Soldier who blew whistle on bullying left to man phone that never rings
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In the air corps’ Baldonnel air base, there is a little-used office filled with filing cabinets.
Every day Soldier F, who cannot be named or quoted because he is a serving soldier, comes into the office, takes his jacket off, sits down, and waits for the phone to ring.
However, not only does the phone never ring, but, according to a close friend of his, even if it did, nobody would hear his voice because the phone doesn’t work properly.
He knows this because the few times the phone has rung, he has picked it up and the person at the end of the line keeps asking if anybody is there.
It’s hard to fathom that the Defence Forces would pay an experienced soldier, once tasked with commanding men in Lebanon, to answer a phone that never rings. According to his friend, he believes it is because he has stood up for himself and others who were bullied and victimised in the Defence Forces.
He has lodged a number of protected disclosures about mistreatment, assaults, and victimisation.
It was Soldier F’s evidence that led to a Government-initiated inquiry into the Defence Forces Cadet School.
This inquiry predated the Women of Honour expose by just over a year and was one of a raft of reports pointing to a culture of overt misogyny among Defence Forces officers.
His evidence led Government-appointed barrister Frances Meenan, who headed that inquiry, to remark that Defence Forces policies in relation to employment equality, and bullying at work need “major reconsideration and redrafting”.
This was, said Meenan, because “they are not fit for purpose in the modern era of employment”.
The last engagement Soldier F had with any State-initiated investigation into irregularities in the Defence Forces was the recent Independent Review Group panel probe that was set up after RTÉ’s programme.
While panel members were shocked at much of what Soldier F had to say to them behind closed doors, he is, according to his friend, another one of the many who gave evidence who now feel cold-shouldered by the State.
Because he is serving, he cannot talk to or engage with reporters.
As his friend, who also does not want to be named, says, it’s all a far cry from the fresh-faced 17-year-old who joined the air corps as an apprentice in 2005. “He thought it would be an exciting career,” she says.
“The slogan at the time was ‘at 30,000ft there is no breakdown service’ and it promised ‘a life less ordinary’. He told me he was quite excited at applying, and over the moon when he was accepted.
“He said there was a lot of what he called ‘shouty’ stuff alright but he said nobody at that stage seemed to get it any harder than anybody else, and he just got on with it.”
That all changed after a few years and she says he became more and more aware of other airmen being bullied.
Although he had escaped the worst of what others had to endure, that all changed when he was headbutted by a non-commissioned officer (NCO) a few years ago.
He was out socialising with friends at the time and approached the NCO, asking him to stop bullying some of his pals.
The NCO got angry, attacked him, and told him to mind his own business. The blow was so severe that he needed reconstructive surgery to rebuild his nose. The matter was reported to the Military Police.
In the time before the matter ended up with the NCO being court-martialled a few years later, Soldier F was repeatedly asked to withdraw the statement he made about the incident.
His friend says a number of soldiers told him that if he didn’t withdraw his statement, it would “never be forgotten, never forgiven”.
At one point, his complaint was “mysteriously” withdrawn without his permission and he had to reinstate it.
The NCO was eventually court-martialled, fined, and received a reprimand, but he was promoted and is still serving in the Defence Forces.
“The whole case effectively spelled the beginning of the end of his career,” says Soldier F’s friend.
“Not long after the assault, and the Military Police investigation, he applied to go on a physical training supervisor’s course.
“Although his commanding officer had recommended he go on it, and although he was accepted on the course, his place on the course was suddenly withdrawn.
“They said this was because, as he was a corporal at the time, he wasn’t of the right rank to complete the course.”
Soldier F’s complaint about this ended up being dealt with by the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces because he wasn’t happy with the way the army’s internal Redress of Wrongs complaints process had handled it.
His is Case 8 in the Ombudsman's combined 2013 and 2014 annual report.
It notes: “The [Ombudsman] found the administrative processes within the air corps to be inadequate in respect of the selection and deselection process for the course.”
The Ombudsman also referred to aspects of the way the Redress of Wrongs complaint was handled as being “undesirable administrative practice” that was “contrary to fair or sound administration”.
He concluded by saying Soldier F was entitled to be enrolled on the course and that he should be accepted on the next one when it came up.
He was duly accepted on the course in October 2013 and completed it the following month.
After he moved to another unit in the air corps in 2015, Soldier F was approached by another airman who warned him that his cards were marked. “They told him that if he got anything wrong, or made any mistakes, they were going to come down on him like a tonne of bricks,” says his friend.
“That’s when the stress of everything really started to get to him. For two years he didn’t set a foot wrong. He did everything right but one day in 2017, he made a mistake.
“He accidentally broke a bolt on an aircraft during routine maintenance and they punished him by moving him onto a menial job," says his friend, who recalls that Soldier F was "very upset about it".
