A British sailor known only as ‘AB’ is set to sue Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) following allegations that she was sexually assaulted while guarding a Taliban terrorist in 2012.
AB, who is in her early twenties, was posted to watch over Zia Rahman, a rogue Afghan policeman who killed three British soldiers before being captured.
While guarding the terrorist, AB says that she had her breasts groped and was subjected to lewd demands for sex for 12 hours from British solider Corporal Christopher Yard.
Yard was subsequently demoted and temporarily suspended by an internal investigation, although AB claims that the MoD did not do enough to make her feel safe in her job.
“He groped my breast and I slapped his hand away. He said he could not help himself. He said he had cheated on his previous girlfriend and had a high sex drive, needing to have sex three to four times a day.
“He also suggested we went on a midnight run together and have sex in a military container. I felt trapped because I could not leave my post.
“In a war zone and while we were guarding a significant terrorist, he fondled my breasts… To be sexually harassed and felt up by a more senior member of British Forces, while guarding a notorious suspect, was shocking and traumatic.”
The incident will come as a serious embarrassment to the MoD, which undertook an investigation into sexual harassment in 2012. During the study, every single one of 400 female soldiers reported that they had experienced unwanted sexual attention of some kind.
The Daily Mail reports that AB’s lawyers say the legal action is a “test case” that will reveal how the military has closed ranks on sexual harassment by denying complainants the right to take their cases to civil courts.
Her solicitor, Lawrence Davies of Equal Justice, said he believes there are “dozens” of other cases that have been suppressed through MoD internal grievance rules.
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