‘It was only the Human Rights Act that enabled me to force these changes. The MoD had been asked repeatedly to bring about these reforms and had stubbornly refused to do so. The case did not have to get to court – the firm threat of legal action, relying on the HRA, had the desired effect. The HRA was the only tool at my disposal to force the MoD’s hand, leading to these important changes that I hope will have improved military policing for sexual assault survivors in the future.’
I am in the Army. I was sexually assaulted during my service by another soldier. I reported my assault, which was investigated by the Royal Military Police (RMP). I was very unhappy about the quality of the RMP investigation. My assailant was acquitted and I have had to come to terms with that.
Because of my experiences, I became concerned to better understand how the military police went about their work and what systems were in place to give victims of sexual assaults in the military the best possible chance of ensuring a successful prosecution.
I was shocked to learn that a commanding officer was not required as a matter of law to refer an allegation of sexual assault to the service police. It was open to them to deal with the matter themselves. This was a serious issue that had been raised with the Ministry of Defence in 2014 by the family of the late Cpl Anne-Marie Ellement, who died after reporting alleged rape and sexual assault, as well as in 2016 by the family of the late Pte Cheryl James, who died at Deepcut barracks amid allegations of widespread bullying and sexual harassment. However, the Secretary of State for Defence and the MoD had ignored those families’ requests for the law to be changed and the law remained as it was – meaning that sexual assaults, exposure and voyeurism did not need to be referred to the service police at all.
I instructed my solicitor to send a ‘pre-action protocol’ letter to the MoD, threatening to take them to the High Court if they did not change the law. This resulted in the law finally being changed in 2018 so that, now, all commanding officers must, as a matter of law, refer any allegation of sexual assault, exposure or voyeurism to the service police and they are not allowed to deal with it themselves.
I was also shocked to learn that there was no independent oversight body to which military personnel could complain, if they were unhappy about the actions (or inaction) of the military police. Given the widespread concerns within the armed forces community about the quality of their policing, this was a really serious problem. The absence of an independent oversight body (such as the Independent Office of Police Conduct, which exists for civilian police) for the military police meant that victims had no redress when things went wrong and the military police messed up. Again, I instructed my solicitor to threaten legal action if this was not fixed.
As a consequence, the MoD agreed to let an independent judge look at this issue and to seek his advice on whether such a body should be set up – happily, that independent judge quickly agreed that there was an urgent need for the establishment of an effective independent oversight body to whom armed forces personnel could complain about military policing when things went wrong. Its creation was contained in the Armed Forces Act 2021 and it is in the process of being set up now.
In both of these cases, the MoD could not be trusted to do the right thing by itself. In both cases, I relied upon the Human Rights Act to force the MoD’s hand. In particular, I relied on Article 3, the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment such as rape or sexual assault, and the duty on the state to ensure that there are effective criminal law systems in place to deal with serious crimes if they happen (for example, by ensuring that it is the military police, not a commanding officer that deals with an allegation of sexual assault; and ensuring that there are minimum standards of competence within the military police, something that will be easier to ensure if there is an independent oversight body to improve standards and handle complaints).
It was only the HRA that enabled me to force these changes. The MoD had been asked repeatedly to bring about these reforms and had stubbornly refused to do so. The case did not get to court – the threat of legal action, relying on the HRA, had the desired effect. The HRA was the only tool at my disposal to force the MoD’s hand, leading to these important changes that I hope will have improved military policing for sexual assault survivors in the future.