Jaysley Beck: Army Major cleared of wrongdoing alongside Colonel following soldier sex assault and death

Two senior Army officers have been cleared of charges that they failed to properly deal with abuse allegations made by Gunner Jaysley Beck five months before the teenage soldier took her own life.

A court martial has heard how Colonel Samantha Shepherd and Major James Hook were both told by Gnr Beck about an incident on a training exercise when she disclosed inappropriate behaviour by one of her non-commissioned officers. Prosecutors said Maj Hook did not treat the matter with the seriousness it deserved and Col Shepherd deliberately failed to pass on crucial details when she reported the matter.

Gunner Beck was found dead at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire in December 2021. Court heard on September 15 that she approached both senior officers about an incident involving Warrant Officer Mark Webber on Thorney Island, in Chichester Harbour, in July 2021.

But on Wednesday at a hearing at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, both were found not guilty on the orders of Judge Advocate General Edward Legard. He said there was insufficient evidence for the board of three senior military officers to safely convict either defendant of the charge of “conduct prejudicial to good order and service discipline”.

The verdict

In the case of Maj Hook, the judge said: “The evidence in this case is of an inconsistent, vague and tenuous nature. Both the legal and evidential basis on which the the Crown alleges prejudice is flawed and uncertain.”

The judge ruled that Maj Hook had no case to answer after prosecutors had earlier withdrawn the case against Col Shepherd. Both actions resulted in the board formally recording not guilty verdicts.

Watched from the public gallery by Gunner Beck’s mother, Leighann McCready, Col Shepherd’s barrister Derek Johashen told the judge: “Colonel Shepherd remains devastated by Gunner Beck’s passing. Colonel Shepherd is relieved by the decision. But it’s not about her.”

Mr Johashen said his client fully understood the impact on Gunner Beck’s family of the events of the last four or five years. He said: “Her thoughts remain with them, and always will. She always believed Gunner Beck, took her complaint seriously, listened to her and cared.”

Ms McCready was not in court to hear Maj Hook being acquitted. The judge addressed the public gallery, saying: “I do recognise that today’s outcome is likely to cause some upset, particularly to those closely associated with the late Jaysley Beck. I fully understand why.”

But he said: “I hope that you appreciate that the court’s duty is to ensure that justice is served, and that applies to all parties involved.”

Earlier this week, the court martial how Gnr Beck was found asleep in her car by Lance Corporal Drew Tudor the morning after a drinking session at a barbeque during the exercise on Thorney Island. Gnr Beck made allegations about WO Webber to L/Cpl Tudor, who reported them to Maj Hook, who was then a captain running the exercise.

The court heard how Maj Hook got into the car and Gunner Beck repeated allegations against the warrant officer. The officer and the young soldier then went for a walk together and Maj Hook gave the teenager until noon to decide whether she wanted to make a complaint.

The major denied in interviews that Gnr Beck had ever disclosed to him that she had been physically touched by WO Webber. He said he had wanted to give the soldier time to consider whether she wanted to make the complaint as she had disclosed that she did not want to see the warrant officer face a court martial.

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The court heard how Maj Hook did report the incident up the chain-of-command later that day, despite Gnr Beck’s reluctance. Gnr Beck later told Col Shepherd what happened with WO Webber and the senior officer then went to see Captain Mae King – an officer whose role it was to advise on disciplinary matters in the Royal Artillery.

Col Shepherd denied that she deliberately failed to mention to Captain King that the teenager had alleged the warrant officer had touched her, or tried to touch her. Capt King, who is now a major, was asked detailed questions about what Col Shepherd told her when she gave evidence at the court martial on Tuesday.

WO Webber, 43, was jailed for six months by a military court last year after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting Gnr Beck five months before her death.

An inquest into the 19-year-old’s passing deemed it a suicide. Nicholas Rheinberg, assistant coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, said the Army’s failure to take appropriate action “more than minimally” contributed to her death.

After the hearing, Ms McCready said her family respected the decision of the court martial but said it “remains true to say that the Army let our daughter down very badly”.

In a statement read outside the military court centre, she said the outcome of the trial, and her daughter’s experiences “do not fill us with optimism that service personnel being preyed upon by their seniors will feel confident coming forward”.

Ms McCready said: “Nothing was ever going to bring Jaysley back. But today marks the end of a long and very sad journey for Jaysley and for our family.

“We know, because the coroner found after a 10-day inquest, that the Army failed to take appropriate disciplinary action against a warrant officer who had sexually assaulted her, and it failed to take action in relation to the harassment that continued for months. Those failings contributed to her death. Those findings still stand.”

She went on to say: “Even during this trial, the court heard evidence that senior soldiers making passes at junior colleagues was not at all unusual – what does this tell you about the culture?

“And it continues to cause us enormous pain to know that one of the first people who Jaysley spoke to just thought she was making up a serious allegation to get out of exercise. We can never forgive that.”

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