Women who attended the British Army's training centre for teenage recruits have told of rape, sexual abuse and misogyny. The Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate is the country's only Junior Entry Basic Training establishment, training recruits predominantly aged 16 and 17.
A BBC investigation has found a culture of abuse, with one junior soldier alleging that she was raped by fellow recruits in an hours-long ordeal when she was just 17. She told how the attack at the hands of fellow recruits in their living accommodation shattered her dream of completing training and serving her country.
Survivor accounts
She said: "They were like 'do you want to come into the room?' And me being a naive 17-year-old girl was like 'yeah fine'. They started taking my clothes off, and then this led to them doing stuff I didn't consent to. There were a lot of them. They touched me in places, made inappropriate comments, calling me a thing rather than a girl. And then I was raped… by multiple junior soldiers, same age as me. It went on for hours. I felt like a piece of meat."
The woman left training just weeks later as she struggled to come to terms with her ordeal. She added: "I would have just been known as the girl that shagged loads of people - that's what I would have been known for the rest of my career, and that's not what happened."
Another victim told how she was trapped in a room by a fellow recruit who went on to attack her. She said: "He stood against the door so I couldn't get out. He then pushed himself up against me, started kissing my face and touching me all over. He sexually assaulted me. I managed to push him off. I'm not sure how because he's really strong." The recruit later received an unrelated medical discharge from the college, something she said came as a relief.
Complaints and convictions
The four allegations uncovered by the BBC all occurred within the last five years. A total of 176 complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour at the college were made between January 2018 and June 2025, according to Ministry of Defence (MoD) data. Thirty-two allegations were against permanent staff and 144 against junior soldiers.
Several adult instructors at AFC have been convicted by courts martial of physical and sexual violence in the past five years - including Cpl Daniel Conway and Cpl Simon Bartram. In 2023, Conway was jailed for more than seven years for raping a colleague while she was sleeping. In the same year, Bartram was found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to 20 months in military detention. None of the allegations uncovered by the BBC relates to these offences.
Policy changes and response
The Ministry of Defence has implemented a series of policy changes in recent years as a result of high-profile failings in its treatment of women and its response to incidents of sexual abuse. Teenage soldier Jaysley Beck took her own life in 2021 after she was sexually assaulted by a superior. An inquest into the 19-year-old's death found the incident and the Army's failure to take appropriate action "more than minimally" contributed to her death. Warrant Officer Michael Webber, 43, was jailed for six months for the attack, which occurred five months before her death.
These reports are "extremely distressing and serious", an Army spokesperson told the BBC in a statement. They added: "Unacceptable and criminal behaviour has absolutely no place in our Armed Forces. People join in the hope of having a fantastic career, and any such reports are unacceptable and go completely against everything the Army stands for."
