The Army’s diversity poster girl is ‘racially abused’ by six white soldiers
SIX soldiers have been disciplined after racially abusing a black female soldier who has been the face of British Army Equality and Diversity campaigns.
The Royal Artillery troops have been given formal warnings after posting offensive remarks about Corporal Kerry-Ann Morris on social media.
In a Facebook discussion over recent weeks, the six soldiers from 159 (Colenso) Battery accused the 28-year-old of using her skin colour to secure promotions and of branding white colleagues as racists in a bid to sabotage their careers.
The troops faced being kicked out of the Army but were only reprimanded after Cpl Morris intervened on their behalf and persuaded senior officers to soften their approach.
Cpl Morris, from Nottingham, recently appeared in the controversial Your Army Needs You recruitment campaign, which launched last month. Her face was seen on posters next to the slogan Me, Me, Me Millennials, Your Army Needs You and Your Self-Belief.
The message of the £1.5million campaign was that character traits seen as flaws in young people could be turned into strengths by the Army. The campaign generated a huge response and, when Cpl Morris’s picture was circulated online, a group of British soldiers based in Gutersloh, Germany, posted a series of racist and offensive remarks about her on Facebook.
The junior-ranking troops accused Cpl Morris, who is of Jamaican descent, of ‘playing the race card’ at work and of accusing others of being prejudiced against her because she is black.
The Facebook posts received multiple ‘likes’ and were shared among other soldiers. Cpl Morris, who is a leading promoter of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) causes in the Armed Forces, is said to have found them deeply upsetting.
She brought the post to the attention of the Army’s BAME Network – a support group for ethnic minority troops set up in 2017. An Army investigation then concluded that the messages were racially abu- sive. Soldiers who wrote and ‘liked’ the comments were interviewed by senior officers, as a defence source confirmed last night.
The source said: ‘Cpl Morris is a high achiever and it appears some of her colleagues are looking for excuses as to why they’re not doing as well as her. They know they will be in very serious trouble if they ever repeat such offensive accusations which breached the Army’s values and standards policy.
‘It was to Cpl Morris’s credit that she requested the soldiers should be dealt with lightly on this occasion. As the victim she could have pressed for more severe sanctions to be imposed but she was adamant that should not happen.’
Cpl Morris left her home aged 16 to live in a women’s refuge. She joined the Army in 2011 and has been promoted twice, often receiving top grades in her military exams. She has represented the Army and the Combined Services at athletics and has appeared on the cover of Army lifestyle magazine The Locker. She recently transferred from the Royal Artillery to the Adjutant General’s Corps but it was unclear last night whether the move was connected.
The Armed Forces continues to face accusations that it is ‘too white’ as only 8.7 per cent of junior ranks and just 2.4 per cent of officers come from BAME backgrounds. The Ministry of Defence has set a target of ten per cent of personnel from BAME communities by 2020.
Last month, The Mail on Sunday revealed how another of the soldiers from the Your Army Needs You recruitment campaign had decided to quit the ranks after his picture was used beneath the word ‘Snowflake’ without his permission.
Guardsman Stephen McWhirter, 28, from Irvine, Ayrshire, first learned his face was on the poster after friends bombarded him with mocking messages. He then told colleagues he intended to sign off.
However, the campaign has led to applications to join the Army rising to a record 9,700 requests in less than three weeks in January – almost double the figure for the same period of 2018. An MoD spokesman said: ‘Discrimination and bullying have no place in the Armed Forces and will not be tolerated. All allegations are taken very seriously and are thoroughly investigated. Anyone who is found to have fallen short of our high standards can expect disciplinary action to be taken.’