Sex-taunts Sex-taunts torment torment of of the the woman woman corporal corporal
A WOMAN soldier
cried yesterday as
she told a tribunal
how she suffered a
catalogue of sexual
jibes and bullying at
the hands of male
colleagues.
Corporal Leah
Mates, 30, claims she
was subjected to
appalling discrimination throughout her ten
years in the Army,
including two years in a top- secret surveillance unit in Ulster.
Corporal Mates, who is 5ft tall, says male soldiers called her ‘ poisoned dwarf’, made derogatory remarks about her breasts and drew a picture of her on a target at a firing range.
She claims the latter incident – which happened while she was with the secretive Joint Communications Unit, Northern Ireland – led to her fearing for her life and experiencing sleeplessness, loss of appetite, headaches and depression.
Corporal Mates, who plans to leave the Army, is claiming £686,000 from the Ministry of Defence for loss of career earnings – around 25 times her £ 27,000 annual salary – and damages for injured feelings.
Yesterday she wept as she told an employment tribunal in Southampton how a corporal, Stewart ‘Spike’ Milligan, called out her name as he performed a sex act on himself while on tour in the Balkans in 1999.
She said she was the only woman sharing a tent with seven male soldiers.
One evening they watched a TV drama in which a lesbian Army policewoman investigated a gay servicewoman. It featured a lesbian sex scene. After the programme, she said, Corporal Milligan started ‘call- ing out my name and moaning’.
She said: ‘I felt absolutely disgusted. I could not believe he was doing this. He was my line manager. He was supposed to be looking after us.’
She said he carried on moaning her name for ten to 15 minutes.
Corporal Mates, who said Corporal Milligan was ‘ large and a bully’, said she complained to an officer but was frightened that Corporal Milligan would kill her as a result.
Eventually Corporal Milligan, who the tribunal heard was married with four children, apologised but was not moved to another detachment as Corporal Mates says she had wanted.
Later on the same tour she says Corporal Milligan touched her inappropriately, running his hand down her right leg.
Corporal Mates, who is single and lives in Calne, Wiltshire, said her problems in the Army started seven months after joining the Royal Signals in 1995.
She claims a troop sergeant, Philip Howes, regularly asked her if she was a lesbian because she would not sleep with any of the men in the squadron. On one occasion in February 2000 she claims she was wrestled to the ground and dragged along by her hair for 75 feet by a corporal, Lee Necrews, and no other soldiers came to her aid.
In January 2002 she began serving with the Joint Communications Unit, Northern Ireland. She says she felt scared for her life when three male soldiers drew a picture of her on a target to use for practice.
Corporal Mates says the women’s accommodation was nicknamed Tampax Towers and claims the unit was more sexist than the rest of the Army.
In January 2004 she moved to 600 Signal Troop in Corsham, Wiltshire, where she is still based, but became suicidal over past events.
The tribunal continues.