Soldier F went on sick leave, and was then referred to a consultant psychiatrist who signed him off work for 28 days.
“He sympathised with what he was going through,” she says. “He also said it was little wonder he had been suffering from stress, and after hearing the buildup to what had been going on, came to the conclusion that it all stemmed from the broken nose.”
On his return to work, the psychiatrist said he should not return to the unit where he was before he fell sick and should instead be assigned to another one.
In 2017, he put in a protected disclosure about everything that had happened to him.
Not long after this, Soldier F relaid to friends that he had been approached by an NCO and told his career was over.
“They told him the army was going to discharge him for what he had done, by making that protected disclosure,” says his friend.
“They also told him that while he might get €100,000 in court, the court case would land him with more stress.”
Although he had been declared fit, there was an attempt by an individual in the Defence Forces to have him declared unfit for courses or to serve abroad.
“This despite the fact that he was on armed guard duty at the time and he had also run the Dublin Marathon,” says his friend. “He was fit and more than able to do his job but there were others who had a different idea.
“They were harassing him and trying to make life as uncomfortable as possible. They were affecting his chances of promotion, of going on courses and serving abroad and making sure he would lose out financially as well. It was very demoralising.”
He managed to get around the attempts to have him declared unfit. A chance to get out of Ireland and — he hoped — away from the individuals determined to make his life hell presented itself in 2018.
He had the chance to go to Lebanon and his application to be a platoon section commander was quickly accepted.
Despite an attempt to stop him going, Soldier F dug his heels in, resisted it and he went to Lebanon.
“All he wanted to do was be a soldier, and serve and just get on with it,” his friend tells the .
“But after that incident with the broken nose, he just was never able to shake free, no matter where he went, from certain individuals higher than him who just had it in for him."
On a stopover en route from Beirut, he intervened in a row between a soldier and an NCO. “But for intervening, he ended up in trouble with the NCO, including an incident when the NCO challenged him to a fight in front of a Military Police officer who actually backed up his version of events.
“To be honest, I have lost count of the amount of times various officers went for him for either sticking up for himself or for sticking up for other soldiers.
“I think he is just sick and tired of the way people are treated in the army by a group of individuals who seem to just get away with it.
“No matter which way he looks, he is never very far from someone who has had it in for him."
Perhaps the complaint that effectively sealed Soldier F’s fate at the Defence Forces was when he spent time as an instructor in the Defence Forces Cadet School.
He was surprised to see the way cadets were both treated in front of other cadets and spoken about behind their backs.
He was told not to get familiar with cadets, and said they were “regularly referred to as ‘duds’, ‘fuckers’, ‘scum’, and ‘scumbags’".
“He witnessed a number of incidents, including a female who was told she would be kicked off the cadet course because she had injured herself while on a training course. He says he was encouraged to discipline cadets as much as possible.
“In one case, a cadet had a hurling stick thrust at his throat by an instructor.
“In another, a cadet routinely picked on by other instructors was told to ‘fuck off and die’ during one particular conversation.”
In a WhatsApp group for instructors, one instructor makes it clear they are looking for information to “get rid of people when they fuck up”.
Another is said to have advised their fellow instructors: "Do not offer violence or say something to a cadet that he may use to put you on the mat.”
The advice was given because “the school is under investigation for something, so we must act professionally at all times”.
Other advice included telling fellow instructors not to film or take photographs at an upcoming social event because they “don’t need anything turning up on social media”.
In reply, one instructor says: “Fuck’s sake, I was gonna bull one of the female cadets and send ye all videos.”
Soldier F made his protected disclosure over three dates in April, May, and June 2020.
The disclosure involved what former defence minister Simon Coveney later described as “serious matters of concern” about the school.
Mr Coveney asked Ms Meenan to review the issues Soldier F had raised and review the way training was being delivered.
She was also asked to examine whether the health and safety of cadets was compromised by issues Soldier F had raised and if the incidents breached the Defence Forces’ dignity charter.
Soldier F gave her his evidence in July 2020.
While her report was never made public for confidentiality reasons, according to the Government, Ms Meenan's recommendations were eventually published this year.
Just how long Soldier F will be staying in an office staring at a phone is anybody’s guess.
In recent months, he has taken on the job of tidying files in the office, according to friends. Sick of sitting in a room with a phone that doesn’t ring, he came up with the job himself.
He would doubtless like the last word, but he can’t have it, so his friend has it. “When you hear the army saying there is no more victimisation, or they are doing everything they can to stamp it out, all they need to do is pop along to the office with the phone that doesn't ring,” she says.
“There they will meet a soldier who higher-ranking soldiers tried to destroy because he stood up for himself and for his colleagues.”