Testimonies: Abuse of children in the UK armed forces training

The UK is highly unusual internationally in recruiting children from aged 16 into the armed forces, primarily into the army. Most 16- and 17-year-old army recruits train at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate (AFC), which has a long record of alleged bullying, abuse and sexual assault of recruits, including by its staff. CRIN has been working with former recruits and their parents to speak out about the abuse of young people at AFC; you can read their stories below.

CRIN has also produced a two-page paper outlining welfare concerns for under-18 recruits in the armed forces, and at AFC specifically.

 
 
 
 

Former recruits and instructors

 
 

Jasmine's story

Jasmine, then Craig, joined the Army Foundation College in autumn 2015, aged 16.

Names have been changed.

I was about 14 when I started looking at the army, when I was in the army cadets. I’d known people who’d gone straight from cadets into the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, and I had family who’d been in the army too. I wanted to be a combat medical technician, which is what my cousin did in Afghanistan, and I had the grades to apply – mainly As and Bs in my GCSEs. My mates were encouraging me, and the teachers. Mum and dad were a bit here-there but they realised they couldn’t really dissuade me so they let me do it – they only had the information from the careers office which didn’t cover the downsides.

On the first day at Harrogate we’re all in the gym queuing up to get processed. The NCOs [non-commissioned officers who lead the training] put the contract on the table and I sign it. There’s a queue behind me and there’s no real time to look through it properly. I don’t even remember reading it to be honest, I just remember signing it, my parents signing it, and that was it. It’s very hectic, quite rushed because there’s that many people.

You’ve got a lot of emotions going on – it’s your first time away from home, really – a lot of trepidation about what it’s gonna be like. And you’re surrounded by other people going through the same thing. A lot of anxiety, you know. A lot of people were upset and crying. A lot of them came from less-privileged backgrounds, orphans, people from the care system, though my background was quite comfortable, middle-class. I felt quite different to be honest.

For the first six weeks, your phones are taken off you and you’re not allowed to leave camp – you can’t even leave the building after hours – you’re trapped inside your section hall.


There’s no outside contact, even to contact your family unless it’s an emergency. I think we were allowed phone calls at some points, not often, but there was no reception in the building and because we weren’t allowed to go outside, so you’d have to kind of have your head out of the window, leaning out. So any calls were very short, ‘Hi, I’m alright, bye’, kind of thing.

The entire process in that first six weeks is to get you to break down to a level where they can build their mental processes into you. You’re getting treated and herded to think in a certain way. You’re up until like two in the morning some nights ironing, and you’ve got the physical training as well and certain punishments like press-ups. It’s to break you down and rebuild you, in a way, get your head shaped. Obviously, you can’t leave at that point [in the first six weeks, all recruits lack the legal right to leave the army], so we were kind of toughing it out, hoping it was gonna get better down the line.

After the six weeks you’re allowed a bit more freedom. We were allowed to go out a bit more, order takeaways, go into town at weekends. But I never left. I didn’t feel close to these people so I didn’t really want to go into town.

You’d be punished for any minor infraction.


If your locker weren’t clean enough or if you made a mistake with something it was push-ups, or a run, that kind of thing. They weren’t bullying me, though some of the other NCOs were a lot more strict, quite nasty – we were quite lucky with our section commanders by comparison.

Like I say, I didn’t really fit in with the other soldiers. I weren’t really enjoying it that much either. A lot of nights I’d rock back and forth in my bed, like kind of hum to myself. One or two other people in my group I got on alright with, but there was bullying from some of the soldiers who were enjoying it all. They were having a good time, the rest of us not so much – most of us were struggling.

A couple of the NCOs were friendly enough, but you couldn’t really approach the others. To be honest I think a lot were broken themselves, a lot of them were Afghan and Iraq war veterans and some of them seemed much more affected than others. They’d tell us stories from their time in Iraq and Afghanistan, about times they nearly died. They’d show us videos of people getting blown up, things like that. You could see it in some of their faces, that they’re not one hundred percent right, I think some of were struggling with PTSD.

You didn’t see much of the commanding officer, he was never there, I don’t know where he was, I probably saw him a handful of times. It were mainly the NCOs who were running everything. I think a lot of the officers saw Harrogate more as a step in their career, not as a responsibility.

One time an officer came into our room and said there was a rumour that two of us were having a relationship, meaning me and another soldier who was bisexual. We were quite close as friends though nothing was going on. We got told in front of everyone else we weren’t allowed to have sexual relationships, it was quite embarrassing. Some of the other soldiers had certain attitudes, you know, and when they realised two of us were bisexual the homophobia started up.

I got sent to the welfare people a couple of times, but all they’d do is to give you two workbooks to work through and that’s all. When I was having struggles I talked to the chaplain, he was the only one who’d sit and talk to you and listen to what you’re saying. He was kind of a sounding board. You could talk about having a bad time there, I think he was used to hearing it. It’s like he saw his role as helping people, ‘cause he had that experience outside of the army, in civilian life. I think he’s left now.

The one soldier I was close to, he ended up leaving shortly before I did. He was tending to get a lot more of the abuse from the other soldiers, more than other people. He was struggling a lot. One night he started to self-harm but luckily he was caught by one of us. That never got reported. The NCOs didn’t notice, they wouldn’t have. They leave in the evening and that’s when a lot of the bullying happens. One officer’s left in charge of the entire building, but it’s big – and no one walks around to check on you or see how you’re doing.

He was similar to me, that soldier, from more of a middle-class background and struggling to fit in. He was also openly bisexual and that got him bullied. One particular recruit in our section really took a dislike to him. He’d ask him questions to make him feel like he was being trusted so he’d reveal something private, and then take the mick out of him for it in front of everyone else. And this friend of mine was a little smaller than the others, so he struggled to stand up for himself in that sense as well. He had me, but no one else really. He looked quite broken when he finally left.

There was quite a bit of behaviour I’d say was a problem. Like lads who’d sneak booze in, or drink hand sanitiser mixed with Coke, all sorts. Then there were strip clubs in Leeds – Winston’s was the main one – junior soldiers from Harrogate were caught there by the police. Some had been kicked out of their company into another one, for bad behaviour.

Most companies are boys only. In the company that takes girls there’s one door that separates the male and the female side, and it wouldn’t take a genius to bypass it, and there’s a lot of time, a lot of space where things like that can happen. One of the girls complained about a sexual encounter, and they said she was making it up and then she kind of just backtracked on it. And all the time the NCOs are saying stuff to all these 16-year-old boys about quite graphic things they’ve done in the past with women, and one sergeant said he did sex toy inspections on the female recruits. These are the kind of people you’re supposed to look up to, so you can understand why some of the recruits did things they shouldn’t have.

It was hard to get kicked out completely. If that happened it was usually for drugs – someone would go away for the weekend and come back and test positive on a drugs test. But lots of people just left, basically because they couldn’t fit in. By that time our section, which started as 10 people, had already got quite small. And I felt quite isolated after my mate left, ‘cause I was left with the people who weren’t very nice to me.

Some soldiers in my section waterboarded us all one night, everybody in the room. They held each person down and put pants in their mouth – some clean, some not. Then they poured water in until they started choking.


I consented to it, basically, ‘cause that way I thought it wouldn’t be as harsh. That was the final straw - I wanted to leave after that. The soldiers who did it got shouted at later, by the NCOs, that’s all – they all passed out into the full army.

I couldn’t put my head under water after that, I got scared of the dark as well. I was scared of loud noises. I started to have stress-induced psychosis, where I thought I was being followed and people in the army were watching me. A long time afterwards I got help through the NHS, a lot quicker than other people ‘cause people from the army get to jump the queue a bit. I had rapid eye movement therapy. I wouldn’t say I’m fixed but I’m fortunate I’ve managed to process it.

So after the waterboarding I wanted to leave but if you say that they pressure you to stay: ‘Stick it out, once you’re out of here you’re in the normal army, it’s better.’ But the truth is that after the training, you’re stuck in for four years [after the first six months, or after you turn 18, whichever is later, a Harrogate recruit is obliged to remain in the army until their 22nd birthday]. When I put my paperwork in to leave, it was just before battle camp and they were trying to force me to go [the right to leave after the first six weeks is subject to a notice period of two weeks]. Luckily one of the kinder NCOs arranged for me to go to sick bay instead. Because I wasn’t doing well.

I felt quite relieved when I finally knew I was leaving. My parents didn’t understand what were going on at Harrogate so they were trying to say I should keep going, stick at it, but at that point I’d realised I couldn’t. I knew that I’d have been locked in for four years [after turning 18] and I already knew that weren’t right me, so I felt relieved.

I know they’ve got independent people like Ofsted overlooking the training of soldiers, and they talk to the recruits, but institutions like Harrogate can influence things – ‘Oh, speak to this person, not to this person’ – and kind of guide things their way. And the army don’t really want the bad things going out to the press. So I think people like Ofsted could be misdirected to speak to people who will turn round and say Harrogate’s great. [Ofsted have graded Harrogate ‘outstanding’ for welfare continuously since 2013.]

And that’s just what I’d have said if they’d asked me: ‘Oh it’s great, it’s fine, it’s fantastic.’ I could say instead, ‘I’m having a difficult time, I was waterboarded last month,’ and then I suppose Ofsted would do an investigation, but it’s like a protective instinct – you know you should say something but you don’t really want to talk about it. As it happens, my waterboarding incident got to be well-known in the army, even to people who weren’t connected to Harrogate, but with junior soldiers it’s an inside club, you don’t wanna tell people outside what’s going on. You keep it within the army. And that means people are not really told the truth of what’s happening at Harrogate. Outsiders aren’t well informed, they don’t have that deep understanding of what’s going on there.

