A group of soldiers have been been reprimanded for posting abusive comments on social media about one of their colleagues who appeared in army recruitment adverts.
Corporal Kerry-Ann Morris featured prominently in the “Your Army Needs You” campaign and the army’s recruitment magazine The Locker.
The six male Royal Artillery troops who discussed the 28-year-old on Facebook reportedly accused her, without foundation, of “playing the race card” to get ahead at work.
They also claimed – again without foundation – that she had accused colleagues of racism.
The junior soldiers were given a warning about the offensive comments, The Independent understands.
Stationed in Germany, the group of soldiers who wrote and liked the comments were interviewed by senior officers, The Mail on Sunday reported.
“It was to Cpl Morris’s credit that she requested the soldiers should be dealt with lightly on this occasion,” a defence source told the newspaper. “As the victim she could have pressed for more severe sanctions to be imposed but she was adamant that should not happen.”
A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman told The Independent: “Discrimination and bullying have no place in the armed forces and will not be tolerated. All allegations are taken very seriously and are thoroughly investigated. Anyone found to have fallen short of our high standards can expect disciplinary action to be taken.”
The UK’s armed forces have faced criticism for its lack of diversity and failure to recruit enough people from black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
Only 8.7 per cent of junior service personnel and just 2.4 per cent of officers come from BAME backgrounds, according to the latest statistics.
The army’s latest poster campaign – which pays tribute to the famous Lord Kitchener images while targeting millennials, games and self addicts – proved an immediate success following is launch at the start of 2019.
In the first three weeks of January, applications to join the army rose to 9,700, a five-year high. It is almost double the number of applications for January 2018.
