Nine rapes at the Harrogate military college, which trains 16- and 17-year-olds for careers in the British army, were reported to civilian police over a 13-month period to the middle of August, figures show.
Disclosed under freedom of information legislation, the figures raise questions about safeguarding at Harrogate, and why its welfare arrangements are rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted.
North Yorkshire police said that “13 sexual offences” at the Army Foundation college were reported between 22 July 2022 and 17 August 2023, including nine reports of rape, two of sexual assault and two of voyeurism.
No details were given as to whether they led to investigations or prosecutions, or the gender of the victims. It follows a string of reports of rape, abuse and harassment across the UK military, with the majority of the victims being women and girls.
This week, it emerged that a 19-year-old Royal Artillery gunner, Jaysley Beck, was believed to have killed herself at Larkhill camp, in Wiltshire, after a period of relentless sexual harassment by one of her superiors.
During 2021, there were 22 victims of sexual offences at the Harrogate college. In January 2023 one instructor, Cpl Simon Bartram, was sentenced to 20 months’ military detention, after being found guilty at court martial of sexual assault and eight counts of cruel or indecent disgraceful conduct.
David Gee, an adviser with the Child Rights International Network (Crin), which requested the latest rape figures, said he believed “on this record, Harrogate cannot be regarded as safe”. He said that no matter how the welfare arrangements were structured, difficulties were exacerbated by the young age of the recruits.
“This is not a British problem,” he said. “This is a problem all over the world when young people are recruited to the military. It is not something you can solve by imposing a zero-tolerance policy and hope it will go away.”
Britain is the only country in Europe that recruits children aged 16 and 17 to its armed forces. They are trained at Harrogate college where there are more than 1,300 recruits on site at any time. Female personnel make up 11.7% of all recruits to the armed forces.
The Ministry of Defence has long defended its recruitment policy, and one government defence minister said in May that the college’s welfare was improving. Annabel Goldie told the Lords that having learned from “earlier appalling incidents” the training camp had “introduced important changes”.
Lady Goldie highlighted that Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, rated Harrogate as “outstanding in all areas”, which reflected “the excellent standard of the provision of duty of care and welfare”. The MoD, she said, had “a zero-tolerance policy for sexual offences” and sexual relationships between recruits and trainers.
Nevertheless, Gee said: “None of Ofsted’s reports in that past 10 years has mentioned anything about recruit abuse. Whenever we send data to Ofsted and give them the sources, they say: ‘It is not relevant to our inspections.’”
A letter sent to Crin in June 2022 by Ofsted’s deputy director, Paul Joyce, said any new allegations of abuse should be directed to the police, the army and the local children’s safeguarding board.
“Ofsted does not investigate [armed] services complaints, nor do we play any part in army disciplinary processes or prosecutions,” the letter said.
Rape and other sexual offence cases can be investigated by either the civilian or military justice system. The latest statistics show the military police investigated 333 sexual offences, involving 319 female and 63 male victims, during 2022.
Two years ago, a landmark report from the defence select committee, “Women in the armed forces”, concluded that two-thirds of women in the military had experienced bullying, harassment and discrimination during their career.
Next month, MPs on the defence select committee will review progress made since the inquiry. Sarah Atherton, the Conservative MP who chaired the inquiry, said: “We now want to understand whether there has been enough change in practice over the last two years.” She called for servicewomen and recent female veterans to come forward and give evidence.
The army said it was committed to rooting out all forms of inappropriate behaviour. A spokesperson added: “We have very strong safeguarding mechanisms at the Army Foundation college” and “multiple methods of accessing welfare support, including confidential support lines”.
Ofsted has been contacted for comment.
• This article was amended on 6 October 2023. An error during editing meant that a quote from Child Rights International Network adviser David Gee was wrongly attributed to defence minister Annabel Goldie. This has been corrected. In addition, the figures disclosed under freedom of information legislation came from North Yorkshire police, not North Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner as an earlier version said.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