Looking back, I think recruiting people at 16 is one of the most backward things, as a country, we have.


It’s only like Iran and North Korea who do the same thing. I don’t understand how as a Western, first-world country, we can take 16-year-olds and put them into that kind of environment. It made sense back in the 1960s, where people were leaving school at 14 and working down the pits, but in a modern-day society it doesn’t really fit into what we understand as a civilised place.

I think at 16 you’re not formed, you’re still in that formative stage where you’re not really understanding yourself. By putting 16-year-olds into that kind of institutional oppression, really, trying to break them down, it takes away the opportunity to grow. It kind of stops you being able to actually look at yourself and have the time you need at that age to think understand what’s going on in you. I’m transgender, and at that time I was going through those feelings and struggling, but the institutional thing at Harrogate meant I couldn’t explore that, or even think about it. For a long time after I left I was still calling everybody ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, out in the civilian world, which gets you weird looks. It’s kind of hard to readjust. Even now I’m still very regimented in what I do sometimes, I still think in a sort of military kind of way.

For some people it works out well, for a small percentage it does. But – and this is anecdotal – other people in the army say that when they get soldiers trained at Harrogate they don’t really progress – they’re a bit weird and don’t really fit in. Harrogate does have a history, to be fair, of producing senior NCOs, but that’s 20 years ago.

I think the army still recruit 16-year-olds because it’s good for them to get people in at a young age, they can indoctrinate them more easily. At 18, 19, you’re not as malleable, you can think how you want to think. You’ve had those two years in college after school where it’s more relaxed, less regimented. You’ve had that time to develop a bit more. If you go in at 18 you’re making a career choice – at 16 it’s to get away from things.

For a lot of people in there it was more of an escape mechanism than an actual career choice.


People go there, some of them, from broken homes, so it can be an escape, but it often doesn’t really work well for them either. We lost, I’d say, 30% of our section. Two ended up going to prison. Out of the entire platoon I think there was only one guy, who’d already had jobs as a civilian and had a bit more life experience, who was normally adjusted. I think the rest of them, even the ones who enjoyed it, would have struggled in the mainline army, because I think their attitude and their behaviour wouldn’t be allowed, they would have been quickly shut down.

When I left, ‘cause of my mental health, it took me two years to get another job. Luckily someone took a chance on me, but by then I’d taken the army off my CV because it was holding me back. The army does give you career classes before you leave, they help you write your CV and that, but there’s that many people leaving they can’t really do owt for you. They’ll show you job vacancies and say you’ve got all these opportunities, but if you’ve been to Harrogate the employers don’t really want to take a chance on you.

I’m a lot better now. I managed to get myself into the private ambulance sector and then care work and now I’m doing a job I really enjoy, working with kids, taking them to and from school, and I feel a lot better that I did back then after leaving Harrogate. I think I’ve had the opportunity to actually grow up, since leaving.

A large portion of my time at Harrogate, I’ve sort of blocked it out. For my mental health and my PTSD, it helps to protect myself by blocking it out. But feels good to get it off my chest now. I want people to hear what goes on at Harrogate, especially for people thinking of joining, so they actually understand what they’re getting into.

October 2023.

 
 
 
 
 

Joe's story

Joe joined the Army Foundation College in 2013, aged 16.

Joe has given CRIN permission to use his real name.

It’s a teacher who first suggests I join the army. I’m 15 and want to get away from home so I check out the website of the Army Foundation College. It looks clean, well-regulated, as if Ofsted practically lives there, so I go with my dad to the recruitment office. The recruiters are friendly, charismatic, though vague. There’s no conversation about the contract or what the army’s actually like. They don’t make any effort to support me, as a 15-year-old child, to make a genuine choice with informed consent.

Dad warns me that joining the army could cost me my life, but I’m 15 - I can’t really have that kind of ethical conversation yet so I just nod, ‘Yeah, I get it.’ He supports me anyway but he’s keen that I don’t pick a combat job. I want to join the intelligence corps but you can only go to Harrogate for the more basic jobs like infantry, artillery, logistics. I’m accepted for logistics, but when the army calls, they say there are no jobs in that corps at the moment and I’ll be joining the artillery instead. I don’t know what the artillery do (it’s a combat job) but they say they need an answer that day and I say OK.

When dad and I arrive at Harrogate for the first day of training it all starts to feel real for the first time. The gym is full of children like me waiting to enlist and nobody’s saying a word - there’s a lot of fear in the room. When it’s my turn, the corporal puts the contract on the table - this is the very first time I’ve seen it. I don’t have time to read it - the corporal just points at the bottom of the form like I’m signing for an Amazon package: ‘Just sign here.’ So I sign. (If I’m honest, all the time I was in the army I never knew the terms of the contract I was on.)

After we’re enlisted, the colonel gives a presentation and his last slide says we have two minutes to say goodbye. Two minutes. The parents are crying and us kids are kind of shell-shocked. I hug my dad but I can’t look at him, then the colonel says it’s time to go. That night they let us have a five-minute phone call, then they take our phones off us and send us to bed. I’m lying there looking at the ceiling tiles, wondering, ‘What the f*** have I done?’ I can hear other recruits crying in their beds. That first night is rough as hell. Then bang, the door opens, it’s 6.30am and the corporal’s telling us to get up.

They keep us controlled all the time: ‘You’re going to lunch, you’re going back, okay now it’s bed.’ It’s all clockwork. Or there’s a line on the floor all the way down the hallway and they’ll shout, ‘Everybody on the line!’ And they’ll just leave you standing there for an hour doing nothing.

One corporal is ok, all the rest are cold and uncaring, or worse.

They can see we’re new and we’re scared, but if you ask for help, it’s ‘Piss off, you,’ or ‘Shut the f*** up.’


It’s like they’re just pulled out of their regiments - there’s no sign they know how to work with 16-year-old children recruited into the army. A decent person would try to talk to you, ‘How are we feeling, gents - yeah, it’s hard isn’t it, right?’ But not these guys. I’d say the staff at Harrogate fall into three categories. The first is psychopathic. The second is just cold. The third is the good guy who’s being tough for show.

And some of them are just foul, like this one physical training instructor who’s an animal to us. First time we meet him, he puts us all in the press-up position apart from this one kid he doesn’t like. He makes that kid say, ‘Raise, lower, raise, lower…’ It’s to turn us against that recruit, make us resent him. The corporal knows that when we’re all back together and the lights are turned off, things will happen, and they do, and they encourage that, the corporals.

See the thing is, they didn’t have to touch you to abuse you. For instance, a corporal would hold up a bin with just one thing in it. He knows none of us have put in there but he walks up to someone he doesn’t like and goes, ‘You put that there, didn’t you?’ ‘No Corporal,’ ‘Press up, position down. Let’s try this again. You put this in the bin, didn’t you?’ ‘No Corporal.’ And that goes on until you say, ‘Yes Corporal,’ and you’re released. It’s all to humiliate the recruits in front of each other.

Another time, they announce a tattoo check. We’re ordered to strip to our underwear and stand on the line, then to pull up our pants so they can see everything but our genitals. The corporal walks down the line bantering with those he likes and then he comes to me. And he tells me, as I’m almost naked, what he thinks of my body. He starts from my head and he goes down, and he laughs. He just makes fun of my body in front of the entire platoon. What a man.

Also, not many people know that they gas us - they put us in a small room and fill it with tear gas and tell you to get your mask on quickly so you don’t breathe it in.


Which is exactly what happens to me. I start choking, the gas trapped inside my mask is burning my face and I’m suffocating. I panic. When I reach for the corporal for help he shoves me off, and when I feel for the door he drags me back. When I do get out I’m crawling on the ground, my ears and eyes are still burning, and when I finally manage to rip the mask off, I’m in pieces. I lie on the ground crying. Just a bit of ‘Are you alright?’ from the corporal would be good, but he can’t stop laughing at me.

This isn’t the public image of Harrogate, of course, because they fake that. One time, some visitors have arrived and the corporals make us wait by the obstacle course until these guests come round the corner. Then we’re all told to work like a team to impress them. It’s a stunt. We’re not being thrashed that day, of course - if civilians or TV cameras come into an army camp, you’ll have the best food of your life and you’ll get a completely different experience from normal. It’s all a performance, though. Like when we’re told to fill out a survey about our experience of training and there’s a question about whether I feel safe and I’ve answered ‘No’, but the company sergeant major is watching - he comes to read my screen and I change my answer and he walks away.

So it breaks my heart that Ofsted has graded the place ‘outstanding’ for welfare.

Apparently, Ofsted talk to recruits, but if they’d asked me, I wouldn’t have told them the truth - because the people I’d be talking about literally have the power to put me in prison.


The truth is that the friends I met in that place were broken by it. It gave them PTSD, and me as well. Harrogate is dangerous but a recruit can’t just say that to a visitor - it’s too risky.

I’d have gone home - I wanted to - but in the first six weeks you don’t have a right of discharge. This ‘college’ can literally put you in prison if you leave it - we’re not students, we’re soldiers. Even leaving the camp gets you arrested. [Note: any recruit who tries to leave in the first six weeks is charged as Absent Without Leave and arrested.] And at the end of the six weeks, we’re all told that our right of discharge has come to an end, which is actually the opposite of the truth. So even when I do have a right to leave, I’ve been told that I don’t. 

And as for the education at this ‘college’, you do very basic Functional Skills courses in English, maths, and ICT - that’s the most that a recruit can walk out the door with. Compare that with going to a real college at 16 and studying for qualifications that offer a real pathway to university. It just baffles me that Harrogate can be considered a college at all. Education isn’t taken seriously - they even postponed our exams because on the day the drill shed needed sweeping!

