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A former service sergeant has been sentenced to half a year in jail for sexually assaulting a teenage servicewoman who subsequently ended her life.

Warrant Officer the former sergeant, forty-three, pinned down soldier the young woman and tried to kiss her in mid-2021. She was discovered deceased half a year following in her quarters at the Wiltshire base.

The convicted individual, who was given his punishment at the legal proceedings in the Wiltshire region previously, will be sent to a public jail and listed on sex offenders register for multiple years.

The family matriarch the mother commented: "The assault, and how the Army failed to protect our daughter afterwards, cost Jaysley her life."

Military Response

The military leadership acknowledged it failed to hear the servicewoman, who was a native of Oxen Park in Cumbria, when she filed the complaint and has said sorry for its response to her complaint.

Following an inquest into the soldier's suicide, Webber admitted to a single charge of unwanted sexual advance in the autumn.

Ms McCready commented her daughter ought to have been present with her loved ones in legal proceedings now, "to see the person she reported brought to justice for the assault."

"Rather, we appear without her, facing perpetual grief that no family should ever have to face," she added.

"She followed the rules, but the accountable parties didn't follow theirs. These shortcomings broke our young woman utterly."

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Judicial Process

The court was told that the assault occurred during an field exercise at Thorney Island, near Hampshire's Emsworth, in summer 2021.

The accused, a Sergeant Major at the period, initiated inappropriate contact towards the soldier following an alcohol consumption while on deployment for a training exercise.

The servicewoman stated Webber remarked he had been "anticipating an opportunity for them to be in private" before grabbing her leg, holding her against her will, and attempting to force intimacy.

She reported the incident against the accused subsequent to the incident, notwithstanding efforts by military leadership to discourage her.

An inquest into her death found the armed forces' response of the complaint played "an important role in her suicide."

Parent's Account

In a account read out to the court during proceedings, the parent, expressed: "She had just turned nineteen and will forever remain a teenager full of vitality and joy."

"She had faith people to protect her and following the assault, the faith was shattered. She was deeply distressed and terrified of Michael Webber."

"I observed the transformation personally. She felt vulnerable and abandoned. That assault broke her confidence in the system that was meant to protect her."

Sentencing Remarks

When announcing the verdict, Judge Advocate General the judge said: "We must evaluate whether it can be addressed in an alternative approach. We are not convinced it can."

"We conclude the gravity of the crime means it can only be resolved by immediate custody."

He spoke to Webber: "The servicewoman had the strength and intelligence to tell you to stop and told you to leave the area, but you carried on to the extent she felt she could not feel secure from you despite the fact she retreated to her assigned barracks."

He added: "The next morning, she reported the incident to her relatives, her acquaintances and her chain of command."

"Following the report, the military unit decided to deal with you with minimal consequences."

"You were subject to inquiry and you acknowledged your behavior had been inappropriate. You composed a apology note."

"Your professional path continued without interruption and you were in due course promoted to higher rank."

Background Information

At the inquest into the tragic passing, the coroner said military leadership influenced her to drop the allegations, and merely disclosed it to a superior officers "when the cat was already out of the bag."

At the period, Webber was given a "light disciplinary meeting" with no additional penalties.

The investigation was further advised that mere weeks after the assault the soldier had further been exposed to "continuous bullying" by a separate individual.

A separate service member, her superior officer, sent her over four thousand six hundred text messages declaring attachments for her, along with a multi-page "personal account" outlining his "fantasies about her."

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Organizational Reaction

The military leadership expressed it extended its "sincerest condolences" to Gunner Beck and her loved ones.

"We will always be sincerely regretful for the failings that were noted at the official inquiry in February."

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