Soldier had to enter river where dead sheep was floating to get promotion, tribunal told

'I feel it was levelled at me because of my physical differences and probably, if I’m perfectly honest, because of my gender.'

A member of the Defence Forces has spoken of how degraded she felt to be ordered into a river in which a dead sheep was floating, as part of a promotion process.

Sergeant Rena  Kennedy  also told the Defence Forces Tribunal how she was slammed against a wall and thrown to the floor by an officer because she reported him for aggressive behaviour towards a heavily pregnant private.

The press officer, who has been with the Defence Forces for 33 years, was the latest person to give evidence to the tribunal which is investigating whether the ineffectiveness of complaints processes in the Defence Forces enabled a culture of silence around abuse.

Sgt Kennedy began her corporal’s promotion process in 1998 and said she was immediately “singled out” by the lieutenant overseeing the course. She said she was targeted for a prolonged period as the officer in question had an issue with her perceived lack of physical strength.

“I felt I deserved to be there. It became clear very quickly that others didn’t share that view,” she said.

Sgt Kennedy said she was “set up to fail” during the daily run involving herself and the 41 other male candidates on the corporal’s course. She said the lieutenant would run ahead at such a pace “it was impossible to keep up”.

Some of her male colleagues initially tried to help her only to themselves become the focus of the commander’s scrutiny. “After a while they stopped helping,” she said.

The sergeant spoke then of facing a test of battle tactics in Wicklow’s Glen of Imaal, during which the commanding officer took issue with a stammer she had developed.

“He just lost patience with me, brought me to the river and told me to get in. There is absolutely an expected level of pressure, but this was just so personal. Other people made bigger mistakes and nothing was done. It was the act of punishing me for something I couldn’t control,” she said.

“When I was in the river I looked down and there was a dead sheep. I was in the same water and it was just so degrading,” she said, noting that the lieutenant “could see what was in the river, and picked that point”.

“I feel it was levelled at me because of my physical differences and probably, if I’m perfectly honest, because of my gender,” she said. Sgt Kennedy said the order had been “a test to see would I obey”.

She said she had declined to complain about her treatment as to do so would have been “career suicide”. “That was the culture, the norm. If you complained, you couldn’t hack it,” she said.

The sergeant described a further incident during a subsequent sergeant’s course in 2004, which saw her “scapegoated” after a weapon was accidentally discharged in the Glen of Imaal leading to the non-fatal wounding of a soldier.

Regarding the fallout from the incident, she said she had been “isolated” by her colleagues. She said her commanding officer “didn’t want to know anything about what had happened”. 

“I was left in that individual’s chain of command until he decided to leave. 

The fact that any complaint I might make had to go through him, even though it was about him, was so dysfunctional.

She said that while the incident had not been her fault, she had been forced to listen to people saying “what do you expect when you put a woman in charge?” for months afterwards.

Sgt Kennedy detailed a third incident from 2005, in which an officer she had reported for aggressive behaviour towards a heavily pregnant private subsequently attacked her in a corridor, slamming her against a wall and throwing her to the floor.

She said she had never reported the attack as “I just felt I would not be believed”. “He was a popular guy. I would have been the one cast aside, and I wasn’t prepared to go through that for a third time.”

“It is not easy to criticise an organisation and a career that I love,” she said. She disputed the suggestion that she has had a “very successful career”.

“Others I have mentioned have reached the very pinnacle of their careers. I’ve had a long career but I’m at the same rank I was 27 years ago which is disappointing to me,” she said.