Sometime after the first six weeks, our platoon starts to fall apart. It all starts with a conversation in the scoffhouse on the subject of killing people. Most of the recruits are like, ‘Sure, I’ll kill people,’ or, ‘I can’t wait to get a kill.’ All kinds of things are coming out of people’s mouths - bear in mind that we’re only 16 or 17. But I haven’t joined up to kill people - I’m not psychotic. So I say, ‘I don’t want to kill people, but I accept that I might have to.’ And that turns most of the platoon against me. 

The truth is, though, that I joined up to get away from home, as did most of the recruits. In the year I was there, I could count on my two hands the people who had passionately wanted to join the British army - out of maybe 600 recruits.

But escaping from home just isn’t a good reason to be in the army. For the few who come out reinvented, great, but it’s a tiny minority, absolutely tiny. Of the rest, some quit, some just get on with it, and some are left traumatised.

It’s a very dangerous policy because you’re attracting all kinds of people who don’t want to be there, and they’re leaving more damaged than when they went in.


That’s exactly what happened to me and most of my friends.

Meanwhile, the recruits are looking for fights more and more. There’s no support from the corporals, no concern about our welfare, so fights start to happen - never for good reasons, just fights. And bullying is everywhere. Like, one kid terrorises my mate every night with psychological and physical abuse. When the staff find out, they let it happen anyway, sometimes right in front of them. Sometimes the fight is everybody against everyone - just a massive brawl.

I’m too ashamed to tell my dad any of this. I do tell the people in the welfare office but they just say it’ll all be over soon, which is no help at all. The platoon staff can see as plain as day that I’m in a depression but I don’t even get a ‘How are you?’ - not even once. And if the last time I knocked on their door they told me to f*** off, I’m not going to that door again anyway.

So I fall off. For the first time I think about ending my life, taking a weapon when we’re on the range and firing shots in my head. If I’d known I had a right to leave, I’d like to think that that option would have been on my mind before the option of killing myself.

The year’s training finishes with a week in Scotland - ‘battle camp’. I’m dead inside by this point, as are many other recruits, and yet by now we’re so indoctrinated, so used to the abuse, that the things that are about to happen won’t even seem wrong, just a bit more extreme than normal.

It all kicks off about half way through the week - bayonet training day. The corporals come into the hangar where we sleep and they're wild-eyed, screaming, shoving people out. A massive sergeant lifts a recruit in the air and literally throws him into the wall. A corporal smacks me full-force around the head - I’ve got my helmet on but he hits me so hard that I’m knocked right over, I mean this man’s about 40 and I’m maybe 17 by then. A bit later, we’re crawling through mud and a corporal grabs me and drags me along the ground, half-way across a field. When he lets go I’m in that much pain that I’m whimpering on the ground. When the other corporal, the one who hit me, sees me crying on the ground, he just points at me and laughs.

For the bayonet training itself, they tell us, ‘You’re gonna get f***ing angry - show me your war face!’ And they get us screaming: ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!’ The bombardier, who’s seen pictures of my girlfriend, tells me to imagine that she’s just over there being raped. He goes into intimate details about this rape fantasy, and then, shouting at me, he wants to know whether I’m going to do anything about it. And I’m so angry that there’s no more Joe any more - I scream and charge and stab my girlfriend’s attacker, this stuffed sack, with the bayonet.

When we’re done that day, I see these boys - even the worst of the bullies - sobbing, crying, falling apart all around me. We’re terrified, shot to bits. We’re still children.


And the officer in charge, a major, has watched it all, saying nothing.

Back in Harrogate, on the morning of the pass-out parade I come into the bathroom. My mate’s stood by a mirror trying to sort his tie out, and I stand next to him and we’re dressed up real nice. ‘That’s it, we’ve done it,’ he says. And then he bursts into tears. And he sobs like I’ve not seen anyone cry before or since. It’s the whole experience of Harrogate that’s on him. The parade happens. The parents get a lot out of it. But as grand as it looks, it means nothing to me. 

When I go to Larkhill for my artillery training, I’m not sleeping, I’m getting nightmares. I tell an officer I want to leave. I’m maybe 17½ by this point, so I still have a right to leave though I don’t actually know that because I don’t know the terms of my contract. My request is ignored for a while, then one day at random I’m sent to see the Battery Sergeant Major. ‘Right,’ he says, ‘so you want to leave, right?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ And he says, ‘The army has spent a great deal of money on you. You’re going to stay here and complete your training and go to regiment.’ He just yells at me for wanting to leave. And then he threatens me with prison. ‘If you try to leave this camp,’ - if I try to run, he means - ‘we will find you and you will be put in prison. You are not leaving.’

So I do something I completely regret now - I fake an injury - it feels like the only thing I have left to do to get out. And at the same time my dad writes to the head of the camp saying he’s withdrawing his consent for me to remain. [In fact, a parent has no legal right to withdraw consent once it has been given.] Still I’m not allowed to go and my 18th birthday is fast approaching [the point at which the right of discharge comes to an end for the next four years]. But after I completely break down in a PT session, I’m dragged into an office and I say I just want to go home. And finally, a guy comes in, senior rank, and says, ‘You’re going home on Friday.’

I still have nightmares about Harrogate, but I’ve rebuilt my life. It made me angry, I was a horrible human being for a time - I’d turn on everyone. I got made homeless, I was living out of bin bags, I came to London with nothing. But I got into acting. Now I’ve started a theatre company, been directing plays, studying, wanting more from life. I realise that the chances of me having an ordinary life are long gone, so I might as well go for something extraordinary.” 

 
 
 
 
 

Kerry-Ann's story

Kerry-Ann Knight was an instructor at the Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate between May 2021 and January 2023. As the only Black female instructor, Kerry-Ann faced prolonged racist and sexist abuse during her time at the college and in the wider Army. She took the Ministry of Defence to an Employment Tribunal and after a long struggle was given an apology for the racist and sexist treatment she had received. Here, Kerry-Ann tells CRIN about the maltreatment of recruits at AFC.

Kerry-Ann has given CRIN permission to use her real name.

While I was at Harrogate I saw a lot of abuse of the junior soldiers. Some of it was physical, some of it was sexual, and verbal abuse happened all the time. I also saw recruits being exploited financially by some of their section commanders.

I am aware of male instructors sleeping with the 16-year-old females.


I first saw this when I was in training myself, at Larkhill, when a girl joined from her Phase 1 training at Harrogate. This would have been in 2012. She was I believe around 17-years-old and really confident she was going to pass certain elements of the training, even though physically she did not seem to be up to standard. She said that her boyfriend was a section commander at Harrogate and they’d been dating in secret, including during her training. She said he was married and had a child. Within a short period of time, she became pregnant by him.

Some of these instructors featured as part of my Service Complaint while I was at AFC. One, Corporal Christopher Irwin, was eventually convicted of a sexual relationship with a female recruit in his section as recently as Spring 2024. I was told that he’d actually made a special request to command a female section. This ought to have rung an alarm bell somewhere, but it was allowed. In my SC, I had described him having used a racially offensive slur against a British Asian recruit and of another incident of alleged harm on a recruit. I am aware that another instructor, Corporal Bartram, sexually abused his female recruits, too – he was also convicted last year. It was only when he went on leave and the junior soldiers themselves reported his behaviour that something was finally done, but it had been going on for months.

Apart from taking sexual advantage of the female junior soldiers, instructors would use their power over them to demean them. For instance, one instructor made female junior soldiers kneel in front of him – literally kneel down every time he called them.


It made me sick because it appeared to be grossly inappropriate. When I called him out on it, he didn’t stop, he just started doing the same with the male recruits as well; I felt this was to try and create the impression that he had not been targeting the girls, but I remain confident that this was what he had been doing. I saw the same instructor getting a female section to do press-ups while he stood over them and called out: ‘Bounce it, bounce it.’ I reported my concerns to my CoC that these kinds of behaviours were not appropriate and I am not aware what – if anything – was done about it.

In my opinion, some of the instructors were sex predators, plain and simple, who wanted a posting to Harrogate to get first dibs at the girls coming in. Remember that these men are in their late 20s or early 30s, usually much older than the junior soldiers who are all still under-18.

Of course you get predators in wider society, too, but they're not being put in uniform, put on a pedestal and in a position of power where they can openly take advantage of young females. That’s the difference.


And at AFC Harrogate this kind of abuse of power happened far too frequently, which made me feel uncomfortable. I don't see many other jobs that openly allow that.

As sad as it sounds, some of the female recruits seemed to like the attention of an older man in power, but I was just seeing these young girls being taken advantage of. Whether the girls liked it or not in the moment, they were still being exploited. And I am aware that sometimes it can take young people time to mature and see unhealthy relationships for what they are.

There were other kinds of abuse, too.

For example, I was told that one recruit, who was the only lad of colour in his section, was forced by his then section commander to eat dog food and walked on a leash.


That recruit mentioned it to a more senior member of staff of colour who had the matter reported up. I was told that the other instructors then tried to intimidate and bully that more senior member of staff, and within the next week the recruit was dismissed as unfit for military service. That's how it goes if you complain at AFC Harrogate.

The most common kind of abuse was verbal, which happened all the time – daily. Instructors would shout at junior soldiers to intimidate them. For example: I recall the words ‘lizard’, ‘worm’, ‘maggot’, ‘c*nt’, and racist slurs, that kind of thing. For example, one evening I watched a junior soldier being verbally attacked by two section commanders who suspected he’d lied about something. He was called a ‘weak little prick’ by one and a ‘c*nt’ by the other. When the lad asked the instructors if he could talk to me, the door was slammed in his face and he was told to ‘f*ck off’. Then both instructors started shouting at me, telling me not to get involved. I said I thought the junior soldier just needed a private place to cry as he was a sobbing mess on the corridor, and I didn't want the other JS to continue to witness that.

