Sexual Harassment Causes Suicide with Philip Grindell

In this, my first video recorded podcast without a guest, I’ll share why subscribing to this podcast will deliver even more value this year, with an episode every week.

In this episode I’ll share my thought of the appalling circumstances that led to a young female British soldier taking her own life following a campaign of sexual harassment by not one, but two of her superiors.

This case illustrates why so few cases are in fact reported, as it highlights the four reasons why victims don’t report allegations and why addressing these issues in important, morally, financially and for security and safety reasons.

Transcript

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Diffuse Podcast

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Grindell , CEO and founder of Diffuse , a global threat and intelligence consultancy that blends psychology and intelligence to mitigate threats and risks to prominent people and brands .

Speaker 2 0:17

Hello and welcome to the first video version of the Diffuse podcast . First video version of the Diffuse podcast . Now , for those of you who are regulars , you'll know that traditionally , what we've done over the last three or four years is interview some of the most prestigious guests from around the world in our subject , and we're going to continue doing that , although they've always been on audio , and we're going to be moving more towards these type of video sessions . And what we're going to be doing is splitting those interviews into two so that we get two podcasts out of it , and we'll release those once every couple of weeks , so you get sort of two a month for about 30 minutes , which seems to be a more palatable time period for people to have to listen to the podcast . So , then , what we're also going to do is you're going to get me on my own which you may have views on , I don't know , but I'm going to be also doing kind of two sessions , which will be anything from sort of 15 to 30 minutes or so , really talking about some things that are in the news , that are relevant , the things that are happening in our world and how I think what we do and some of the practices and methodologies that we use might have benefited . But before I start there , I want to make a couple of announcements . Firstly , I'm absolutely thrilled that my new book is is I'll put that there so you can see it instead of me is going to be published in a couple of weeks . It's already available for pre-order and I know plenty of you have pre-ordered it on Amazon .

Speaker 2 2:01

It's called Personal Threat Management a practitioner's guide to keeping your clients safer , but it's also of interest to individuals , perhaps even your clients . It talks about all the subjects that we cover in our podcasts and our newsletters , which I'll come on to . It talks about targeting . What is targeting ? How is somebody targeted ? What's the methodology that people use ? What are the indicators that somebody's being targeted ? What are the proximal or pre-attack indicators that have been researched and proven to be often prevalent , often prevalent . And then things like unwanted attention , harassment , stalking , online abuse , how to know when a threat's genuine or is it just noise , a situational awareness , what sort of security actually works , what actually makes you feel safer ? So hopefully it covers all the issues that I think are relevant .

Speaker 2 3:09

It's one of those things when you write a book I don't know whether you've done it , but when you write a book , you kind of write it and it takes quite a long time . It's taken a year and actually only now , when I see it in print and I got it a couple of weeks ago you realise just how good it is and you feel really quite proud of yourself about writing it . But , most importantly , some of the feedback I've had has been extraordinary and kind of beyond what I really expected . So I hope you enjoy it . If you choose to buy it which I'd certainly recommend you do , if you're listening or watching to our podcast , I'd absolutely recommend it . And so we have the book which I say is there to be ordered now , and I hope you enjoy that . Obviously , we have the podcast , which I hope you subscribe to . It's going to be kind of weekly-ish from now onward , so you'll get more of us and more information and hopefully you'll subscribe and listen to that on a weekly basis .

Speaker 2 3:55

But I want to talk also about our newsletter , which I know some of you receive , but I'm sure more of you might want to receive it , and it's called Diffuse News . There's a theme here , isn't there ? Everything's called Diffuse , and that's because that's what we choose and aim to do to diffuse the issues that our customers and clients are experiencing . So Diffuse News comes out every Monday morning and it takes no more than three to five minutes to read , but it just covers I tend to do like an article that covers something that's happening , that's relevant , and then we obviously promote our podcasts , the book or other events that we're appearing in . So again , the feedback we get .

