Red Arrows scandal: ‘RAF put reputation first’
What do you make of this latest leg of the story that some of the victims felt the raf’s investigation into the issue in the first place was somewhat of a of a whitewash that is generally what the result is for victims it’s also part of increasing the trauma because they it
Takes great courage to come forward and be honest about what has happened but then the chain of command just stonewalls and people are further traumatized by not being believed and by being humiliated into thinking that they’re not of enough value to actually bring the change and to bring the perpetrators to Justice
It’s part of the toxic masculinity that stops people coming forward because the chain of command is more interested in reputational protection than protection at times of its serving Personnel I’m interested in your take as as to sort of scale of of what’s been redacted from from this uh investigation
And Deb Deborah showed some of that to us uh just just a moment ago if people have lost their jobs where wrongdoing uh has taken place should the RF want to talk about that more or because of the nature of the work that they do specifically in the armed forces is an
Extra level of privacy and uh and redaction something that is is reasonable is it is it just a focused area where this sort of approach is legitimate or is it is it something that they’re actually shooting themselves in the foot about if they if they’ve done a proper review and taken the proper
Actions should they make make that more public it’s part of the problem that we’ve got unless they are willing to be open and honest and demonstrate that perpetrators will be pun punished that there will be consequences for such actions nothing changes over and over again I had women coming
Forward and telling me that they were afraid that they were going to be set up that in fact theyve been set up for reputational harm and damage so that when eventually they were sexually assaulted their reputation was trashed and people would think oh well they’re
Just a slag they deserve it we have to deal with this because there is no change I was looking at this back in 2011 2010 and I can see no change at all every time this happens the RAF the ministry of Defense they put out a a response saying we take this very
Seriously uh we do not condone this we uh pursue this powerfully and nothing happens nothing changes and report after report comes out and we’re seeing the same story so so were you looking at this specifically the Red Arrows or more broadly in the RF or more broadly still
In in the armed armed services back in 2011 it was more broadly across the armed forces and to be honest the RAF was seen as slightly immune because it’s much more of a technocratic service so your capacity to do the job was very very important and therefore that
Provided a a degree of protection it was much more prevalent within the Army seeing this coming out of the Red Arrows exemplifies the major problem we’ve got here because the Red Arrows is widely respected around the world what does it say when one of our Elite forces is known to
Be predatory towards its women members this is not about protecting women in the armed forces this is about protecting reputation we have to stop putting reputation before protecting Personnel I’m interested I mean clearly there’s further actions that are required today which you’re suggesting anyway and um the documentary tonight
Might might be going into that in more detail I’m interested though that that you were saying you were looking into this sort of thing in 2011 when you were on the defense select committee and and you said earlier more more broadly and generically that these sorts of things
Were always shut down very quickly so did you try and raise them on the defense select committee either with your colleagues on the select committee or with the Armed Forces directly and see it pushed away no no you don’t get push away you get told yes we’re dealing with that
We’re going to be very robust about this part of the problem is the Armed Forces tend to think that you can deal with things with military regulation that you can use the military system to tackle the problems what they’re not doing is going outside finding the experts in the
Fields where they have a major problem and learning lessons they just toughen up their internal systems and think that that will solve the problem but when the perpetrator is someone who you probably spent over a million pounds training the attitude tends to be well we don’t want to lose that person we’ve invested
A great deal in them and the victim is put to one side the person is given a reprimand and that’s the end of it but they don’t change their behavior the military needs to go outside start talking to external experts in this field and learning how to deal with its
Problems and not thinking that change changing military regulations altering the court martial system will make a difference the system doesn’t work it isn’t tackling this problem and it’s time for it to go and talk to the civilian experts take advice and finally root and branch and lead the way because the UK
Is not unique in this lead the way across NATO and show how we can be honest and truthful about the problems we have and the need to actually tackle this and root out a toxic masculinity and risks to female Personnel who are important to our capacity to meet the number of
People we need in our Armed Forces currently we’re taking people from the front line and sending them into into uh military settings so that we can actually recruit people into the Armed Forces you’re not going to recruit when it’s dangerous thank you m moon thanks for joining us much appreciated
A former MP says she has seen no change in the RAF since she looked at the issue 2010, accusing the organisation of putting reputation first.
Madeleine Moon, who was a member of the Defence Select Committee, has been reacting to a Sky News documentary which spoke to victims of predatory behaviour within the Red Arrows. They have slammed the latest inquiry.
Ms Moon says there is a culture of “toxic masculinity” and the armed forces need to bring in external experts to tackle the problem as the “system does not work”.
Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/untouchable-inside-the-red-arrows-and-a-toxic-culture-of-harassment-sleaze-and-bullying-13036439
#redarrows #inquiry #skynews
SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skynews
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skynews
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skynews
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skynews
For more content go to http://news.sky.com and download our apps: Apple https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sky-news/id316391924?mt=8 Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bskyb.skynews.android&hl=en_GB
Sky News Daily podcast is available for free here: https://podfollow.com/skynewsdaily/
Sky News videos are now available in Spanish here/Los video de Sky News están disponibles en español aquí: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzG5BnqHO8oNlrPDW9CYJog
To enquire about licensing Sky News content, you can find more information here: https://news.sky.com/info/library-sales