Another time, I witnessed three section commanders all encouraging junior soldiers in a certain section to write statements against a female recruit they didn’t like, to get her dismissed. The three staff delivered these statements up the chain of command and then lobbied for the girl’s dismissal themselves. The girl then came to me saying no one in her section would talk to her. When I asked her section what was going on, they said their instructor had told them not to talk to her or even look at her, because she was going to be removed from camp. This was bullying, pure and simple.

Some of the rogue instructors would get hands-on sometimes: grabbing a recruit and shaking them, screaming and shouting, threatening to punch their face in, and so on. But most of the time they’d get the other recruits to deal with it. The instructor tells their section that a certain recruit is a problem for some reason, and it’s reflecting badly on the rest of them, and if they want that to change then they have to get that recruit to leave. The section gets the message, they close the doors and fill that recruit in. I have known this to happen at least five times by four different Section Commanders.

I heard one of the instructors talking about doing exactly this. He was bragging that he had his section fill someone in using a sock with a bar of soap or some other hard object, and he’d told them how to do it without leaving too many marks – but it didn’t go to plan and the recruit in question had been left with a black eye and ended up in Accident and Emergency. The instructor said he was worried that the recruits would give statements saying what had happened, so he was having to rush back to get them to write statements that didn’t get him or them into trouble. Another time when an instructor got his section to fill a recruit in, the lad was already on crutches due to a sprained ankle. His section just kept breaking his crutches because the Section Commander made him out to be weak for it and wanted him gone. The young soldier had to have his crutches replaced twice that I am aware of – why that didn’t ring alarm bells, I don’t know. I reported this to the CoC, too – but as far as I know, nothing was done.

Then there’s financial extortion, too, like when instructors would get junior soldiers to give them money to pay for their graduation party even though it was already paid for out of Army funds. I raised this in my SC, but it didn’t come to anything because the section commanders denied it. It was normal as well for a section commander to send a recruit out to buy them stuff from the shop from their own pocket – milk, coffee, biscuits, whatever. Or they’d get a recruit to order more expensive stuff for them from Amazon, like trainers. One instructor got a Gucci belt this way, another got an air fryer for the wife. That gets the junior soldier into the instructor’s good books, and then that individual is passed through their courses without a hitch.

Obviously these people shouldn’t be working with under-18s at all, so how did they get there? Apart from the predators who want to be among kids, many of the instructors are just dumped at AFC. Typically they’ve been struggling in their regiments or maybe causing problems there, so their CO [commanding officer] wants them out of the way so they send them to a training environment hoping that can be a reset for them. Not all appointments there were made on a competitive or selective basis. They don’t want to be at Harrogate necessarily and, in my experience, too many get a kick out of abusing the junior soldiers.

My situation was a bit different. I was in a selection pool of maybe 200 people who really wanted the job at AFC. I went through a selection programme for three days, when I was watched and marked on every task and put into different scenarios with junior soldiers just to see how I would react with them. But it wasn’t like that with the infantry instructors at all – they were just pulled from their regiments. In my view, some were completely unsuited to working with teenagers, especially vulnerable teenagers.

Because the recruits at Harrogate are so young, their treatment is worse than at other army training environments. They’re more impressionable, more naïve. Their section commanders are only two ranks above them, but some make themselves seem like gods and they really abuse their power. In other places where the recruits are a bit older, they know to respect their instructors but they don’t think they’re gods, so the instructors can’t get away with as much as they do at Harrogate.

It didn’t help that some of the rogue instructors at Harrogate would use drugs. I am aware of this through direct experience of things witnessed. One time, when the CDT [compulsory drugs test] team came onto camp, the CSM [Company Sergeant Major] told us to hide in a room until they’d gone, so the soldiers would escape the test. During my career, I have seen some CoC do this to protect SP [service personnel] and AFC Harrogate is no exception.

Apart from abuse by the staff, there’s also the abuse from the recruits themselves. They were often left to run riot at night. When I was on duty, I was patrolling, making sure I knew what my junior soldiers were up to throughout that duty period – that’s what we were all supposed to do. But other section commanders would just leave the junior soldiers to it. They’d tell me: ‘Oh, come on, give over – no one actually stays behind for the evening.’ But I stayed behind anyway because it was an important part of the job.

In 2021, I am aware of a case of extremely serious alleged sexual assault on a recruit around the time that I was there, but cannot say anything more about that.

I caught recruits having sex a couple of times, which is against the rules. I felt I could see from the young girls’ faces that they felt relieved that there was a senior female who was looking out for them. I could give them that sort of mum-to-daughter talk. But I just cannot see any parents allowing their girl to go to AFC Harrogate if they knew about how females get treated there.

You’d think that someone would blow the whistle to the media, but that would absolutely never happen.

You're told not to speak to the media ever because it's a sackable offence, and that you can be prosecuted for it – so everyone keeps their head down and their mouths shut.


It would also mean career suicide for the whistleblower. I did try to raise the alarm internally and believe that’s why they made a big example out of me, isolating me and treating me like a pariah. I cannot tell you my daily lived experience, how dreadful it was after raising the alarm. Everyone could see it would bring an end to my career.

It’s also hard to blow the whistle when you don’t have all the facts. I couldn’t prove, for example, that Corporal Irwin was sleeping with a 16-year-old, even though he was – but I would see young girls leaving the permanent staff accommodation from his and another section commander’s room direction, and I had my suspicions. When I raised the alarm about him bragging about inciting violence against a JS, being racist towards a British Muslim JS, being sexist, and his overall unprofessional and bulling ways, I thought the CoC would have looked into it to see if he was sexually inappropriate towards the JS too. He made me feel so uncomfortable as he wasn’t professional and he wasn’t safe. The chain of command didn’t listen. If they'd shown an interest at all, it could have stopped him. Even after Irwin had my Service Complaint pending against him, they still gave him command of a female section at his request. That’s a complete failure. I just feel so sorry for those young girls. I really do.

You’d think that Ofsted would notice that something’s wrong at AFC Harrogate, but the very great challenge is that when any VIP visitors came onto camp we were always told in advance.


The junior soldiers would do fancy drills, or you’d just make sure they looked like they were having a good time. The relationship between AFC Harrogate and Ofsted is far too cosy in my view. If they were serious about finding out the truth, they'd come unannounced – but even then, I am concerned that junior soldiers wouldn’t feel safe enough to report their issues to them. I think they would be scared of the repercussions after the visitors had left, and they would be right to be scared of that.

The only option the junior soldiers have is to leave – and a lot do. After being bullied or seeing others bullied, they decide the army’s not for them and put their [discharge] letter in. From what I have personally witnessed there were some platoon commanders who sat on those letters, and while the junior soldier’s waiting to leave they’ll sweeten that recruit up. They’ll make sure that the junior soldier is being called out on parade for being remarkable for all sorts of things, to convince them to stay. On the other hand, I witnessed and tried to intervene when some instructors tried to get rid of recruits for reasons that were unjust. If they can get a platoon of 48 down from four sections [of 12 recruits each] to three, that frees up a screw [instructor] to attend promotional courses. So in, my experience, I would see them trying to get weaker individuals to put their letters in by bullying them or having them bullied by the other junior soldiers.

As it is, you’ve got lots of young people in a place that overall is not safe, and certainly some permanent staff are not caring towards the JS. Some of these are more or less made to join up by their parents, especially in the north of England where a military wage seems like a good income. Recruits would ring their parents and cry and talk about the way they’ve been mistreated, but they’d be told not to come home – because there’s money at stake. Some of the junior soldiers would be sending that money home and the parents didn’t want to lose it. This is what I witnessed when the parents would then ring the office and inform me of the conversation they had just with their child and discourage/not support their DAOR. Then the JS would explain the financial situation at home, which helps to form their parents’ pressure on them to remain in training. I would often provide emotional support to those JS and sign post them to Welfare. I recall clearly there was a JS who still decided to leave regardless, only to find his guardian had sold the house whist he was in training, so there was literally no home for him to return to. Some of them are so vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong – for individuals who are a bit more mature, who are less likely to be taken advantage of, AFC Harrogate can be a good starting block. For the right person it can give you structure, and discipline, and an income, and a chance to succeed. But a lot of the junior soldiers are from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the abuse they get at Harrogate is a massive trigger for them. So, how do you filter who should get to go and who shouldn’t go? If they had a couple more years to grow up and become older and become a bit wiser before joining up – and grow physically as well – it would be better.

A short piece about Kerry-Ann’s struggle for justice is on BBC Sounds.

September 2024.

 
 
 
 
 

Lach's story

Lach joined the Army Foundation College in September 2023, aged 16.

Lach’s name has been changed.

At first, I saw the Army Foundation College [at Harrogate] as a brilliant way of earning money – most people see it that way. If you come out of school without GCSEs, you can see the army is still gonna be paying you £1.3 grand a month. That looks really good. But people need to see the harsh aspects of what they're actually going into.

When I started I enjoyed it, it felt like a community. Everybody’s in the same boat. You've all moved away from your home, you're all a bit nervous and everybody's homesick but you're all there for the same reason and you’re getting to know new people. This was like the settling in period when everybody was friends with everybody. Then you get to your first payday and you feel absolutely amazed to see that much money coming in.

But it all started to change when people started making their own groups and things got more argumentative. And because you're all living in the same corridor, if one group upsets another group, that's when it gets a bit physical.

