A former soldier has revealed how she was propositioned by a sergeant when she was only 17 and took to locking her door because she was frightened colleagues would walk in when she was in bed.
Speaking at the inquest of her friend, 19-year-old soldier Jaysley Beck, Tamzin Hort said women were habitually subject to “disgusting” comments from male soldiers, especially when they rejected their sexual advances.
Royal Artillery Gunner Beck was found dead at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire after being sent thousands of messages from her supervisor, Bdr Ryan Mason, and was allegedly pinned down by a senior soldier, WO1 Michael Webber, who tried to kiss her.
Hort told the inquest in Salisbury of an incident when she returned home from the pub and locked her room but later found a sergeant outside with a condom. “I was 17,” she said. “You can imagine how scared I was. It happens to every female.”
The witness said she did not complain about the incident but added that, on an occasion when she received therapy through the army welfare services, “somehow everyone knew about it”.
She said at first she used to leave her door unlocked, but added: “I stopped feeling safe and started locking my door because anyone could just walk in.”
Hort, now 23, who has left the army, said: “As the only girl in my battery I got a lot of unwanted attention from a lot of the lads, especially if they had had a drink. I couldn’t walk out of my block without getting nasty comments. That goes for the majority of females, not just in Larkhill.”
Assistant coroner Nicholas Rheinberg asked: “Did Jaysley ever talk to you about these problems?”
Hort replied: “No. I know she would get a lot of comments. She was stunning. They would all make disgusting comments like ‘I would do this to her’. You can’t react to it because it makes it worse and they would do it even more.”
Alison Gerry, representing Beck’s family, asked about evidence Hort gave a service inquiry that women were called “lesbian” or “slag”, and subjected to “vicious gossip”.
Hort replied: “You could be walking to the kitchen and they would be like: ‘Come to my room’. You would say: ‘I don’t want to do that’ and they would say: ‘You’re disgusting’.”
She added: “If you’re told enough times that you are a slag, that affects you. It makes you feel very low. I would go to work every morning and I would get called fat by my training instructor.
“He would say: ‘Look at you, you are fat, are you pregnant?’. You are just sat there humiliated.”
George Higgins, a former sergeant who has since left the army, confirmed he had a relationship with Beck but declined to say when it began.
Higgins was a trainer at the army foundation college in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, which Beck attended from the age of 16.
The inquest heard it was an offence under the Sexual Offences Act for someone in a position of trust to have sexual activity with a person aged under 18 under their care.
Higgins, who was eight years older than Beck, confirmed that he was aware of that law but had received “very little” training about it at the time. He also declined to answer whether he had been in relationships with other recruits.
The inquest continues.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
• This article was amended on 19 February 2025. Tamzin Hort was propositioned by a sergeant, not “her sergeant” as an earlier headline stated.
