EX-OFFICER SPEAKS OUT ON SHAMED
A FORMER senior Army officer says the military needs a #Metoo moment following claims hundreds of female troops have been raped and sexually abused by colleagues.
Lt Col Diane Allen, who served for 37 years, accuses the Armed Forces of being run by “a toxic group of privatelyeducated white senior officers” who are in denial about the scale of sexual abuse.
Today Lt Col Allen reveals for the first time she has received almost 200 reports of rape, sex assault and harassment on an Everyone’s Invited-style website she set up after quitting the Army in disgust and frustration last year. Shocking allegations include female soldiers…
FORCED to have sex with instructors if they wanted to pass their basic training course.
BRANDED “the slag who cried rape” after an attacker was cleared on a technicality.
SECRETLY FILMED in showers, with the videos then being shared around male colleagues.
STILL WAITING for a rape complaint to be probed 13 years after it was made.
The Sunday People has also learned that sexual abuse has allegedly taken place at the world-renowned Royal Military College Sandhurst.
Lt Col Allen, 56, who was awarded an OBE for her military service, said: “The Armed Forces is run by a toxic group of privately educated white senior officers. They are in denial about the extent of the problem.”
And she called for an Armed Forces #Metoo moment similar to those in Hollywood and Westminster. Lt Col
Allen said: “For me the #Metoo moment wouldn’t be about naming abusers but it will be for some women.
“They will want to name abusers and they will want justice. For others it will be about the military acknowledging that these things happened.”
Lt Col Allen, one of the first women to train at Sandhurst when she was 18, set up her website Forewarned after leaving the Army last February because of its sexist attitudes.
It is similar to the Everyone’s Invited website which hit the headlines last week after thousands of allegations of sexual abuse at schools were posted.
One servicewoman wrote on Forewarned: “I was raped during trade training – accused was found not guilty on a technicality – for the rest of my career I was ‘the slag who cried rape’.”
Another wrote: “I left in 2019, I was repulsed by cowardice of senior officers. This is still rife”.
The Sunday People has also learned that at Sandhurst, it is claimed an officer ordered female cadets to line up on stage inside a large lecture theatre.
Broken
Male trainee officers were then told to stand behind the women they had slept with while officers and instructors looked on laughing.
Lt Col Allen has now presented her own report on the treatment of women in the Armed Forces to a House of Commons defence sub-committee.
She told the Sunday People: “Thousands of serving and former members of the Armed Forces are victims. The system is broken and senior officers refuse to fix it. Their primary concern is their own careers and the Armed Forces’ reputation.”
A report into inappropriate behaviour of troops written by the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, two years ago made 37 recommendations but only one has been implemented by the Ministry of Defence.
Latest figures available show in 2019, 188 servicemen faced sexual assault and rape charges. Only 17 were found guilty.
Lt Col Allen, from Gloucestershire, served for five years in the regular Army before joining the reserves where she served in the Intelligence Corps.
She was also a victim of what she described as “endemic sexism” and predatory male behaviour while in her early