Mostly it was the groups who enjoyed being there who started to give a hard time to the ones who didn’t, like the people that needed support from home and were always ringing their family. They weren't getting involved at nighttime with the lads like I was. You’d see them start to drop off from everybody else and then drop off from the training itself. Some people just weren't adapting to it. And when they didn't learn or want to learn the other recruits could get pretty aggressive and physical. For example, we were in a lesson one time and two of the junior soldiers followed this lad out to the bathroom and kicked him in the stomach. That happened quite a lot.

So things are starting to break down. At the start, it wasn't too much of a bother but then I think when it started to get a bit more physical, that's when it upset the whole platoon, with many fights. Like my mate broke his wrist when a couple of the recruits jumped on him. If somebody had an argument with you, you didn’t want to support them any more. People were against each other when we were meant to be together. That's when it gets hard and then that's when you kind of feel alone.

We’d keep the fighting to ourselves but when it got out the corporals didn’t do much. Especially the infantry corporals, who were more or less like, ‘Fuck it, fight it out, I'm not bothered, do it behind closed doors and I won't need to know about it.’ Because they’re infantry and they’re taught more or less that if you've got a problem with somebody you fight it out. Maybe as well they thought the recruits were doing their job for them by disciplining the rookie.

That mentality – close the doors and fight – shouldn't happen at Harrogate where everyone’s younger. But that’s what we’d do – we'd shut the doors and box it out.


The experience of being in that kind of environment started to push me over the edge. It didn’t feel like a community any more. I started to look at the army as more or less a physical place where young males wanted to be better than each other. And I didn’t want to be in this situation. And then, towards the end, I was the one that was starting to get in the fights because I was the one that that was leaving. I think they saw it as ‘he’s leaving, let’s do it now because who gives a shit’, even if it’s reported it’s unlikely there would be any consequences. So on my last or second-last night, I got in an altercation myself and I came out of it with a lot of blood all over my nose and a cut in my eye.

The corporals would get a bit physical too, like they’d grab a lad and shove him around a bit. They’d lay off me and other lads who knew what they were about but they’d get pissed off with the ones who were taking so long to get things right. Nobody really reported that because if you did and the corporal found out, you’d all get shit for it.

We were getting carpet punishments. Like one time one of the recruits didn't put their water bottle in an exact straight line with the others, like you’re supposed to, and the PTI [physical training instructor] sends us into this river, more like a bog, that runs through the college, and he gets us to lie down and link arms and do sit ups in the water. It was January, freezing cold, like we could have got cold water shock. It must have been filled with cow manure, it stunk like you didn't want to get it in your eyes or anything. But he got us to put our heads lower each time. We were like, do we really want to be doing this just for some stupid reason? If it was an operation and we had to go crawl through a cold river then we would do it, but we were only doing it because someone’s bottle wasn’t in line. We wouldn’t report something like that, we were more or less scared of the corporals coming back at us.

The lads were away from home and missed their girlfriends and would more or less see the female recruits in that way, like for sex behind the drill sheds or in the drying rooms. A few of the girls kept to themselves, but a few kind of went round and would have sex with the lads. One of them was messaging me for a bit but it wasn’t real because she was messaging the whole college. It was against the rules but everyone did it and the corporals knew, but they didn’t usually find out. It was all consensual, though. At least in our company I didn’t see anyone taken advantage of, like sexually assaulting someone.

On the weekends we would go out and get drunk in Leeds with fake IDs. We all went out drinking and we’d always come back drunk but make ourselves sick a couple hours before we got back just so we didn't really get caught. We’d sneak things in, like vapes, in our boxers. Some of the recruits, not me, would do drugs in our room – one of them had a bag of coke one time and they were doing lines in the corner. I was like, what the fuck, what are you doing? You've just brought in a whole bag of coke, you're 16 and you're in the army. What if you get a drug test literally the next day?

Some recruits were struggling but didn’t really get the support. One of my friends went to the welfare office because he was thinking of leaving, but instead of supporting him they just tried to persuade him to stay and I thought it was kind of a one-sided conversation. I know some recruits were self-harming as well though I didn’t see it myself. One of my friends was feeling suicidal and got discharged for that. He wouldn't really talk about it much, he just said he was feeling suicidal and didn’t know why and I told him to go to the medical centre – I just sat down with him and said he needed to go there whether he was gonna get discharged or not. I wasn't having one of my mates feel like that. At the same time, everybody knew that that was a way of getting out, the easiest way – if you say you’re feeling suicidal you’ll definitely get discharged. But it wasn’t like that for my friend, it was genuine – he got name-called a lot.

The worst moment was when someone tried to commit suicide on exercise, a recruit who was getting bullied – they got name-called a lot.


I didn’t see it myself but it wasn’t just rumours – the lieutenant commanding our section told us what happened and then later one of the education staff filled out more of the details. They had to carry them out on a stretcher – apparently the teacher saw the pictures. You'd expect it to be reported, I don’t know if it was but we didn’t hear anything more about it. You’d expect to see it in on BBC News or something.

It kind of upset us all. We thought, what if that happened to one of our people in our own company? I thought, what if this happens to one of my mates? I don't really expect to be carrying somebody off on a stretcher. Yes, maybe if they've broken their leg from running across uneven ground, but not somebody who’s just put the end of their rifle in their mouth and shot two rounds off. That's not what I expected army training to be like. How didn't any of the training team see anything disturbed with that recruit? It should have been prevented. Yeah, that was a shock.

By now I was missing my old life at home and I thought, I'm not doing this any more. I decided to put in my letter in to leave. When I handed it in to the office the corporal just said, ‘No, you’re not leaving,’ and walked off. And I was like, what the fuck, I want to get out. So I went to give the letter to my bombardier instead and he handed it up to the officer and it all got processed. Two weeks later I was out. But they never called my mum to tell her I’d be coming home. I remember getting on the train and I thought, I never want to come back to this place again.

It was a struggle at the start but it was a good decision and now I’m at the point where everything's going well – I was happy before the army and I'm happy again now after the army. The good thing was that I still had quite a lot of money saved up when I left. But personally, I don't think you should be able to join the army at 16 – I’d say that of myself as well. The age should be 18.

Everyone knows that Ofsted inspects the college, but I think if you're an Ofsted inspector you’ll look at the welfare office, there’s the chaplain, the games room and everything, so that ticks boxes. But if they went round the college and asked some of the recruits ‘Do you feel that the support is there?’ they’d definitely get some nos. So I think Ofsted’s ‘outstanding’ report on the welfare at Harrogate is more or less based around the fact there's not many people willing to report anything, though I would have done if Ofsted had asked me.

Personally, if I was from Ofsted I’d give Harrogate a ‘requires improvement’ report – the recruits need to feel supported by the staff and not afraid of them. It’s a hostile environment.


It feels good to get this off my chest and get my point across. I want people who are thinking of joining to see both sides of the story. And I hope that other people who’ve had the same kind of experience as me will feel that they can speak up as well.

May 2024.

 
 
 
 
 

Liam's story

Liam joined the Army Foundation College in autumn 2013, aged 16.

Liam has given CRIN permission to use his real name.

As a kid I always dreamed of being a fighter pilot, so I joined the air cadets, but once I realised being a pilot was unlikely, I thought well I’m good at shooting, I’m good at our cadet exercises, so I’ll join the army. It was in my head from about 14 and I was dead set. And at the time I thought the UK was a good country, so I thought I’d do a bit of duty for it. And I wanted to see some action as well.

Growing up, my parents weren’t around. My grandma and grandad brought me up and they were hell bent against me joining the army. They didn’t want me to get hurt and they thought I had more going for me. But my granddad went with me to the recruitment office anyway, in Manchester. I don’t know why, looking back, but I said I wanted to join the infantry. I could have done a technical job – I’d got eleven GCSEs, all A*-C grade – but I wanted to be in the guts of the action. I was 15 [enlistment begins at age 16 but applications are accepted from age 15 years and 9 months] when I went for selection, which is where they see how fast you could run a mile and a half, how many press-ups you could do, all that stuff, and then at 16 I was in.

So I turned up at Harrogate all ready to go, but it was scary if I’m being honest. Grandad, grandma, and me, we go into a big hall, where I’m given the contract to sign – it’s the first time I’ve seen it and I can’t recall if I even read the thing, but I sign it. Then the Regimental Sergeant Major comes out, gives a little speech, maybe five minutes, and tells us we’ve got a couple of minutes to say goodbye to our families. I was getting a bad vibe. Something at that point was telling me in my head, just walk out this door, just go back. But no, I stayed.

As soon as you’re in, the NCOs [non-commissioned officers, such as corporals, sergeants, who are the drill instructors] make it clear that you’re in for a fucking thrashing. I’ll start with the little things. Like you’d be asleep and they’d come in and wake you up and call you to the line – they had a line on the floor along the corridor – which we’d all run to and stand on for no reason and then they’d send you back to bed. Or they’d come in while you’re doing your ironing. Now most of us had never touched an iron in our lives, but rather than putting an arm around you and saying ‘Look, this is not quite right,’ the NCOs would just chuck the whole rail all over the floor and get you to pick it all up and iron it again.

Or you’d be up at six and into the showers, and these NCOs would just walk in to make sure you’re washing properly. These are grown men looking at, in effect, naked children. Nothing sexual about it but it was unnerving. And then after you shaved they’d look for one hair left on your face – you’d get a punishment for that.

Then there’s the way we’re spoken to. All the time we’re getting called – and this is a big favourite of the NCOs – ‘shitcunt’. Or ‘maggot’, or ‘fucking worm’. One lad had bad acne and the corporals called him ‘pizza face’.

They’ve got a bunch of 16-year-old children and they can do what they want with us – because no one’s going to know. They drilled that into our heads quite a lot, saying stuff like, ‘You’re ours, you belong to us, we can do what we want with you.’ Power hungry, they were.

