.
We also uncovered that no sanctions had been issued for transactional sex, which is banned under the Zero Tolerance Policy, despite sex workers saying that soldiers stationed overseas are still paying for sex.
There are 16,000 women serving in the British military. Almost 40% of them may have experienced unwelcome sexualised comments in the previous 12 months, according to the findings of the most recent Army Sexual Harassment Survey, which was published in 2021.
That report, which surveyed 3,751 servicewomen, found nearly one in five had experienced unwanted attempts to establish a sexual relationship, 7% had been treated badly for refusing sex, 4% had been subjected to a sexual activity to which they were unable to consent, 2.6% had been seriously sexually assaulted, and 1.8% had been raped.
Beck’s sister was right to warn that the armed forces is “not a safe space for women”. Her mother was right that it will remain unsafe until the military is no longer allowed to police itself on “cases of sexual harassment, assault, bullying and abuse”.
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