Military servicewoman says senior officer raped her

A military servicewoman has said she will “never be the same” after she was allegedly raped by a more senior Royal Navy officer.

Military police brought charges of rape and sexual assault against the man, but the case never went to court due to a lack of evidence.

The woman, who was an officer at the time in the armed forces, exclusively told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour her career had been left in ruins. The senior officer, with responsibilities for behaviours and values including sexual consent, remains in his role.

The Royal Navy said it had made significant changes to how incidents are reported and investigated.

The rape is alleged to have happened after a work social at an officers’ mess in England. The woman, whom the BBC is calling Joanna to protect her identity, said: “It’s supposed to be your home and you're supposed to be safe there, and I wasn’t.”

At the time she had been classed as vulnerable due to a stressful work-related incident, which had also affected the senior male colleague.

Joanna said she saw the man during the work function when he had caught her eye and asked if she was OK. After the dinner, she said he approached her and “expressed some words of concern”.

As he was “one of the bosses”, she felt she should talk to him.

“His rank and actually the position he was in, he was particularly responsible for the careers and the military discipline of others,” she said.

“He had the powers to apply military law to others and he needed to have understood them very well himself, as well as obviously abide by them.”

Joanna said she realised she was very drunk while talking to him and has since pieced together what then happened.

She claimed in the early hours of the morning, he led her away from the party. While she said she was trying to find her room, she ended up going to his cabin for a drink.

She said she remembers him being on top of her and she strongly suspects he had removed her clothes.

“I was going in out of consciousness,” said Joanna. “I remembered at a later point that he was having sex with me.”

She alleged he raped her twice and that there had been a separate sexual assault. She had not consented at any point, she claimed.

“There had been no conversation,” she said, adding: "I did not know what was going on, I was not able to consent, and I did not consent - and that is rape.”

Both she and the officer passed out at the end of the night, she said.

"Some of the things that happened are horrific, but I don't have any shame because it's not my shame,” she told Woman’s Hour, adding that the fact sexual assaults are often not talked about makes them “like a dirty little secret”.

Joanna said she thinks the military does not want to admit “it happens so often, particularly between... people who are a bit older, professionals, both commissioned officers”.

She said she tried to report what had happened the next morning, but she felt a female senior officer was being dismissive because of the fact she was hungover.

Her immediate workplace boss asked if she wanted to go to the doctor or sexual assault referral centre, but she said she did not want to speak to anyone.

Joanna said she thought no one would believe her “because of who he was and what his rank was”.

The case went to the Service Prosecution Authority - the military’s version of the Crown Prosecution Service - with two counts of rape and one of sexual assault by penetration being alleged.

But Joanna eventually received “a really terribly worded letter” saying there was not “enough concrete evidence” and no witnesses.

She said the senior officer later admitted sex had taken place but claimed she had been an active and willing participant, which she said was not true.

Asked how she had been affected, Joanna told Woman's Hour: “It’s ended my career. I’ve been medically discharged because of the mental health consequences of this.”

She said she had come close to attempting to take her life but did not, saying being a mother stopped her doing this.

“The physical effects of the assault didn’t last very long - the mental side remains,” she said, explaining she lost weight and became “a different person”.

“I will never be the same person again. And it’s changed me mentally, it’s changed what I can do,” she said. “I did not want to leave. I did not want my career to end.”

'I've lost the career I loved'

Joanna said as the senior officer said he had consensual sex with her, that breaks several rules and there is now a zero tolerance policy in place saying even a consensual affair can lead to discharge if there is a disparity in rank.

Despite this, she said “he is still in service and he’s still in the same rank”.

“Essentially, he’s been given a slap on the wrist. He hasn’t been demoted in rank. He could have been promoted ahead of this - it might have affected his career a little bit, but he is still in a job in the Royal Navy.”

In a statement, the Royal Navy said: “Sexual assault and other sexual offences are not tolerated in the Royal Navy and anything which falls short of the highest of standards is totally unacceptable.

“We acknowledge that this incident will have had a significant impact to those involved, and since then we have made significant changes to how incidents are reported and investigated.

“This includes providing specialist help to victims and witnesses of serious crime, independent from the military chain of command.”

The Navy has since set up the Defence Serious Crime Command and Victim Witness Care Unit, in 2022, to provide specialist support.

Conservative MP Sarah Atherton, who sits on Defence Select Committee and in 2021 led a review into lived experiences of service woman and veterans, said she was “saddened to hear yet another account of mistreatment in the military of a servicewoman... but not surprised”.

The senior officer “has a responsibility and it’s incumbent on him to have protected her, not exploit her”, the Conservative MP told Woman’s Hour.

“I know it’s very difficult to have a conviction when it’s one word against another, but these are not the standards we expect from a professional military,” added Ms Atherton, who served in the army.

The zero tolerance policy was introduced in 2022 in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse on board the UK's nuclear armed submarines made by a whistleblower. The First Sea Lord said at the time there would be the presumption of discharge for anyone engaging in sexual assault or harassment.

Joanna said she does not think that policy is working.

And Ms Atherton said since the policy was introduced “very few, if any, service personnel have been discharged”.

Talking about her life now, Joanna said: “I've lost the career that I loved. I have secured new employment, but I'm not well enough to work full time. My salary's more than halved. I've lost a huge amount of pension. But that’s not as important as being as well as I can be.

“I will carry on, but it will never have not happened.”

• If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story you can visit BBC Action Line.