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A former senior army sergeant major has been jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage soldier who later took her own life.
Warrant Officer Michael Webber, who was 39 at the time, last month pleaded guilty at the Court Martial Centre in Bulford, Wiltshire, to assaulting Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck in an attack that left her “severely frightened” and feeling “powerless and betrayed”, according to her family.
The 19-year-old soldier’s body was found at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire on 15 December 2021 – five months after the incident, following which, her mother said: “I saw the change in her with my own eyes – my bright, confident daughter became quiet and withdrawn.”
But Beck’s family stressed that it was the combined impact of the assault as well as the way it was later handled by the authorities, including the pressure put on her to not make a police report, that “shattered her faith in the system that was supposed to look after her”.
A court heard a se
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