The British military has paid out just under £20m to victims of sexual misconduct, abuse and harassment over the past ten years, openDemocracy can reveal.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) spent £11.9m of taxpayer money compensating victims and survivors of sexual misconduct and a further £8.4m on their legal costs between 2014 and 2024, according to data obtained through Freedom of Information requests.
Sexual misconduct may include inappropriate comments, inappropriate touching, sexual harassment, sexual assault, indecent exposure, and rape. In some cases, compensation will have been awarded at employment tribunals that ran alongside criminal court cases.
Responding to our findings, former Conservative MoD minister Sarah Atherton warned that a culture of “discrimination and misogyny” within the Armed Forces is to blame for the payouts.
The £19.9m spanned 181 complaints, and there were a further 50 cases where no compensation was awarded. On average, each case cost the MoD £86,500, plus its own legal costs.
The British Army and Royal Air Force each spent £4.3m on compensation, as well as £3.8m and £2m on legal costs, respectively. The Royal Navy paid out £2.9m in compensation and £2.6m in legal costs.
Atherton, who was the parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence people, veterans and service families until October 2022, described the sums as a “stark indicator of deep-rooted cultural and structural failings”.
Calling for reform, she said: “If the military genuinely tackled discrimination and misogyny within its ranks, this money could instead be invested in building a safer, more inclusive and productive workforce, boosting both recruitment and retention.
“As one of the UK’s largest employers and a public body bound by the Equality Act, the Armed Forces should be setting the standard for employee protection.”
Responding to openDemocracy’s findings, an MoD spokesperson said: “Unacceptable and criminal behaviour has absolutely no place in our Armed Forces. That is why this government is creating a new Tri-Service Complaints team to take the most serious complaints out of the chain of single Service command for the first time, and has launched a new central taskforce on Violence Against Women and Girls to give this issue the attention it deserves.
“We are also establishing an independent Armed Forces Commissioner with the power to visit defence sites unannounced, and to investigate and report to parliament any welfare matters affecting service life.”
A culture of silence
To have their complaints of sexual harassment heard at an employment tribunal, current military personnel face an arduous process that often leaves victims and survivors feeling silenced.
While the military’s complaints system does not deal with criminal offences, it may be used alongside a criminal case. For example, a person in the armed forces alleging a criminal sexual assault in either the civilian or military justice system may also want to seek justice at a tribunal for a pattern of sexual harassment surrounding the attack.
But before serving personnel can take their claim to a tribunal judge, they are required to lodge a service complaint and complete the complaint process, which includes launching an appeal, if necessary.
During the process, complainants are not permitted to discuss their complaint with anyone, including those outside the military, leaving victims feeling gagged from the very beginning. With members of the armed forces also banned from joining a union, victims report feeling isolated and alone.
“Victims, the majority of whom are women, feel unable to seek independent legal advice when making a service complaint, because they are warned against speaking about their experiences to anyone outside of the process or their chain of command. This undermines their human rights,” said solicitor-advocate Ahmed Al-Nahhas from Bolt, Burdon Kemp law firm, which specialises in representing service personnel.
Al-Nahhas added: “Service complaints can drag on for years, and women are often left feeling crushed by the experience. They are regularly victim-blamed and character assassinated. Their colleagues treat them like pariahs. From the beginning, they are restricted about what they can say and who they can say it to.
“They can then be in the complaints process for many months or even years, by the end of which they never want to talk about what happened to them. It creates a culture of silence.”
Jane (not her real name), whose story we told last year, was medically discharged from the Royal Navy after reporting a senior officer for sexually assaulting her. In her service complaint, she said she wanted to make sure no other women had to go through the same experience. The complaint led to her being severely bullied by her colleagues, who closed ranks around her attacker, leaving her suicidal.
Mariette Hughes, the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces, has used her annual report to Parliament to state that the process is neither effective, efficient, nor fair every year since her office was created in 2021.
Victims and survivors also often report that the current system is not fit for purpose. ‘Mrs H’ went through the military’s complaints process after being sexually assaulted by a colleague in the RAF in August 2018. Although her assailant – known as ‘Cpl F’ – was acquitted by court martial the following year, Ms H submitted a service complaint and subsequently took the MoD to an employment tribunal.
The tribunal judge agreed the assault had taken place during her period of employment, meaning the RAF was liable. It was, he said, the “unanimous decision of the tribunal that the claimant was sexually harassed [...] The respondent is liable to pay damages and compensation for the act of sexual harassment.”
The tribunal heard how Ms H was “extremely critical” of the RAF’s handling of her case. “Those interviewing her,” the judge wrote, “did not seem to have any experience in interviewing people, let alone experience with dealing with cases of sexual assault.”
The RAF continued to employ Cpl F until he requested to leave the military in 2022, while Ms H was medically discharged in 2020, four months after the court martial concluded. She made the complaint later the same year.
According to advice published by the Centre for Military Justice, “those making decisions on Service Complaints are rarely if ever willing to find discrimination and have a very poor understanding of how to investigate and assess alleged discrimination”.
The Centre for Military Justice supported one member of the RAF who was sexually harassed by her line manager. When she submitted a service complaint, he issued her with a reprimand for a workplace error she had made many months before. During the RAF’s investigation into her complaint, she was made to report to the same line manager, including for her annual appraisal.
After she had exhausted the complaint process, she went to an employment tribunal where the judge agreed that sexual harassment had occurred. She was awarded an undisclosed amount of compensation but ultimately decided to leave the force.
Despite the millions spent on compensation, experts warn that the majority of victims/survivors of military sexual trauma remain unrecognised.
“Justice for survivors, is in my experience, nonexistent,” said Tony Wright, a registered social worker, veteran and founder of the charities Forward Assist and Salute Her. “More often than not, their trauma is buried beneath systemic denial, victim blaming and medical discharge.
“The sad reality is, most survivors never receive justice, appropriate care or support, and neither do they receive financial compensation for the violence and trauma they experience, during and after military service.”