Speaker 2 4:38

I got two wonderful emails this week from two people who I really respect and admire , so thank you to those for that wonderful acknowledgement that what we're doing is continuing to be of value . So again , subscribe . You can do that by going onto our website at diffuseglobalcom and you can subscribe to our newsletter there . Be rest assured that we will not and we do not just then bombard you with marketing emails . That's not . I hate receiving that when I subscribe to an email , to a newsletter , and then I get , you know , hundreds of emails every week telling me stuff I hadn't asked for and trying to sell me stuff . We don't do that , and so you won't get loads of emails trying to sell you stuff that you're not interested in . But please give us your correct details when you're subscribing , otherwise we won't know who you are and and sometimes you know , we're unable to actually to use those emails . So , uh , it's uh , it's not data we share . Um , we , we take privacy very seriously and therefore it's something we do for our clients and therefore we're going to do it for our listeners as well , so I'd certainly encourage you to subscribe to that .

Speaker 2 5:52

So today I want to talk about a really sad case that's going through an inquest at the moment , in fact , in the UK , and it hits lots of different elements for me that I feel really passionate about and some of the things that we deal with in Diffuse and certainly some of the things we've been talking about for the last few months . And this particular case relates to a young lady called JC Beck who was 19 when she took her own life . She was a young soldier serving in the British Army who was subjected to not just one case but two cases of unwanted attention , and this comes under the title of workplace violence . Now , in the US , I'm very conscious that's a term that people recognise , it's a term that they understand . Here in the UK and across Europe it isn't a term that's widely used , and the reason for that tends to be that the term violence conjures up images of mass shootings and marauding attackers , etc . And I understand that . I get that Often we use terms such as toxic workplaces , toxic behavior , all sorts of other terms . We don't tend to have kind of one term in the UK , which is part of the reason why some of the research that we get is patchy . But in essence , what workplace violence means is any behaviour that is unwanted , that is criminal , that is threatening or abusive or violent , and that includes bullying and harassment , stalking , all those other types of offences which you may not consider to be violent but come under this , this title of workplace violence .

Understanding Workplace Violence Dynamics

Speaker 2 7:57

Now there are four uh types of workplace violence . There is , um , the first type is crime , so people who are committing crime in the workplace externally . So that's robbery and burglary and other offences like that . That's one type . So those are people who come into the workplace to commit crime . Let's park that one for the moment . The second one and it's the one we're going to be talking about in a moment is employee on employee , and that is where there is a problem within the workplace between employees , and sometimes they are of the same level , sometimes they're between an employee and a supervisor and sometimes they can be one individual who's causing problems in the workplace . I think you probably , if you're like me , you will have worked in an environment where somebody is found to be behaving in a way that is unacceptable and when that person is identified , everybody said , oh yeah , yeah , he was always a bit this or always a bit that , so it never comes as a great surprise . So the third type is a customer or client , and that can be everything from the person who assaults or abuses a member of staff when they're in a retail environment or a hospitality environment . So we know that , in terms of physical assaults , those people who work in hospitality and in the retail environment , but also in public services , so such as we know that , certainly within the UK , our hospital staff , nurses and doctors are very often abused and threatened and sometimes violently attacked . That all comes under workplace violence .

Speaker 2 9:51

And then the last one , which a lot of people don't necessarily think about and maybe forget , is kind of domestic type scenarios . So when an employee that is working for you or in the company that your organisation you're working in has an external relationship , and that might be , and it's completely unrelated to work , but it might be something like they have a , they have a relationship breakdown , they're going through a divorce or something , or it might be there are child care issues or something similar , and that person the the should we call it the adversary may , for instance , not be living with them anymore or not be allowed any contact with them anymore . The victim may be living in a safe place now , etc . But the one place they know they're going to be is at work , and so they come to the workplace to cause problems . I read a statistic not long ago that something in the region of three quarters of domestic violence victims so that's people who are involved in a domestic violence scenario at home get harassed by that person whilst they're at work . So you can see how much that impacts on the workplace , how much that would detract from them being able to be focusing . But there's been plenty of scenarios , even here in the UK , where the adversary has turned up in the workplace and has become violent and has , in some of the most extreme cases , killed people at work . Work and they may be the victim themselves . Or it might be a line manager , or it might be a security professional that steps in and seeks to to eject that person . So we mustn't forget that one , because it's sometimes the most dangerous one . Now , about 80 of all those cases go unreported .

