Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, who spoke eloquently about the need for improved housing for service men and women and their families. I am grateful, too, to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire for his introduction to the Bill.

In my contribution today, I want to focus on protection from sexual and violent behaviour and domestic abuse, stalking and harassment, in Clauses 5 to 10; support for victims of service offences, in Clauses 11 and 12; service courts, in Clauses 21 to 27; and Schedules 2 and 3. These clauses and schedules all have a direct impact on the victims of offences perpetrated by service men and women. I have some concerns that, as they stand, the proposals do not give parity with the non-military administrative police and court systems. I also want to ask some questions about the protocols on visiting forces, in Clauses 41 and 42, in the light of the recent case in Cambridge.

My Front-Bench portfolio of victims and vulnerable people is more usually found in home affairs and justice legislation, and it is good to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, again. It is also good to see the Bill trying to strengthen the arrangements inside the military criminal justice system to match those elsewhere. I particularly thank Aurora New Dawn and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for their briefing on the Bill and for copying the letter that they have sent to the Secretary of State for Defence. Both groups are very concerned that there are some key gaps in the Armed Forces Bill that will mean that victims in the military system do not get the same level of support and protection. I really hope that the Minister will agree to a meeting with them and those who speak today on these issues, preferably before Committee stage. If possible, it might be helpful if the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, could be present at the meeting, because, as Courts Minister, she has recently been dealing with the equivalent in the non-military world.

I know from my own experience, two decades ago now, as a victim of a sustained, nearly three-year stalking campaign that the effect on victims of an obsessive, manipulative stalker is awful but, worse, that victims are re-victimised when those in the criminal justice system just do not understand how serious it can be. Since 2012, the laws relating to stalking have slowly changed, but those changes are only partially covered in the Bill. I note that the effectiveness of service stalking protection orders—SSPOs—will depend on the ability of military personnel, not just military police and courts, to recognise stalking, assess risk and respond appropriately. This is reflected in the report of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, which included an official recommendation that:

“The introduction of the restrictive orders under Clauses 5 and 6 should be accompanied by extensive training across the system in order for the measures to be properly understood, implemented, and enforced”.


One thing is clear: the need for training to identify and respond to stalking will be even greater within the Armed Forces setting than in the civilian world. That is because the nature of service life presents unique challenges, including hierarchical structures, close-knit communities, shared accommodation, deployments, and overlapping professional and personal relationships, as well as opportunities for community surveillance. We know already from domestic abuse cases in the military world that these factors will increase opportunities for perpetrators to maintain unwanted contact and try to exert control, as victims may continue to live, work and serve alongside them.

Effective implementation of SSPOs will therefore depend on specialist training delivered by independent experts, as in the civilian world, so that any personnel can recognise stalking behaviour, understand patterns of escalation and respond appropriately, as well as fully understand all the SSPO provisions, including the possibility of placing positive requirements on perpetrators. It is important to note that the statutory guidance on the independent stalking advocate requires specialist stalking responses and should not be subsumed within broader domestic abuse frameworks. Over a third of stalking cases are nothing to do with domestic relationships.

This is also reflected in the recommendations arising from the super-complaint on the police response to stalking, led by HMICFRS, the IOPC and the College of Policing, which highlighted the need to draw on specialist expertise in the development and delivery of all stalking training. Failure to identify stalking can result in victims being directed into responses that do not adequately address stalking-related risk and allow behaviours to escalate. Why is there no provision in the Bill for this important training?

Another area I have concerns about are the arrangements relating to the service stalking protection notices themselves. Early intervention is particularly important in stalking cases, where behaviours may escalate over time and are associated with an increased risk of serious violence and homicide. While the introduction of the SSPOs is very welcome, there remains a significant gap between identifying risk and securing an order within the civilian system.

The Bill addresses this challenge in the domestic abuse context through the provision of domestic abuse protection notices, which provide immediate protection while interim orders are being pursued. It is shocking that there is no equivalent mechanism in the Bill for stalking. Introducing service stalking protection notices would provide an important safeguard during this period and bring the stalking provisions into closer alignment with the domestic abuse framework.

