The Prince of Wales won't rest until the women in our military feel safe, respected and valued

When 19-year-old Gunner Jaysley Beck was found dead at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire on December 15, 2021, her family did not know the full extent of the pressures she had been facing. An inquest heard how Beck had been subjected to months of unwanted attention and had reported a sexual assault, yet, despite seeking help, she was ignored.

Last year, a coroner concluded that the Army’s handling of her complaints played ‘more than a minimal contributory part’ in her death, exposing serious failures in the way concerns raised by a young servicewoman were heard, investigated and acted upon.

Beck’s death has become a symbol of a wider reckoning within Britain’s Armed Forces. For generations, women have served with distinction. However, alongside stories of courage, leadership and sacrifice runs a more troubling history: one of exclusion, fights for respect and, for all too many, bullying, harassment and abuse. Only months before the tragedy at Larkhill, Sarah Atherton MP, herself a veteran, had published the report Protecting Those Who Protect Us, compiled through discussion with some 4,200 servicewomen. She wrote: ‘The complaints system, as it stands, is woefully inadequate and leaves most feeling unable to come forward… While many commanding officers want to do the right thing, it is clear that, too often, female service personnel are being let down by the chain of command.’

Maj Jenny Gunning-Wood of the Ranger Regiment remembers ‘the outpouring of grief [over Beck]. We all deeply regret the actions of those few who didn’t support her. In an institution whose make-up reflects society, it is important that the bad apples, among an otherwise great barrel, are identified and removed from service’. She notes that: ‘My experiences [as an officer] have been brilliant, but it’s much harder for young women who are coming in at the lower ranks and living in the “blocks”.’

It is that range of experiences that The Prince of Wales is keen to understand, as Colonel of the Welsh Guards, Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps and The Mercian Regiment, Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Navy Submarine Service and Royal Honorary Air Commodore of RAF Valley, as well as the future Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces as King. He has made it a priority to spend time with female personnel whenever he visits a unit, seeking first-hand insight into their military lives, and is on a fact-finding mission to focus on the improvements, as well as the continuing challenges, so that the services become a place where everyone is proud to wear the uniform.

Servicewomen have told him about inappropriate comments, rumours being spread about those who turn down advances, late-night intoxicated harassment in barracks and, most worryingly, from one junior female, about women being used as commodities. In August, an ITV News documentary Her Fight: Are Women in the Military Safe? (followed more recently by the BBC’s Death in the Barracks) reported the experiences of women in the military who had been discriminated against, sexually harassed, groped and raped. It stated that two-thirds of servicewomen had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in a year, with, in 2025, 406 making reports, 57 of which led to guilty verdicts. That same year, 85 rapes were reported, with only six men found guilty.

The stories are harrowing and painful to listen to. One former servicewoman, called ‘Sophia’ — whose name and identity was protected, as were those of other women who spoke to the programme — told of how she’d ‘lost count’ of the number of times she had been groped on her chest and between her legs and, when she tried to raise concerns to senior colleagues, was belittled and ignored.

Yet there is real determination within the Armed Forces to end the culture that leads to this appalling behaviour. The year after Beck’s death, Operation Teamwork began, with the intention of ‘erasing outdated thinking and behaviour’ through service-wide events that advocate for tolerance and respect, and the tri-service Defence Serious Crime Unit was set up to handle cases. Some fear the latter still represents the ‘military marking its homework’, as ITV put it, but independent is the Centre for Military Justice (CMJ), a charity founded in 2019 and headed by lawyer Emma Norton.

‘There seems to be a gulf between the positive messaging and policy changes and the experiences on the ground of the women that still contact us,’ says Lucy Baston of the CMJ. ‘They are dealing with chains of command that are incapable of recognising, let alone dealing with, the conduct of some males — at best minimising and gaslighting women, at worst ending their careers. We will continue to pursue the MoD [Ministry of Defence] to bring about the wider changes that have started, but which need to be expanded.’

