Ex-navy member: You’re seen as a traitor for making a sex assault complaint

A former member of the navy, who claims she was sexually assaulted by a crewmate on board a naval vessel, said people who make such complaints are made to feel like traitors.

The woman told a district court sitting in Cork yesterday that she had been sexually assaulted on board the vessel some years earlier, but that senior officers effectively talked her out of making a formal complaint.

She said, while the ship was on patrol at sea, the accused approached her in the mess area twice, once to ask her for a blowjob, and on another occasion to go to a cabin for “a quick one”.