You go to Harrogate expecting a bit of camaraderie. I know it’s going to be tough, but you’d think they’d put an arm round you from time to time to guide us in the right direction. It wasn’t like that, though – they were bullies, really.

They were bullies. And it’s not just a few bad apples, it’s the culture of that place.


Like if a new NCO came in they’d be quite pleasant at first, and then over the course of a few months when they realise, ‘Oh we can do what we want here,’ they start to get worse. The culture went to their heads.

I’m not slating every NCO. The better ones would sort of pretend to join in with the bullying but they didn’t necessarily enjoy it. And rather than hitting you they’d just raise their voice, and other times they’d have a joke with you, they’d sit down with you. But some of the NCOs, I’d say they had something wrong with them, they were psychotic. I remember one in particular – I remember his name but better to leave it out – he was genuinely tapped.

He’d come up to you and say you were expendable, ‘You’re the people that just get fucking killed,’ he’d say. Before we go on exercise he’s threatening us, ‘I’ll fucking kill you.’


Frightening bloke – enjoyed being cruel. The army was his life, but there was genuinely something wrong with him.

And as for the officers, you could see in their faces that they knew what the NCOs were doing was wrong. They didn’t necessarily get involved with that sort of behaviour themselves but they turned a blind eye. I was hoping they’d say something about it, but no. And because the bullying culture’s driven from the bottom up at Harrogate, the officers aren’t going to do anything about it anyway.

After the first few days I got a sense of who I’m in with. A lot of the recruits had come from what I’d say were broken families – they didn’t necessarily have prospects in the real world so the army was an escape. A couple of lads had a bit more education but they decided after a few weeks to leave and maybe come back later as an officer, because Harrogate was a bit low down for them. Myself, I made a couple of friends but I didn’t necessarily get along with a lot of the others. I sort of stayed as a grey man, that was my tactic. You have to make sure you don’t get a name for yourself or you get targeted – by the other lads as well as the NCOs. Lads would fight each other, too – that happened a lot.

The way it’d work, the NCOs would pick on someone and give them a derogatory name like ‘pizza face’, and then everyone else would use the same name. And the NCOs wouldn’t put a stop to it because they’d started the bullying in the first place. There was a lad that had a stutter, and every time he spoke the NCOs would go up to him and [imitates stuttering] – just childish, absolutely childish behaviour. These are adults that are meant to be guiding children into a career, children that have often come from difficult upbringings.

People would get hit, quite frequently, by the NCOs. Including me. You’d get a punch round the face, something like that, and general derogatory comments, which were often about your girlfriend or your family. People used to stick up photos their girlfriends and families, and the NCOs would come in and say things like, ‘Fucking hell I’d shag your mum.’ Or they’d talk about your girlfriend, like, ‘I bet she’s at home now getting railed by three guys, while you’re here,’ and things like that. Things you shouldn’t be saying, really, not to kids. Or anyone.

Some of the lads thought, ‘You know, it’s not for me, this,’ and they left while they could. We probably lost about 10-15% early on. And when they put their notice letters in the NCOs would just say, ‘Good fucking riddance, you’re fucking shit anyway,’ or something like that. Especially if they didn’t like you anyway – then they’d say something like, ‘Yeah, whatever, glad you’re fucking gone.’ But if a lad decided halfway-through to get out then the NCOs would get in his way. They’d even rip up the notice letter sometimes and say, ‘You belong to us now.’

I saw that, actually. I remember this lad marching up to the office with his letter. Because if you wanted to get out you’d have to go the office and stop at this little line at door and come to attention, and then say you’ve got your letter to leave. But if the Commanding Officer wasn’t there, the other NCOs in the office would just start laughing. And this time, they told this lad, ‘Here, pass me the letter… [makes ripping sound] there you go.’ I saw that myself in my own platoon and I also heard the same thing from other platoons. But when a lad was persistent, and the parents got involved, then he got to leave.

They’d find any minor excuse to get the platoon beasted – beasting is basically strenuous physical exertion as a group punishment. Some days they’d just do it for the fun of it. They’d maybe go in the toilets and find a bit of dust on top of a door, and then they’d have the whole platoon in stress positions.

One of the cruellest things they did was stop you from going home at the weekend – this is after the first six weeks when you’re not allowed to go home at all, or have any visitors. After that you got to leave at weekends, but on the Friday, say, they’d put us on the line in uniform to check for creases. Or anything, it didn’t matter. Even if you had a little bit of cotton, like, stuck to your uniform, they could stop you from leaving, ‘cause you’d be put on ‘show parade’ that night instead, to show your shirt with no cotton on it. They’d do that as a psychological torment.

People would get worked up about going home, seeing their families, having a good time – you’d ring your mum and say you were coming home. And then the NCOs would stop it all from happening, just because they could, and you’d ring your mum and say you weren’t coming home after all.

Another example was the gas.

They put you in this room full of CS gas. You go in with your mask and then you have to take it off.


You say your army number and rank so you breathe in the gas to experience what it’s like, and I can tell you honestly it’s one of the most awful things I’ve ever done in my life. You’re only meant to do that once during training, and I think I was in there five or six times; they used to just to see us in agony really, to get a laugh out of it, to laugh at some kids suffering.

With this kind of thing, up to a point, I was thinking, ‘Well this is the army, this is training, it’s making us tougher.’ But after a while you could tell it was wrong. We didn’t say that though, because if you went to one of your peers and said, ‘I don’t like this, it’s upsetting me,’ you’d probably get a drilling for even thinking it. I do believe most of us were thinking exactly that, but we were too scared to say.

The girls could have a tough time of it. You’d hear, like, about sexual abuse happening, but I didn’t see that myself, this is second-hand information, so take it with a pinch of salt. The girls were all in one company with a bunch of lads, with a door that divided the corridor in the middle, girls on one side, boys on the other.

The male NCOs would do body inspections on the girls for tattoos, you know, things like that, and I was told that they would inspect the girls in their underwear and make remarks about their bodies.


But the abuse tended to come from the recruits. You’ve got a bunch of lads that don’t go home that often, and all the girls are just next door. They’d touch them, you know, grab them, or make derogatory remarks. But I didn’t see that first-hand because I was in a different company.

The only rest break we got during the day was going to education. I say ‘education’ but it’s not, really, they’re just Functional Skills courses, really basic. It’s worthless. Maybe not to someone who’s got nothing at all, but I’d already got 11 GCSEs, it was pointless me being there but they put me through it anyway. They call it a ‘college’ at Harrogate but it’s a military training camp, that’s all it is, with a bit of education like stitched on to the side. The education was a nice rest break, though, because it felt like returning to normality for a couple of hours. The teachers aren’t NCOs, they’re civilians, so you’re not talked down to and degraded.

I know there’s Ofsted who are supposed to check the place [Ofsted have rated the camp at Harrogate as ‘outstanding’ for welfare for a decade]. But if Ofsted had been visiting and asked me how things were, I’d say everything was ok. Because I’d be frightened of telling the truth, I would’ve genuinely been frightened if word got back to the NCOs, because I know what would’ve happened. The recruits who did talk to Ofsted probably told them what they wanted to hear, out of fear – I can tell you that now. The food wasn’t bad, I will say that, and you’ve got a roof over your head, and you’ve got clean facilities, but that’s as far as it goes. If Ofsted are just looking at that, then yes maybe it might get an outstanding grade. But in terms of actual welfare, your mental state, then no.

Visitors don’t see behind the scenes. The NCOs aren’t going to act their normal selves when visitors are coming round, auditing them, are they?


And the lads aren’t gonna speak up about what goes on, because the NCOs would narrow it down and find out who said what. Like if a complaint was made about an NCO in a particular platoon, then you know the person complaining must be in that platoon. There were ‘family days’ as well when your parents would come to have a look. The NCOs would be polite, they’d act like… well, like normal people. Then as soon as your parents are gone, or someone auditing the college is gone, they’re back to how they are. It’s just the way it is. The army looks after itself, that’s the only way I could describe it.

There’s a welfare office but I never saw anyone use it. I remember once when I got upset, I didn’t go there, I went to the chapel at night instead, because I didn’t really want to talk to anyone – I was worried that word would get back to the wrong people. So I sat in the chapel at night, crying to myself because… I don’t know, it was getting a bit much. Part of me really wanted to leave, but I was more afraid people would think I’d quit too easily, because no one saw what that place was like.

I mean, what’s the welfare office is supposed to do about something like this? One night we were all asleep and around two, three o’clock in the morning this corporal rolled in to our room pissed with his girlfriend, who he wasn’t allowed to have on camp. So I’m lying in bed and he strips naked and climbs on top of me, and he pretends to hump me for a laugh. Then he goes round the room and does the same to the rest of the lads, like fake-molesting them. It wasn’t particularly sexual or anything, or traumatic, it was just weird, and no-one should be doing that – not to kids, or to anyone. But his girlfriend thought it was the funniest thing ever, and I just thought, ‘You’ve not seen the half of it in this place.’ I remember him coming back in the morning, hungover, and going, ‘Lads, I would appreciate it if you don’t mention anything about last night.’ And we didn’t.

I’ll tell you a story, to give you a bit of insight into the culture of that place. I had a motorbike at home, and on one weekend off I went for a ride and a car ran into me. Nothing too serious but I was in a bad way, I broke my collarbone and a couple of ribs and the hospital said they’d better keep me in for a couple of days. I rang Harrogate and told the guard office where I was, but then I got a call back saying if I didn’t turn up that night they’d put me down as AWOL [absent without leave, a military offence] and the police would come for me. Now I could barely walk. I rang back to explain what had happened but got the same answer: ‘If you don’t turn up, the police are coming.’ So I had to make my way home with broken ribs and collarbone – and my legs were bruised all over as well – and I had to get my bags, get on a train, on my own, and get back to camp.

