Member

Amendment 12 seeks to tackle this issue more substantively by requiring that allegations of sexual offences and domestic abuse in the armed forces be referred to the civilian police, and that those offences would be prosecuted through the civilian justice system. It would allow, however, for the case to be referred back to the military police if the complainant chose that route instead. We know from the armed forces continuous attitude survey that the main reasons given by personnel for not making a written formal complaint continue to be not believing that anything will be done with the complaint and believing that it might adversely affect their career. By making it the default for these offences to be heard in the civilian system, while retaining freedom of choice for the complainant to have their case referred back to the services, the amendment would encourage more people to come forward if they knew the complaint could be dealt with in the completely independent civilian system.