Sexual offence investigations rise by 25%, but are personnel having their day in court?

Military sexual offence investigations rose by around 25% in 2024 to 357 cases, up from 284 the year before, according to new figures released by the MOD.

The statistics show a sharp increase in complaints and investigations into sexual assaults without penetration, exposure and voyeurism.

Sarah Atherton was a former member of the Defence Select Committee and previously headed an inquiry into the experiences of women in the Armed Forces.

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She pointed out that "if we look at offence by type being investigated, the good news is rape is down from 60 to 55 and sexual assaults with penetration are down from 11 to 10".

While it is not good that the number of cases being brought forward has increased, there has been concern for years that service personnel haven't been reporting incidents because of a lack of trust in the system.

Ms Atherton says this scepticism and cynicism towards the military justice system could be changing.

"I hope they are gaining some trust back in the system," she said.

"More investigations are being undertaken by the service police, and the service police are referring more sexual offences to the service prosecuting authority."

This increase in the number of cases being investigated raises more questions, such as why are less than half of the investigations referred for prosecutions. 

"So you could ask yourself, is the bar set too high from the Service Prosecution Authority to send and refer cases to court martial," Ms Atherton said.

"Whilst that obviously increases the probability of getting a conviction, are service personnel actually having their day in court?"

We asked the Ministry of Defence for its response to the latest stats. 

It gave us a statement saying unacceptable and criminal behaviour would not be tolerated in the Armed Forces.

The MOD also pointed out that it was "putting in place the right reforms to hold perpetrators to account and provide support and justice for victims".