Ex-soldier jailed for six months for sexual assault of gunner, 19, who killed herself

A former British army sergeant major has been sentenced to six months in prison for sexually assaulting Jaysley Beck, a teenage soldier who killed herself after senior officers failed to investigate the attack properly.

- Steven Morris

Michael Webber, who has left the army, assaulted Gunner Beck during a training exercise in Hampshire in July 2021, when she was 19, a court martial centre in Bulford, Wiltshire, heard.

She reported what had happened to her seniors but the police were not informed and Beck was encouraged to accept a letter of apology from Webber.

Later that year Beck did not report that another man, her line manager, was bombarding her with texts and voice messages, apparently having lost faith in the complaints procedure, an inquest heard. Beck, from Cumbria, took her own life in her room at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire in December 2021, five months after Webber's assault.

At the end of Beck's inquest in February, the coroner, Nicholas Rheinberg, said Beck's complaint about being sexually assaulted during the exercise should have been reported to the police and the failure to do so breached army policy. He said the army's failure to take appropriate action “more than minimally” contributed to her death.

Yesterday, the court heard that Webber engaged Beck in a drinking game called Last Man Standing before touching her thigh and trying to kiss her.

Beck pushed Webber, then a 39-year-old battery sergeant major, away and she spent the night locked in her car, hiding from him.

Alan Large, the judge advocate general, told Webber: “She had the courage and good sense to tell you to stop and told you to go to bed, but you persisted to the extent she considered she wouldn't be safe from you even if she went back to her own accommodation.”

The judge pointed out that Webber was promoted after the assault. “Your career continued completely unaffected,” he said. In a victim personal statement, Beck's mother, Leighann McCready, described how she received a phone call from her “very scared” daughter following the assault. She described how when Beck heard Webber had been promoted she said: “I got a letter; he got a promotion.”