Now, this was my own bike that got crashed into, but back at Harrogate this sergeant said I’d stolen it. ‘So you’re the little fucker that goes round stealing bikes,’ he says. ‘No sarge, it was mine, I just had an accident.’ And then he starts shouting at me, ‘Don’t you fucking lie at me, you little cunt,’ blah-de-blah.

When I tell him I’ve broken my collarbone and my ribs, he goes, ‘Have you?’ and then bang, punches me right in my ribs.


And I cripple over in pain, you know, crying on the floor and that, and he says, ‘That’s what you get for stealing bikes you little fucking cunt.’ Eventually someone actually asks the police, who say I didn’t steal the bike, it was my own.

The next morning I couldn’t even get out of bed, and when I asked another lad to help me out, I still couldn’t bend down and tie my bootlaces. So when line was called I had my bootlaces untied, and that same sergeant goes, ‘Why have you not fucking tied them?’ And I go, ‘Cause I can’t bend down.’ So again – bang – punches me again, in the shoulder this time. And so I have to force myself to tie these laces – I got down on the floor and crawled into a position where I could get to them. It would have been nice to have a little bit of compassion, because I’d hurt myself. I understand it’s the army, I don’t need a hug and cuddle, but they could just say, ‘You alright pal? Someone help him with his bootlaces.’

But it wasn’t like that.

Instead, what you got was child abuse, basically. It shouldn’t be inflicted on adults, let alone children.


All these lads have just come out of school and they’re being thrown into this environment, which is tough already and then physical abuse and psychological abuse are thrown on top. It’s wrong, I can see it now. It’s wrong. I wouldn’t want to do it now.

Honestly, I understand it’s tough, and the toughness wasn’t what bothered me. But if you’re struggling with something, how about a bit of help? Or if you’ve done something wrong, they could say, ‘Oh no, this is how you do it.’ Rather than calling you a twat, a cunt, a fucking idiot, or hitting you. I mean I was hit right in my broken bones by a man that’s probably about six foot five, when I probably weighed about eight stone then, I was dead thin. I remember crying to myself that night, I thought what the fuck am I doing here?

And by this point I was genuinely really upset. I remember every time I went home at the weekend, when we managed to get out, I’d sit and cry sometimes ‘cause I had to go back. I wouldn’t say anything to anyone but I’d be dreading it, there’d be this retching feeling in my stomach, like when I saw them gates again and knew I had to go back in. I did tell my grandma and grandad what was going on, but not what I was feeling. My grandad was in the army himself – he fought in Korea – but when I said some of the things that were happening at Harrogate, he was like, ‘It wasn’t even like that back in my day, I never got hit by any fucking NCOs or owt like that.’ It was tough back then, he said, but it wasn’t like that.

[Battle camp]

Then we go to battle camp [in Kirkcudbright, Scotland]. Jesus Christ, a lot went on there.

It was the accumulation of everything that had already happened in Harrogate.

I remember some recruits had cow excrement pushed all over their faces so that some of it went into their mouths – I saw that myself.


We marched up this road, and then out of nowhere, about twenty NCOs came out of the bushes, all camo-ed up, firing flares at us, and they jump in and start punching people, smacking them and that, and then they drag us into the field. I remember seeing them drag recruits along – and because they’re farmer’s fields, the NCOs would find a cowpat and slap it in some of these lads’ faces. Then there was the drowning. What they’d do – and they did this to me – is take your water canteen and pin you down. They grabbed my nose and poured my water canteen into my mouth so I couldn’t breathe – the essence of drowning – and they did that for quite some time, until literally I was gagging. That wasn’t the only time they had a go at drowning us. One time they dragged us out of the truck we were travelling around in, just next to a stream, and they fucking had us crawling through it. They were holding lads’ heads underwater for a good 15, 20 seconds. They did it to me too, and I have a bit of a phobia of water so that really did scare me.

And then obviously there’s the beating – which is normal by this point. One thing that sticks with me to this day is this lad who got absolutely hammered by the NCOs on battle camp. He was crying, and he was pleading with the NCOs, saying his leg was really hurting and he needed to stop. They just said ‘shut the fuck up’ and whacked him a bit more. We did an eight-mile tab [an overland march], and this guy was crying the entire way. When he got to the end, they went ‘what the fuck are you crying about’, and they lifted his trouser leg up, and his whole ankle and calf had gone black.

Turns out they’d broken his fucking leg and made him march for eight miles on it. That’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen, that.


You’d think that any institution that did that would be closed down. At 16 – and this is hindsight –I wasn’t fit to make decisions for myself, and I don’t think any child is, to that extent. I’m not talking about what subjects you pick in college, I mean major life decisions like joining the army. I don’t think kids should go into the army at 16 anyway. We’ve all been teenagers – your mind’s fixated on something, it’s going to be fixated on it, you can’t change it, you think you know the world and that.

And your brain’s not properly developed at that age to deal with that sort of psychological… well, trauma.

They say the training prepares you for war but life at Harrogate isn’t anything like a combat zone. Sure, in a combat zone you’ve got people shooting at you, but you’ve also got the men behind you that are looking out for you, it’s different.


But when I was at Harrogate, I felt like this institution was out to get me, and I think that’s where the psychological trauma of it comes in. I mean, the stuff we were put through shouldn’t be inflicted on anyone, even at 18 or 21. I mean, I understand we’re being trained for war, to fight, but the people around me are meant to be my comrades in arms, and I didn’t feel that at any point. I’ve never been surrounded by so many people and felt so alone, and trapped. It felt more like a prison.

Anyway, I finished at Harrogate and went off to Catterick for the rest of my training. None of the stuff from Harrogate happened at Catterick, none of it. In fact, when we were telling the Catterick NCOs some of these stories, even they were like, ‘What the fuck?’ You’re still punished physically, but twenty push-ups mean twenty push-ups, not push-ups until the point your arms are falling off your body, which they would do at Harrogate just for the fun of it.

So yeah, I stayed, I went through Catterick, but one day, when I was about to go to battalion [i.e. move from training into the army proper], I was cleaning my magazines for a locker inspection that was coming up, and I was worried about the magazines because I couldn’t get a little bit of dirt off them – and I was thinking back to what would happen if I was at Harrogate if they saw this little bit of dirt. And I remember just breaking down crying while I was fucking doing it. And I said to my grandma, ‘I don’t wanna be here anymore, I do not wanna be here anymore.’ So I got out. I was still under 18, so I could – because once you’re 18 they’ve got you [for four more years] – though I had to wait a couple of months before they let me out. So I finished all my training but I just never want to battalion. Quite a few stayed, though.

I just tend to forget about that time now. I usually don’t tell people I was ever in the army unless they ask me directly. I class that part of my life as a mistake I can’t erase, so I tend to ignore it. Even now I still have genuine nightmares that I’m back at Harrogate. Not a nightmare in the typical sense, like I’m not like exposed to anything dangerous. I’m just back on the camp and I’ll be in uniform and I’ll be like, ‘Fucking hell, what am I doing back here?’ I wake up and I’m like, ‘Oh thank god.’

It’s left a scar on me, that place, it’s left a scar on me.


I missed out on my youth, if you know what I mean, and I think the emotional scar that it’s left is quite bad.

But I want other people to know what it was like. Because since my time at Harrogate I’ve known someone else who wanted to join up straight from school and I tried everything I could to plead with him. I said don’t, just don’t, there’s better stuff to do. I said he could leave it for now and go in when he’s a bit older, don’t waste your life on that now. But I couldn’t tell him the specifics because I just didn’t think he’d believe me, and he did join up.

 
 
 

Parents and guardians

 
 

Alison's story

Alison’s son Nathan joined the Army Foundation College in 2016, aged 16.

Alison has given CRIN permission to use her and Nathan’s real names.

Nathan started his military career at the Army Foundation College Harrogate in 2016. Nathan was a confident, resilient lad who wanted nothing more than to be a soldier. He did a lot of research into joining the military and was more than prepared for the discipline and everything that was expected of him during training. In fact he welcomed the routine and way of life the military offered.

During the first phase of his training Nathan reported serious incidents to me; he told me he was hit, slapped, pushed, kicked and verbally abused by staff. He said he felt humiliated by this treatment and he never expected to be treated this way.

He knew the training would be tough but this was abuse and the staff were power crazy.


During one exercise, Nathan and his platoon were doing a swim in full combat gear and equipment. One of his closest friends suffered from a phobia of water. The staff were aware of this and held his head under the water. Nathan was extremely angry about this and told me about it in a phone call. When home on leave he told me about it again and I could see how angry and distressed he was. I have heard reports from other lads on that exercise that this kind of treatment happened to a lot of them, Nathan included.

Nathan felt uncomfortable talking about what was happening to him but I often pushed him to open up and talk to me. He did tell me about witnessing abuse of his peers and commented on his dislike and distrust for some of the staff. He did however point out not all staff were abusive but said that none of them could be trusted. He told me all staff knew what was going on but turned a blind eye.

He had family photos on display in this dorm as all the lads did. He got fed up with his corporals making vulgar comments regarding me and my daughter. He said this happened to everyone but what started out as banter became so crude he had no option other than to put the photos away.

After the initial six weeks of training we travelled to Harrogate for Nathan’s first passing out parade and brought him home on leave.

He was not the same happy confident lad who started six weeks previously. He started drinking heavily and was very withdrawn. It was very difficult getting him to return to Harrogate and he told me he wanted to leave the army.

