Teenage soldier Jaysley Beck was likely sexually assaulted by one senior colleague and relentlessly harassed by another before she took her own life, a coroner has concluded.
The 19-year-old was found hanged in her room at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire on December 15, 2021.
Before her death, she complained to a friend that a senior officer, Battery Sergeant Major Michael Webber, had ‘pinned’ her down and tried to kiss at Thorney Island, near Emsworth in Hampshire, in July 2021.
She had also been bombarded by another one of her bosses, Ryan Mason, a bombardier at the time, who confessed his love for her in 4,600 WhatsApp messages in the space of two months.
Summing up the inquest for Gunner Beck, Nicholas Rheinberg, assistant coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon said the Army’s handling of the complaint ‘played more than a contributory part’ to her suicide.
He added: ‘I find on the balance of probabilities that the complaint should not have been dealt with by minor administrative action, by following this route it breached Army policy as it was a sexual assault carried out on a 19-year-old Gunner by a middle-aged man of senior rank and was recorded merely as inappropriate behaviour unbecoming of a warrant officer.’
The coroner said former bombardier Ryan Mason had sent 1,000 messages to Gunner Beck in October 2021 and 3,600 in November, adding: ‘It’s difficult to imagine the extent of the adverse effect that this must have had on Jaysley, a very young woman with problems of her own.
‘Jaysley described the bombardier’s conduct as creepy and ultimately as frightening.
‘Rightly or wrongly, she felt he was tracking her by her phone, the bombardier denied this and I find it unlikely.’
The coroner said that he found it ‘difficult to believe that’ Mr Mason had not been manipulating Gunner Beck by demanding her support for his mental health by telling her of his thoughts of self-harm and suicide.
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The Army said Mr Mason’s actions amounted to ‘unwelcome sexual attention’ and ‘harassment’, the coroner said.
Jaysley’s inquest has led to hundreds of women coming forward with stories of rape, abuse and harassment while serving in the military.
Harrowing social media posts describe how they have been pinned down by male officers or forced to cower in their rooms while men try to force their way inside.
One woman said: ‘I used to hold my breath in my room at night when they were trying the door, to make them think I was out.’
Another said: ‘I was coming back from the toilet one day when a bloke came out of the showers, pinned me against the wall. Dropped his towel and told me that he “knew exactly what I needed”.’
It prompted the head of the Army, General Sir Roly Walker, to write to senior officers condemning ‘shameful behaviour’, saying he was ‘disgusted’ by new allegations of sexual abuse, which does not match ‘our values and standards’.
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