Speaker 2 11:49

People don't report them , and there are four general reasons why that happens . So the first one is they don't actually know where to report . So the interesting thing about this is that when you go and do some reviews of organizations as I have done the management they'll say yeah , well , we've got very clear processes what happens . But the reality is that most employees have never read a policy document . They may not know where they're supposed to report . It may not be published , particularly , they may have been told when they first joined but they can't remember . So it's really important to ensure that that information is either publicly displayed or repeatedly communicated so that all the employees know exactly where they should report their concerns . Because if they're not reporting their concerns , an organization is like and it's a cliche , I know , but it's like sitting on an iceberg waiting for some awful event to happen . And we've seen over the last 12 months where various organizations , some world famous organizations , all of a sudden get a lot of historical cases coming out and the people that are working there now don't recognize that culture , but they are blamed for historical events . So it's really important to make sure that people know where to report their concerns .

Speaker 2 13:13

The second one is they're not always sure what to report . Well , what behaviours should I report ? What do you consider unacceptable behaviours ? Now , again , there's some obvious ones , but actually there's research material about the type of behaviours that you should report . We've got those behaviours on our website . You can download them and you should communicate those again or publicly display them , so that people know exactly not only where they can report , but what you want them to report .

Speaker 2 13:47

We all know , don't we ? We've all been in that scenario when somebody gets reported , somebody gets exposed for bad behavior , and we all say , oh God , yeah , him or her , they were always a bully or they're always a bit handsy , or they're always a bit of . Oh yeah , I was kept away from them . It's not a surprise , is it when these people get found out away from them ? It's not a surprise , is it when these people get found out ? So we need to do everything we can to make sure people get reported . I , when I was working in Parliament , increased reporting by 400% and that was the reason that we identified a terrorist attack . That's how serious it is .

Speaker 2 14:25

It doesn't always mean they're going to tell you something about workplace violence . It may be something about a security breach or something else , but if you create that environment where people can report and want to report and are encouraged to report , then they will do . Which brings me on to the two final pieces of the jigsaw , because the two final pieces are extremely important . A third reason people don't report is they just don't trust the investigation . They just don't think it's independent , they don't think it's going to be done without bias and they don't think it's going to really solve their problem . And then the fourth reason , which comes on to that again , is that they fear repercussions . They think they're going to be exposed . There's no confidentiality , or they think that the investigation will be sort of brushed under the carpet and they're going to be blamed and exposed and actually their lives are going to be worse . What we also know is that very often , rather than report or because of one of those four reasons people leave organizations , of those one of those four reasons people leave organizations .

Speaker 2 15:32

In my own family over the last three or four years I've had two members of my family who've been bullied at work really blatant , I mean . If you read some of the text messages and if you listen to some of the behaviors . It's just appalling . One person left because they just chose not to report it , because they feared what it might do to their career , and the other left because the investigation was so poor , it was ridiculous and they actually said , oh no , no , they're not a bully , it's just a cultural thing , which is just nonsense . So these are really important .

Speaker 2 16:09

Which brings us back to the case of JC Beck , who was a young 19-year-old soldier serving in the British Army and she was systematically targeted by two people , both of whom were senior to her , and they harassed her , sexually harassed her . One of those sexually assaulted her with the allegations that are made , and another one consistently harassed her by texting , et cetera and telling her or sharing his feelings and et cetera about her . Both of these people should have known better . Both of these people were in a position of responsibility . Now she did report these concerns , but the investigation was woeful .

Speaker 2 17:06

Some of the news that's coming out from the inquest says that the officer who was tasked with investigating didn't really take it that seriously because he thought she was just making up stuff , because she wanted to move bases . So he just effectively had an immediate bias in his investigation Because that was his starting position . He therefore failed to conduct a proper investigation and you know that's kind of day one stuff , but even so one of the parties was kind of found to be in the wrong . Very clearly , I would argue they committed sexual offences . If what she says was true and I've no doubt that what she said was true and all that happened was he wrote her a letter apologising .

