🔗 Share this article Former Sergeant Imprisoned for Sexual Assault on 19-Year-Old Servicewoman Family Snapshot Gunner Beck was found deceased in her accommodation at the Larkhill base in Wiltshire on December 15th, 2021 A former service sergeant has been given half a year in prison for committing sexual assault against a teenage servicewoman who subsequently died by suicide. Sergeant Major Michael Webber, forty-three, pinned down Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck and sought to make physical contact in July 2021. She was discovered deceased five months later in her quarters at Larkhill, Wiltshire. Webber, who was given his punishment at the legal proceedings in the Wiltshire region recently, will be transferred to a correctional facility and registered as sexual offenders list for seven years. The family matriarch Ms. Mcready stated: "The assault, and how the Army did not safeguard our young woman following the incident, led to her death." Official Reaction The armed forces said it did not listen to Gunner Beck, who was hailing from Oxen Park in Cumbria, when she filed the complaint and has apologised for its management of her allegations. After an investigation of the tragic death, Webber confessed to a single charge of physical violation in September. The grieving parent commented her daughter ought to have been sitting with her family in the courtroom today, "to see the individual she accused brought to justice for what he did." "Instead, we are present without her, facing perpetual grief that no family should ever have to face," she stated further. "She followed the rules, but those responsible neglected their responsibilities. Those failures destroyed our daughter completely." Press Association The victim's parent, the mother, expressed her daughter felt 'vulnerable and abandoned' Court Proceedings The court was advised that the violation occurred during an field exercise at the exercise site, near Emsworth in Hampshire, in summer 2021. The accused, a Sergeant Major at the moment, attempted physical intimacy towards the servicewoman subsequent to an social gathering while on duty for a training exercise. Gunner Beck claimed the accused said he had been "seeking a chance for them to be alone" before taking hold of her, holding her against her will, and trying to kiss her. She made official allegations against the sergeant following the incident, despite attempts by military leadership to discourage her. An inquest into her passing found the military's management of the allegations played "more than a minimal contributing factor in her demise." Family Statement In a testimony read out to the judicial body during proceedings, the parent, said: "Our daughter had recently celebrated nineteen and will eternally stay a youth full of vitality and joy." "She believed people to defend her and post-incident, the faith was lost. She was deeply distressed and fearful of the sergeant." "I observed the change before my own eyes. She felt vulnerable and abandoned. That assault broke her faith in the system that was supposed to protect her." Judge's Statement When announcing the verdict, The judicial officer Alan Large remarked: "We need to assess whether it can be handled in a different manner. We are not convinced it can." "We are satisfied the severity of the violation means it can only be resolved by prison time." He spoke to the convicted individual: "She had the courage and good sense to instruct you to cease and instructed you to leave the area, but you persisted to the degree she considered she would remain in danger from you despite the fact she went back to her assigned barracks." He continued: "The next morning, she made the complaint to her relatives, her friends and her commanding officers." "Following the report, the military unit chose to handle the situation with minor administrative action." "You were subject to inquiry and you admitted your conduct had been inappropriate. You prepared a written apology." "Your career proceeded unimpeded and you were in due course elevated to higher rank." Further Details At the formal inquiry into the soldier's suicide, the coroner said military leadership influenced her to cease proceedings, and merely disclosed it to a superior officers "once details became known." At the time, Webber was given a "minimal consequence discussion" with no further consequences. The inquest was additionally informed that just weeks after the assault Gunner Beck had also been facing "persistent mistreatment" by a different service member. A separate service member, her superior officer, transmitted to her over four thousand six hundred digital communications declaring attachments for her, accompanied by a fifteen-page "romantic narrative" describing his "imagined scenarios." Family archive An inquest into the soldier's suicide found the armed forces' response of her report played "a significant contributing factor in her suicide" Institutional Response The military leadership stated it extended its "sincerest condolences" to Gunner Beck and her relatives. "We continue to be sincerely regretful for the failings that were identified at the official inquiry in February." "{The end of|The conclusion of|The completion