Support comes from the many gender-based groups that now exist. One is the Defence Women’s Network (DWN), a voluntary, tri-service group that was founded by Emily Fisher of the MoD in 2020. It numbers 8,000 members and, Georgina Coll explains, operates at ministerial level and with allies: ‘It’s how we can support women with gender inequality, children, grief, anywhere they’ve not got what they need. We’re a safe place, where people can have a conversation and work out what to do next.’

The DWN supports MoD objectives, in turn, that are trying to improve inclusion: ‘In the past five to 10 years, I’ve noticed a difference,’ notes Coll, who works in Defensive Cyber Operations and volunteers for the DWN, ‘and it’s lovely to be part of something that’s delivering change.’ Among positive experiences she has had was a conference in 2024 where endometriosis was discussed, with men as well as women. A naval officer reported afterwards that she was able to take the information to a doctor’s appointment on board ship and thus gained the help she needed. ‘Stories like that are why we do it.’

Officer Cadet Kezia Poole is among the 16% of women in her cohort at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst working towards graduation next year. Her face lights up as she describes being part of the first female team to complete NATO’s hardest patrol competition with her university Officer Training Corps (OTC), of camps in Cyprus and Gibraltar and of sporting opportunities galore. She clearly relishes the chance to demonstrate that she can operate at the same level — and earn the same respect — as her male colleagues.

Her experience is vastly different to that of her mother, Lt Col (Retd) Kathie Knell, who was part of the second cohort of women at Sandhurst when she joined in 1987. ‘After OTC, I assumed I would continue to work alongside the men, but the women’s course was geared more towards being an adjutant, a clerk. We didn’t get to join in with the boys. It was really frustrating, because they never saw what we could do.’ The experience fired her to spend her career ‘finding opportunities to prove myself’ — sometimes in the face of misogyny, such as when, in a training unit, ‘the CO didn’t want to be beaten by a woman in his weekly five-mile run, so set me off later than my peers’ — and she did so, completing a jungle survival course in Belize and, in Bosnia, proving she could ‘lessen the tension at key meetings and gain situational awareness from local women in the market’.

The official history of women in the Armed Forces began in the First World War, but they were not permitted to serve in close-combat roles until 2016. In 2018, all Royal Marine and Infantry positions were opened up. As of April 1 this year, women make up 12.1% of the regular Armed Forces, up from 11.9% in 2025. Of that, the RAF is 16.4% female, the Royal Navy 11.7% and the Army 10.5%. The highest-ranked woman in the RAF is Air Marshal Suraya Marshall; in the Navy, there are four Rear Admirals, with Jude Terry the first; in the Army, Gen Dame Sharon Nesmith is Vice Chief Defence Staff, the first female four-star general. The most significant policy change was when, in 1990, the requirement for women to resign on pregnancy was ended. Lt Col Knell was among the first to be promoted to Lt Col after having children.

For Lt Cdr Lauren Webber, becoming a single mother threatened to end a Navy career that had taken her to the Falklands, the Baltic, South-East Asia and beyond. ‘When you’re pregnant, you can’t go to sea,’ she explains, ‘so I did my command exams, passing at seven months pregnant’ — this allowed her to obtain her current position as Commander of the Gibraltar Squadron. She lives on shore with her son, now five. ‘When I came back from maternity leave, it was just me,’ she remembers. ‘The policy was quoted at me that if I couldn’t arrange adequate childcare for deployment I’d have to consider my future. I was angry!’ Determined to stand up for herself and others, including junior ratings ‘who might think they don’t have a voice’, she got the policy changed to a case-by-case basis. ‘Losing talented women because they’ve had children is shooting the country in the foot.’

Throughout the forces, tampons and sports bras are now available and body armour has been adapted. Being female is no longer a taboo topic. ‘When I started flying in 2010, I was the only female in my squadron and you are adamant that you’re not going to be different,’ says Sqn Ldr Vicki Holt of the RAF, who, in the wake of the Atherton report, was tasked with designing female-appropriate kit. ‘You feel this huge weight of responsibility to not let down the women who went before or to cause problems for women who come after.’

