Soldier's mum says young women should not join Army

Jaysley Beck was found dead in her barracks at Larkhill in Wiltshire on 15 December 2021

The mother of a teenage soldier who took her own life after being sexually assaulted by a superior has said young women should not join the Army.

Leighann McCready said the armed forces had still not done enough to protect recruits after her daughter Jaysley Beck was found dead in her barracks in Larkhill Camp, Wiltshire, in 2021.

Warrant Officer Michael Webber, 43, pinned down Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck and tried to kiss her in July 2021. He was jailed for sexual assault on Friday.

Her mother told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Evidence has shown through our own daughter that the protection is not there."

"Until policies are properly changed, I wouldn't recommend anybody joining the Army because they protect themselves and not the soldiers, and that's what happened to our daughter Jaysley," she said.

"Army recruits are such a vulnerable age and when they first join up, as females, in such a minority surrounded by lots of men."

The Army said it did not listen to Gunner Beck, who was originally from Oxen Park in Cumbria, when she reported the assault and has apologised for its handling of her complaint.

Her comments come the day after Webber was jailed for six months by a military court after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting Gunner Beck.

An inquest into Gunner Beck's death found the Army's handling of her complaint played "more than a minimal contributory part in her death"

Gunner Beck was found dead five months later in her barracks after the assault.

Webber, a Sergeant Major at the time, made a sexual advance towards her following an evening of drinking while on deployment for a training exercise.

Gunner Beck claimed Webber said he had been "waiting for a moment for them to be alone" before grabbing her leg, pinning her down, and trying to kiss her.

She filed a complaint against Webber following the incident, despite attempts by superiors to persuade her not to.

The incident was not reported to police and Webber wrote a letter of apology to Gunner Beck. He was later promoted.

Leighann McCready said the armed forces had still not done enough to protect recruits

An inquest into Gunner Beck's death later found that the incident and the Army's failure to take appropriate action "more than minimally" contributed to her death.

Ms McCready said it had been "relentless to fight the Army" and demanded "real changes" rather than "empty promises and glorified words".

Emma Norton, the family's solicitor and director of the Centre for Military Justice, said that while there had been some improvements to the Army's process for handling complaints, they did not go far enough.

Since Gunner Beck's death, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has set up a serious crime command and launched a violence against women and girls taskforce, and more recently has agreed in principle to remove the handling of serious complaints from the individual services.

Ms Norton told Today: "They are not having the impact on the ground that I think the MoD hoped they would have.

"Which isn't to say that there isn't a continued commitment to want to improve those things, but we are still seeing very serious complaints against military policing."

Ms McCready added that she was still being "inundated" with stories from soldiers and their families saying "this is still happening" and urging her to "keep fighting".

Last week also saw Wiltshire Police announce it had identified "offending spanning several decades" as part of an investigation into alleged sexual assaults during Army medical examinations between the 1970s and 2016.

Colleagues used a master key to enter Gunner Beck's room after concerns emerged that no-one had heard from her all day

Ms Norton called for the new independent Armed Forces Commissioner to be given responsibility for handling serious complaints, and called on the military to do more to improve conviction rates for sexual offences.

Following Webber's conviction, the Army said it had introduced a significant cultural reform programme to give service personnel "the confidence they need to report sexual offences and inappropriate behaviours".

Maj Gen Jon Swift, assistant chief of the General Staff, said the Army was "sorry we didn't listen to Jaysley when she first reported her assault".

"We are determined to make sure the same mistakes don't happen again."

Defence minister Louise Sandher-Jones said the Army had accepted the failings identified by the service inquiry but "there is more work to be done".

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