When I interviewed for my role at openDemocracy, I was asked to pitch an idea for an investigation. I knew exactly what I wanted to look at: abuse within the British military.
I got the job and I got to work. Since then, I have exposed a range of abuses, from the military justice system letting down rape survivors to the Royal Military Police failing to properly investigate allegations of non-recent child sex abuse, and the continuing abuse of sex workers by soldiers stationed overseas.
Almost a year ago, I turned my attention to the abuse of child recruits at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. I teamed up with Children’s Rights International (CRIN) to pool resources and data. We were shocked by what we learnt.
My exclusive investigation reveals how 16-17.5-year-old children recruited into the British Army face disproportionate levels of bullying, physical and sexual violence, compared to their peers in mainstream education. Many of these children, as my story reveals, come from working-class backgrounds or have specific vulnerabilities, such as having spent time in care.
The numbers, as you will read, are devastating. So are the testimonies from whistleblowers and parents. One dad heartbreakingly described how he no longer recognises his 16-year-old son due to trauma caused by violent bullying in the college – including by staff.
This investigation was made possible through our collaboration with CRIN, and their campaign and advocacy coordinator, Jim Wyke, reflects on our findings below. Also included in this edition is my interview with Esther Njoki, whose aunt Agnes Wanjiru was killed in Kenya, allegedly by a British soldier.
Too often, accounts of abuse in the armed forces are dismissed as being part of military culture. I urge you to consider that these boys and girls are children, living away from home, being let down by the country they committed to defend.
Inside British Army’s child training college where violent abuse is the norm • Sian Norris
The British Army is the only military in Europe that still recruits 16-year-olds.
That’s how old Hamish* was when he joined last year. As is required of all 16- and 17-year-old sign-ups, who are legally still children but are given the titles of ‘junior soldiers’, he moved into the residential Army Foundation College Harrogate in the north of England to begin his military training.
“In the first couple of weeks, it’s brilliant,” he said of his early days in the army, explaining that most teenage recruits “see it as a brilliant way of earning money”, particularly “if you haven’t really got any GCSEs”.
“But then things start to break down,” he said. Hamish soon witnessed boys being repeatedly punched in the head during fights with their peers or whipped with belts during initiation rituals, as well as other physical violence, including extreme bullying...
‘We can’t bring Agnes back. But we can protect other women’ • Sian Norris
Thirteen years and more than 6,000 miles from where Agnes Wanjiru was allegedly killed by a British soldier, her niece, Esther Njoki, sits in a wooden-panelled committee room in the Houses of Parliament. Portraits of long-dead dignitaries glower from the red, green and gold walls, as she addresses MPs, lawyers, journalists and campaigners for military justice.
Her message for the British Army is clear: it must change its culture, so no more families suffer as hers has done. “We can’t bring Agnes back. But we can protect other women.”
Wanjiru was 21 when she disappeared after leaving a hotel bar frequented by British soldiers based at the British Army Training Unit Kenya in 2012. It would be nearly three months before her family discovered her body in a septic tank. Seven years later, a Kenyan inquest ruled that a British soldier had unlawfully killed her...
The most dangerous ‘school’ in the UK: Army must end child recruitment • Jim Wyke
As a parent, you trust your government not to lie to you when it tells you that your children are safe. When you see Ofsted, the English education watchdog, has inspected a school, you trust that the grading awarded reflects the reality of school life.
An average of 2,380 children have trained at Army Foundation College Harrogate each year for the past five years. Its brochure tells would-be recruits and their parents of “world-class” opportunities and boasts that Ofsted has repeatedly awarded the college an ‘Outstanding’ grade for welfare and duty of care since 2012.
This grade is a lie. AFC Harrogate isn’t a college; it’s a military training establishment. This means that AFC is excluded from all the educational standards a civilian college is held to. Attendees cannot leave at will; they are subject to military law while training, and they can even be imprisoned if they leave without permission...
Jaysley Beck is not alone. We’ve found systemic sexual abuse in UK military • Sian Norris [February 2025]
The details that emerged from Jaysley Beck’s inquest 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...
🎧 Abortion decriminalisation now • In Solidarity
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Good news!
Senior investigations reporter Sian Norris has been shortlisted for the best investigations category at the Write to End Violence Against Women awards. The shortlisted article was a deep dive into the activities of an anti rape campaign targeting university students with self swab DNA rape kits. Congratulations Sian!