Confidence is vital. Men will often apply for a job with little of the skills required, whereas women set more store by being fully qualified. After a spell with the Royal Engineers, Staff Sergeant Allen was ‘fed up with fixing stuff for people to break it’ and nearly left, when her (male) commanding officer asked her to consider transferring. She became the first and only female non-commissioned tank commander in the army, of a Challenger 2 with the Queen’s Royal Hussars, ‘breaking things for others to fix!’

Yet even she suffered from imposter syndrome. ‘For a long time, I wondered why I should be here, but passing my command courses knowing I deserved it was my biggest highlight. The guys made me see that as well.’ She is now an inspiration to other women, notably because she has got where she is through her own hard work. As Wing Cdr Bonnie Posselt of the RAF points out: ‘A woman needs to be there because she’s an excellent pilot, not because she’s a woman.’

Women, in turn, inspire their fellows. Chief Petty Officer Tara Evans joined the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman in 2007 and, seeing a female gunner in action on her first ship, determined to emulate her. After serving as a gunner, she is now responsible for choreography on state occasions, such as the recent opening of the Welsh Parliament: ‘I have such a sense of pride once everyone has been taught everything and they go and do it. I stand there like a proud mum.’ Her rise did cause jealousy, with accusations of positive discrimination, and her visibility at events has attracted poisonous comments on social media, but she is pragmatic: ‘Unfortunately, it comes with the job, but I’m nice and loud so I give them a run for their money.’

Chief Petty Officer Evans has seen an improvement in attitude and provision over her career and urges recruits to ‘grip it with both hands and go for it. When I walked on board HMS Westminster as an AB, I talked to a petty officer, then, in 2022, I walked back up that same gangway and sat in that same seat as a PO. That was a highlight for me’.

Seeing women who have risen through the ranks can make a powerful impression on young male recruits, too. ‘We have a female Warrant Officer who is incredible,’ says Officer Cadet Poole. ‘She’s Company Sergeant Major with all the proof to back it up because getting there is really arduous.’ Her mother points out that ‘changing the mindset of an organisation as big as this takes years. A lot of that is about generational change in attitudes, but having a strong female voice means that you can take on the whole idea of diversity’.

Without doubt, women have improved the effectiveness of the Armed Forces, with the likes of Maj Gunning-Wood, the first female officer in the Ranger Regiment, working with allies and on the ground ‘to gather information and make sure we have the understanding ahead of conflicts’. Officer Cadet Poole adds: ‘In all-male platoons, guys will hide injuries and they hide how they feel. It is a different culture with a mixed platoon because they feel like they can open up and I do think being able to communicate clearly bonds people better. Then you have a more effective team and you build empowerment because you recognise the individual’s strengths and weaknesses.’

Lt Col Knell didn’t encourage her daughter to join the army, but did inspire her. ‘I’m so proud of her!’ Officer Cadet Poole exclaims. ‘Especially seeing how much her generation had to go through to make change possible.’ Atherton says: ‘The British military is one of the most capable and formidable fighting forces in the world, priding itself on its ability to modernise. This is starting to show. It is telling that nine out of 10 female service personnel we spoke to [for the report] said they would recommend a career in the military, as I would. Now that the issues for military women have been exposed, it is time we started to protect those who protect us and make changes that better our Armed Forces, for all who serve.’

The Prince of Wales is determined that the next generation won’t have to fight to have a good experience: ‘We need to ensure our military culture is more inclusive of women. I want to play my part in making the military feel like the welcoming, open and professional place I enjoyed and make it feel like that for everyone. At the moment, I don’t feel that we meet those standards and, as a former serving officer, I really mind it when those who wear the uniform now don’t feel safe, respected or valued.’

The wish to improve the situation comes from the top, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Chief of the Defence Staff, noting that ‘the wealth of skill and experience [demonstrated here] strengthens our fighting forces and helps us protect the nation’. He adds: ‘We recognise there is more to do to ensure every woman can serve, succeed and progress in an environment where they are respected and valued. We know the experience of women in our Armed Forces has not always been what it should be. Where behaviours and attitudes have fallen short of the standards we expect, we must be honest about that and continue to drive change.’

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