Victim-blaming condemned after Army padre made £3k offer to drop sex assault claim
An Army chaplain who offered a female soldier £3,000 to withdraw a sexual assault claim used classic victim-blaming attitudes that could deter other women from coming forward, a military justice lawyer has told BFBS Forces News.
Lucy Baston, of the Centre for Military Justice, said Rev Huw Ryden had asked the woman to consider the accused soldier's career and whether he might harm himself.
She said the case could not be dismissed as a one-off and called for a properly independent body to handle serious complaints of discrimination, harassment and sexual violence.
"I think that it provides an example of a really appalling checklist of rape myths and stereotypes, and things that you shouldn't say to a victim of sexual assault when they're reporting that to you," Ms Baston said.
"It only takes comments like that for women to decide they might not want to pursue their complaint or they don't want to report these behaviours."
Attempt to bribe and shame to keep silent
Ryden, who was chaplain to 3 Rifles, was found guilty at Catterick Military Court after offering the private £3,000 if she dropped a sexual assault claim against another soldier.
The allegation related to an incident during a deployment to Kenya.
The court heard the padre approached the female soldier at a regimental event at Dreghorn Barracks in Edinburgh and asked her to go for a cigarette away from her friends.
The private said Ryden told her she deserved compensation and repeatedly said she would receive £3,000 if she dropped the case. She said he described the proposed payment as "off the books".
Ryden also asked whether she had considered the consequences for the accused soldier, including the effect on his career and the possibility of being placed on the sex offenders register.
A staff sergeant who saw the conversation told the court the woman later said she felt alarmed and disappointed by what she regarded as an abuse of power. She believed she was being coerced.
Ryden said he had been trying to protect the woman from "moral injury" if the man she had accused took his own life because of the complaint.
Assistant Judge Advocate-General Edward Legard adjourned the case for reports before sentencing and told Ryden the available options included dismissal and custody.
Views don't exist in a vacuum
Ms Baston said the intervention was particularly concerning because military chaplains are part of the welfare support system in the Armed Forces, and have responsibilities beyond spiritual guidance.
"A lot of women in these situations feel that they have nowhere to turn and they're completely isolated," she said.
"When those kind of first-response welfare services, such as the padre or other welfare officers, are displaying attitudes like that, it's extremely problematic."
She said the prosecution of Ryden did not resolve concerns about the attitudes women could face when they reported sexual assault or harassment elsewhere in the Armed Forces.
"I don't think that this is a one-off situation," Ms Baston said. "I think that attitudes like this, they don't exist in isolation."
She added: "I certainly wouldn't say it's just the case of one bad apple."
Ms Baston said the Centre for Military Justice continued to hear from women who reported sexual assault or sexual violence and then believed their complaints had not been handled properly.
"The views of this particular padre don't exist in a vacuum," she said.
"These are the kind of views that the women that I support encounter all the time when they report these kind of behaviours."
Call for independent complaints route
Ms Baston said the case demonstrated the need for personnel to have somewhere independent of their immediate military structures to raise serious concerns.
"One of the most important changes that we would like to see is somewhere properly independent for men and women to raise serious complaints of discrimination, harassment and sexual violence," she said.
She said this would give personnel confidence that their complaints would be handled appropriately and by people with the necessary expertise.
"There needs to be somewhere independent and impartial for women to speak about these issues because there's such a pervasive culture within the Armed Forces about these topics," she said.
The MOD has been developing a Tri-Service Complaints Unit to handle the most serious complaints involving bullying, harassment, discrimination and victimisation outside individual service chains of command.
In evidence published in March, it said a pilot had been completed, recommendations on its wider rollout were awaited and legislative changes were expected by summer 2026.
Current MOD guidance lists a Tri-Service Complaints Team as investigating the most serious non-criminal complaints outside the single-service chain of command.
Serious criminal allegations can be reported to the Service Police, MOD Police or civilian police, while the Defence Serious Crime Command operates outside the individual services' chains of command.
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