It is not clear from the relevant clauses and Schedules 2 and 3 whether or not the Bill provides for continuity of protection after a convicted service man or woman has left the services. Whether a domestic abuse protection order, a stalking protection order, a sexual harm prevention order or a sexual risk order, it absolutely beggars belief that the service protection order automatically lapses when the offender has left the military, often after release from prison, even if the details of the protection order make it plain that the military police and/or military court still believe that the victims in these cases need formal protection.

It appears there is no facility at the moment to transfer protection orders, with the appropriate level of information, to the civilian police service where the victim and their dependants live, and the service where the offender will live, to explain under what circumstances the protection and prevention order was made. It should also ensure that victims are signposted to civilian victim support that is appropriate for their case. At best, the Bill is ambiguous; at worst, these specific issues and gaps were highlighted by the evidence of the Director of Service Prosecutions at the Bill’s Select Committee hearings.

When gaps such as this are created in stalking cases, danger thrives. The offender thinks they are home free and, especially with stalking, might well target their victim again. If they think that the police in their area do not know about them, that will embolden them further. Will the Minister say that the Government will table amendments prior to Committee to remedy this serious and dangerous gap?

Finally, I am very concerned by reports in the Guardian and by the BBC last week about the case of the US Air Force pilot, Captain Jacob Wulfson. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford is much more expert than I on the military court system of visiting forces, and I look forward to his contribution. My focus is on how badly the victim in this case was let down, not just by the US court-martial process but by the local police and the CPS, at the moment it was suggested—I presume by RAF Lakenheath—that the case should be moved from the Cambridgeshire Constabulary to the US military courts.

My information comes from the two reports of the case. The most horrifying aspect is how on earth the rape of a British subject in Cambridge, which is British soil, by an American who chose to live off-base in Cambridge, could be tried in a US system that derides and diminishes a victim in a way that our criminal justice system—from police to courts and appeals—absolutely cannot.

I mention the Wulfson case as an exemplar. We know there have been many other such cases where the US system has intervened but without the details becoming public. I suspect that many of those are equally unsatisfactory. For example, I did not know that, in the USA, no rape case can be tried without evidence from the victim, even if there is ample forensic and other witness evidence, and that the victim can be cross-examined and derided by the defence attorney in a manner absolutely forbidden in our courts. Further, I did not know that the prosecutor does not need to have specialised training in rape and other sexual offences to balance the defence attorney’s contribution, or that, in this particular case, the eight jurors—all service personnel from Lakenheath, who, under US law, can also judge the case—can include someone with a spent conviction for sexual assault. This is unbelievable.

The victim has been brave beyond measure, but she does not have—as we have here—the chance of submitting a request to the Attorney-General for a review of an unduly lenient sentence. Further, because she is an alien—that is, not an American citizen—she is not entitled to any support from the American victims system, which helps guide their citizens through. That is shameful. Even worse, any convicted US service man or woman has an automatic right of appeal, as well as being able to ask the Secretary of Defense or the President to grant them clemency because their military service outweighs their crime, even if it is a serious sexual or violent assault.

This case is an absolute travesty, but it is not isolated. We need to address why Cambridgeshire police or the CPS thought it appropriate to allow the case to pass to Lakenheath base. Can the Minister please write to those of us speaking on this issue today to answer the following questions? At what level was the decision to transfer made? What was the relevant rank of the police officer or CPS staff? Did they have training to do this and therefore understand the full legal ramifications of the decision on treatment and justice for the victim? Were there any referrals back to the Ministry of Justice? I presume they would be via the Attorney-General, but I do not know. Do the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Foreign Office have a co-ordinated approach to or a protocol for cases such as this, where the crime occurs on British soil but the case is moved to a visiting military court system?

It is interesting that we now have an interdepartmental protocol between the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the coroner service for when a British citizen is murdered abroad, with these departments all helping bereaved families. In cases similar to the Wulfson case, is there a protocol with these departments’ opposite numbers for high-level conversations to understand the consequences? I would be very grateful if the Minister, and the Courts Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, could provide the answers to these questions as a matter of urgency, preferably before I and others table amendments in Committee.