Colonel Samantha Shepherd faced a court martial on charges of “conduct prejudicial to good order and service discipline” following the death of 19-year-old Gunner Jaysley Beck. Beck, who was stationed at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire, died by suicide in December 2021 after reporting that she had been sexually assaulted.

The proceedings centered on whether Colonel Shepherd had failed to properly address the allegations made by the young soldier before her death. However, the trial concluded on Wednesday when Assistant Judge Advocate General Edward Legard announced that the prosecution had determined there was insufficient evidence to safely proceed with a conviction. Consequently, the charges against Shepherd were dropped.

The BBC and The Guardian both report the acquittal, though they differ slightly in their framing of the military's internal accountability. The Guardian provides more specific detail regarding the composition of the board—noting it included an RAF air commodore and a navy captain—and explicitly links the charge to the specific legal standard of “conduct prejudicial to good order and service discipline.” The BBC focuses more directly on the tragic context of the soldier's death, framing the story around the outcome of the abuse case handling.