Army relationships ban 'outdated'

The Armed Forces frown on sexual relationships between staff

A former lieutenant colonel says the ban on sexual relationships between men and women in the Armed Forces is "outdated" and should be scrapped.

Diana Henderson, who served in the Royal Logistics Corps until 2000, is expected to call for an end to the ban in a public lecture at Bath University.

The director of alumni and development at Queens' College, Cambridge, says the ban is possibly illegal.

An Army spokesman declined to comment until after Dr Henderson's speech.

Dr Henderson said that with more women in the services, the ban is increasingly impractical.

She is also due to warn in her lecture that the sexual harassment of women in the Armed Forces, both subtle and unsubtle, remains a problem which must be tackled by the service chiefs.

Difficult 'ban'

Dr Henderson, an author on Scottish military history, will argue that with increasing numbers of women entering the services as recruitment among men falls, the ban is proving increasingly difficult to sustain.

Does it really reflect modern life? Diana Henderson

In units such as the Royal Logistics Corps, in which some regiments are now more than a third female, she will argue that it is "unrealistic, impractical, old-fashioned and in some cases illegal to allow these attitudes and rules to persist".

Speaking ahead of her lecture, she said: "That sort of thinking is old-fashioned now. Does it really reflect modern life?

"And if not, where is the compromise to be found between service discipline, military effectiveness and real relationships in the modern world?"