Mother fights Army reforms after daughter's death linked to harassment and assault in uniform

Leighann McCready says the Army cost her daughter Jaysley Beck her life. Jaysley, 19, died by suicide in December 2021 while serving at Larkhill garrison in Wiltshire, after a three-year military childhood that began when she was 16 and left the family home in the Lake District for the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. McCready, a former Marie Curie nurse, recalls the mix of pride and fear she felt as Jaysley prepared to join her country’s ranks. She did not sign the paperwork herself, leaving that duty to Jaysley’s father, Anthony Beck, telling her daughter she could serve with pride but that she hoped nothing would go wrong. Those words now haunt her as she seeks accountability and reform.

Jaysley’s death, coming days before Christmas 2021, shook the Army and drew renewed scrutiny of how its systems protect service members from sexual misconduct and harassment. The coroner’s inquest would later describe a sequence of failures that left a young woman in a high-risk situation with limited recourse against those who harmed her. At the heart of the case is Battery Sergeant Major Michael Webber, who a few years later admitted sexual assault in relation to an incident at a work social event. He pinned Jaysley down and tried to kiss her, and while he faced discipline, he ultimately remained in service and was promoted to a top noncommissioned rank before his retirement. The decision to give him only a minor administrative action and to require a handwritten apology was cited by the family as emblematic of a system that did not take the harm seriously enough.

Moving through the timeline to the end of 2021, Jaysley faced a different, relentless pressure: a campaign of harassment by Bombardier Ryan Mason, whom she had come to know as her supervisor after volunteering with a community-engagement team. The inquest documented thousands of messages Mason sent to Jaysley over a three-month period, including about 3,600 messages in November alone. It was a pattern that emerged as Jaysley tried to report the behavior up the chain of command. She spoke to Captain James Hook, who advised her to think carefully about what she was saying, and to Colonel Samantha Shepherd, yet the Army’s own policies at the time would have referred such cases to police; that path was not taken. The handwritten letter of apology from Webber, discovered in Jaysley’s barracks after her death, sits among the pieces of evidence McCready has kept, a stark reminder of what she says was a failure to follow proper procedures.

The inquest concluded earlier this year with a scathing ruling about systemic failures that contributed to Jaysley’s death. In the months that followed, Webber publicly admitted the sexual assault and is set to be sentenced next month. The Army’s handling of records and discipline in this case remains a point of contention for the family, who argue that accountability was delayed and that procedures were not applied consistently. The family’s experience has underscored how important it is for commanding officers to act quickly and decisively when service members report violent or predatory behavior, and it has raised questions about whether promotion and status can overshadow the harm caused by such actions.

Mason, who had become Jaysley’s supervisor and who the inquest described as having mental-health issues of his own, left the Army shortly after the outset of the investigation. He has since described distress from his upbringing, but he did not face charges in connection with Jaysley’s death. McCready says she asked herself repeatedly if Jaysley’s willingness to report would have changed anything; the answer, she says, is all too often no. Yet the most painful lesson for her has been the disconnect between the seriousness of the offenses described and the consequences that followed. She found the letter of apology from Webber in Jaysley’s room. “The only reason Michael Webber was caught out was because I found that letter,” McCready told reporters. “Disciplinary action should have immediate effect. It shouldn’t come four years later.”

The coroner’s ruling and the ongoing legal process have not dampened McCready’s resolve. Last month she completed a skydive to raise funds for the Centre for Military Justice, a charity that has supported the family through the inquest and the aftermath. She and her family say they have listened to other women who confided in them about assault and rape while serving, and they have turned their grief into advocacy aimed at preventing similar harm to others in uniform. The family is calling for complaints raised within the Armed Forces to be handled by independent investigators, rather than by the chain of command, arguing that immediate, external oversight is necessary to restore trust and protect vulnerable service members.

“Something needs to change with immediate effect,” McCready said this fall. “Not all soldiers have a strong family like Jaysley, and God forbid what this could do to the next family.” She emphasized the importance of ensuring that investigations are thorough and independent, with all complaints treated with equal seriousness, regardless of rank. For confidential support, the Samaritans can be reached at 116 123 or samaritans.org.