Speaker 2 17:52

So again , the investigation fails because the sanctions or the result of that aren't sufficient . And if she's being sexually assaulted , those are criminal offences . They're criminal offences in the United Kingdom . Forget about the workplace , forget about the workplace , forget about the workplace issues . If somebody commits a criminal offence against another person at work , that is a criminal offence and should be reported to the police , and in this case it should be reported to the military police .

Speaker 1 18:23

But it wasn't .

Speaker 2 18:25

So it's a tragedy that shouldn't have happened . Now it throws up some issues which I think are consistent , and that is that I think often people who are investigating don't really understand the level of fear and anxiety that these behaviours cause . This young lady was so scared that , rather than sleep in the barracks , she slept in her car , her locked car . Now you know that should be a red flag to anyone who's investigating if they're doing it properly . But you know , think about it logically . If this was your daughter or your wife or your girlfriend or a relation or a friend , would that really be how you'd want her to be treated at work ? Because she was a young lady , joined the army doing the right thing , serving her country , the last thing she expected was to be treated like this . She was even told that if she reported it or when she reported it , these things don't go well for women in the army . So you can imagine what her feelings were . Around the repercussions Again , we highlighted that earlier , didn't we ? The repercussions of reporting these types of things . So this case illustrates everything that's wrong with how sexual harassment is treated in the workplace . Now , interestingly , the law in this country changed in october last year , 2024 , where it made it an offense not to take proper precautions to prevent or reasonable precautions to to prevent sexual harassment . This probably predates that , I think , but it is so clear that this needed to be dealt with better . So we've got this element of fear . Then we've got this second element , which happens a lot , which is called , you know , which is lack of victim care , and I see this an awful lot . I see this when I'm independently representing clients who are reporting issues to the police and the lack of victim care , the lack of real empathy and understanding what they're going through , the lack of risk assessment and looking at okay , how can we make you feel safer ? There's a real difference between being safe and feeling safe . She clearly didn't feel safe , which is why she took her own life . I mean , you can't think of a worse scenario and the support that she got was non-existent . They didn't believe her , they didn't look after her , they didn't take it seriously . I mean it's just an absolute tragedy , this case , but I have no doubt that there are cases all across the country , and probably wherever you are listening from , that are exactly the same . They may not end , and I hope they don't end in such an awful , catastrophic way .

Speaker 2 21:25

But we need to improve the way that we're dealing with sexual harassment and other forms of harassment and workplace unwanted attention or bullying or violence in the workplace . You've got to take it seriously . You've got to recognise that . They've got to be properly investigated . I would argue they should be independently investigated . It shouldn't be investigated by a line manager or an officer . Very often those people are not qualified or competent to investigate .

Speaker 2 22:00

So if you're thinking about it and you're thinking , oh , you will get the HR team to investigate , well , are the HR team trained and qualified in recognising criminal offences ? Are the HR team trained and qualified in recognising criminal offences such as sexual touching , which is the the name of the offence in the UK ? It's not sexual assault anymore , it's sexual touching . Are they trained and qualified to do that ? Do you need to get someone in , that is , even if it's just to work with them , so that they can actually be ?

Speaker 2 22:24

You can be sure that you're covering all your bases because , reputationally , forget about everything else . Reputationally , that's that you're covering all your bases Because , reputationally , forget about everything else . Reputationally , that's all you're worried about . This is catastrophic for the British Army today and it could be your organisation . So it's a really serious subject . I feel so sad that Jaisley took her own life totally unnecessarily and I hope that she rests in peace . But yeah , preventable , totally preventable . So that's it for this week . Our second podcast from Andrew Sanderson is out next week , which is again going to be brilliant . It's all about privacy and reputational management , so listen into that . I hope this has been used and enjoyable and I'll see you very soon .

Speaker 1 23:17

Thank you for listening to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Rindell , ceo and founder of Diffuse . Please rate , review and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platforms .