Sailor James Carnegie has been jailed for six years at Truro for raping a female colleague on board a Royal Navy ship while overseas.
The victim came forward and reported Carnegie because she did not wants others experiencing what she endured.
In the podcast the abuse team discusses how it is that perpetrators whether in the services, or in civil life, exercise power over the victim at the time of the assault and during in the aftermath. The degree of power and control is such as to inhibit reporting.
There are understandable fears of being disbelieved, ridiculed, and having careers blighted. Culturally in 2023 there should be no room for such fears, but these cases which are tragically not isolated demonstrate why they exist, and how the armed forces, and all employers need to strive to change their organisations.
Moreover, the question has to be asked not just of the Royal Navy but all major organisations what are they doing by way of on-going monitoring and vetting?
We have seen with the police that the Inspectorate of Constabulary have called for the need for radical changes in recruitment processes, vetting, and for on-going monitoring. To put it simply an 18 year old at the time of recruitment may be a quite different personality at the age of 25.
On-going vetting may well assist in preventing offenders such as Carnegie being able to abuse within such illustrious organisations such as the Royal Navy.