When he returned to Harrogate he rang me to tell me he was handing in his letter to leave. He told me his request was ripped up in his face. He was only 17 years old and devastated at not being able to leave. He repeatedly told me he wanted to be a soldier and expected training to be tough but couldn't cope with the way they were mistreated. He was clearly very frightened for his safety and I shared his fears.

Whenever he was on leave it became increasingly difficult to get him to return to Harrogate. I would take him to the train station and by the time I arrived home Nathan wouldn't be far behind me. He was genuinely very fearful of being at Harrogate and things just got worse. There were so many occasions I would put Nathan on the train and believe he had gone back to Harrogate only to receive a phone call from staff days later asking if I knew of his whereabouts. They would inform me I had 24 hours to get him back or he would be posted AWOL. I would then have to locate him and persuade him to return but he was always so afraid of the repercussions.

He didn't mind the legitimate punishments, it was the abuse he was scared of.


I spoke to his commanding officers after every occasion and expressed my concerns. Each member of staff basically said the same thing: if Nathan didn't return he would be posted AWOL. They all assured me that although Nathan would be in trouble they were there to help him and would speak to him. I always told them I had concerns over his mental wellbeing and that he wanted to leave.

I was repeatedly told that once he had completed the first six weeks he had no way of leaving. They said no matter how he felt he had to complete the four years.

I would always reassure Nathan and encourage him to talk to the staff and get help. Nathan told me every time they were lying to me and were just telling me what I wanted to hear. He said I had absolutely no idea what he was being sent back to. The officers told me that if Nathan didn't return then the seriousness of the situation would escalate and the punishments would be more severe. I expressed again and again how he felt in danger but was repeatedly told this was not the case and that if he felt there was a serious threat to him he should raise his concerns. Nathan of course did not do this as nobody could be trusted. He also told me that by speaking up I had made things a whole lot worse for him.

Nathan was a strong willed and resilient lad who wanted nothing more than to be a soldier. He said he didn't expect to be faced with the disgusting way they were mistreated at Harrogate.

He described the staff as animals that got off on hurting and humiliating people and that Harrogate should be shut down.


Nathan died last year while still serving in the army. There is an ongoing Service Inquiry and in due course an inquest is expected to be held. I have asked the Service Inquiry to look into these matters.

 
 
 
 
 

Charlotte's story

Charlotte’s son Marc joined the Army Foundation College in 2016, aged 16.

Charlotte has given CRIN permission to use her and Marc’s real names.

My son, Marc, was never a very academic child, but he had lots of hobbies and loved sport. He never really knew what he wanted to do as an adult but he was always a happy child with a positive outlook on life.

Just before he turned 16 Marc had a recruiting day at school for the army. He came home that evening elated and full of enthusiasm to sign up. My husband and I tried to convince Marc to get a trade or to join the army later in a skilled role, but he wanted to join up as soon as possible. He was full of thoughts of seeing the world, of travel, independence and high wages.

Marc trained very hard, and went running twice a day carrying bottles full of water on his back. After he passed his physical assessment, we took him to an open day at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. All the staff were charming and made Marc feel like all his dreams could come true, so at the time there appeared to be no better career for him.

Regrettably I signed Marc up on that day and the following month, in 2016, with an ironing board in the boot, we dropped him off at Harrogate. During the first few months we didn’t hear much from him, but when he did call home all appeared positive.

After Marc turned 17 he came home for a week or two, and it was during this time that I realised all was not well at Harrogate.

I overheard several conversations with his fellow recruits discussing “bathroom beatings” and “things going too far”.


Marc also let slip he had been in several pubs, bars and clubs in Leeds, and was actively encouraged to attend strip clubs by the staff members in charge of his group.

Marc struggles to talk about what happened at Harrogate, and will not go into detail with me and his father about a lot of the things we witnessed, but we know that staff bullied and abused the young recruits, as well as encouraging fighting amongst peers. Marc and his fellow recruits were also made to spend many hours alone on guard duty, which affected their mental health. He and his fellow soldiers often reported feeling very low, but this was ignored by the staff.

Marc is a completely different person since his time at Harrogate. He has attempted suicide and his mental health is permanently damaged. He also sustained injuries while in army training which may turn out to be life-changing.


Marc had to go AWOL [Absent Without Leave] from the army, and was only discharged on mental health grounds after a long fight, just over one year ago.

I strongly believe that the Army Foundation College does not look after children’s mental health or well being.

It is an outdated institution where bullies thrive and adults seek pleasure in seeing children broken.


Knowing what institutions have done to children and to vulnerable adults in the past, I am amazed the place is still allowed to ruin children’s lives. They govern themselves and the children are far too scared to speak up.

The adverts and the so-called ‘reality TV’ program which was aired on Harrogate are completely fake and promise a life which few young people can resist. I would like to see an independent investigation into the College, and would love to see an undercover expose of Harrogate to prove that institutionalised bullying and abuse of children is very much happening today.

I would plead with any parent not to sign your child over.


I wish I hadn’t, and I have spoken with mothers who have lost their sons to suicide and believe that signing that document allowing them to join up was like signing a death warrant. I hope and long for this to change.

 
 
 
 
 

Kevin's story

Kevin’s son joined the Army Foundation College in 2015, aged 16.

Kevin has given CRIN permission to use his real name.

Growing up, my son was a bright, sensitive lad, with a penchant for drama and drawing, and a great sense of humour. When he hit adolescence he became interested in wrestling, bodybuilding and his diet. One of his friends became interested in joining the army, and meanwhile my son began to express dissatisfaction with school. He was doing next to no revision and he joined no extra-curricular activities, preferring to get home to play Call of Duty. His teacher called us, pleading with us to encourage him, but to no avail.

He began to say he wanted to join the army. We tried to sit down with him and encourage him to consider alternatives, but he just stormed out, slamming doors and shouting that he didn’t want to stay on at school. We sought counsel from friends and family, some of whom suggested that if he stuck it out in the army for two years it might give him a trade of some kind. So we began to accept it and I took him to the recruitment centre in town, where he picked up the literature and signed a form for the next stage.

At school, we were encouraged by reports suggesting that he was in the running for 5 GCSEs, including maths and English, and we hoped that he might have been put off the army at this stage. But he did a week’s work experience with the army, where he got to handle a rifle and try out some of the training that he was going to get at the Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate, and the experience made him want to join up more.

The day of his enlistment will forever be etched in our minds. We drove up to Harrogate on a beautiful day in 2015, my son smartly dressed in his new suit. On arrival we were ushered into a large hall to complete further paperwork.

As our son was asked to sign papers, it became evident that what was written and said to us required longer to read and to take in than we were given, but it was hurriedly signed off.


We had various presentations from staff. One officer said homesickness was a common experience, stating that if recruits said they missed home then he would tell them to ‘f**k off’. All that day, I had an instinct that something was awry with my son’s behavior; he was unusually quiet, and when we left him, tears welled up in his eyes, even as he tried to put on a brave face.

We had no contact with him for two days. When eventually he phoned us the line was broken and it was difficult to talk. He sent a text message, which simply said; ‘I’ll text you tomorrow night so ring on Thursday and don’t say to them that I want to leave.’ A second text message followed asking us to ‘ring up during the day saying that you want me to come home due to family matters, try to make something up because I want to come home. I miss you all too much x’. I replied ‘OK son, are you sure about this?’ I could sense his heartbreak and sorrow.

My wife had to speak to four staff members before getting through to a Major. They prevaricated and kept asking why he should have to come home, but eventually the Major conceded and told my wife that our son would be put on a train on the Friday of the first week.

We waited on Friday, but there was no contact from him until 7pm, when he said that no one had delivered the message to him to return home.


We were naturally incensed and after more remonstration, one of the instructors drove him to the station and paid for his fare back home. My son said later the instructor was one of the ‘better’ ones. I waited up for him. He arrived home broken, exhausted and you could tell that he had been crying. He was also frightened, saying that it was ‘AWOL’ and that he didn’t want to be in the army anymore.

It transpired that on the second day of his training it dawned on our son that he wouldn’t see his family for a long time. He had also been bullied verbally; he and the other recruits were talked down to, called c**ts and f****ers constantly, which seems at odds with AFC’s good Ofsted rating for health and well-being. The short films that we had been shown on enlistment day gave the impression that AFC Harrogate was a ‘college’ with many opportunities and extra-curricular activities, but my son found that there was very little ‘education’ – an hour a week, so he was informed.
My wife phoned the Major the next morning, and told him that my son had changed his mind and didn’t want to be in the army. In our conversations, we had to constantly remind officers that he was only sixteen, and in our care, even though he had sworn an oath to the British Army. The Major conceded in the end, but then another officer indicated that our son would be charged with AWOL, and said that he would never get a job or go to another college or university. Again, we were incensed – more phone calls.

We wanted the paperwork to be sent to us but the army insisted our son had to return to Harrogate to go through with the discharge, and we conceded. After the fraught and stressful negotiation to get our son out, all sorts of worries were still going through my mind. I was afraid that they could still detain my son, citing rules and regulations laid down in paperwork that we may not have read or had passed us by.

As I waited for him to sign the release papers, I was able to see first hand how the young soldiers were marched and drilled, brought into line.

I saw lads who were limping, some with crutches, also being drilled and marched, trying in vain to keep up with the rest of the platoon.


My son said that some keeled over and fainted as they marched and stood to attention. I wondered how many of those fresh faces were feeling the same as my son. What a relief it was to get back on the A59 and head for home with him.

I’m sure many parents would recognise this story. I would fully support any campaign that stopped the recruitment of 16-year-olds into the armed forces, on the grounds that they are still children and unable to make realistic decisions about their futures. The issues are not fully explained at school career events and army recruitment offices. There seems to be a glorification of army life that is at odds with the realities of on-the-ground training and education of young recruits.

 
 
 
 

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