ONE of the army’s most secretive special forces units is facing allegations of sex discrimination and bullying from a female corporal who accuses some of its soldiers of using a picture of her for live target practice.

Corporal Leah Mates, 30, from Calne, Wiltshire, will tell an employment tribunal next month that she was so worried by the incident, involving other members of the Det, a top secret Northern Ireland surveillance unit, that she feared for her life.

In addition to the target incident, she alleges that she was subjected to insulting graffiti, was called a “cow” and a “dog” and was passed over for several postings to which male colleagues were then assigned.

The allegations, if proven,would undermine the reputation of the Det, which prides itself on putting women in dangerous frontline roles.

The Det is already under scrutiny for its involvement in the surveillance operation in London in July that led to the killing by armed police of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was wrongly believed to be a terrorist.

The Det is now being absorbed into the new Special Reconnaissance Regiment, which is at the forefront of the war on terrorism. Part of the old unit, previously known as 14 Intelligence Company, remains in Northern Ireland where it is carrying out covert surveillance. The work is so clandestine that some of the tribunal will be closed and held at a secret location.

When Mates served with the unit from January 2002 to February 2004, its cover name was Joint Communications Unit Northern Ireland (JCUNI). The unit’s personnel did not use real ranks and names and were identified only by pseudonyms.

In a blow to the reputation of the unit, Mates alleges that it was “even more prejudiced against female service personnel than the mainstream army”.

Male members of the unit made up salacious stories about female personnel and referred to the women’s accommodation as “Tampax Towers”.

Mates alleges discrimination in the refusal of her commanding officer to allow her to go on two separate training courses that would have enhanced her chances of promotion.

The most serious incident while she was serving with JCUNI came in November 2002 on the unit’s firing range. Three male soldiers, including an NCO who was about to take over as her immediate boss, had drawn a picture of her with her name on it on a target they were using for firearms practice.

“The applicant took the target incident to be a direct threat to her life,” her tribunal application states. “She began to suffer sleeplessness, loss of appetite, headaches and loss of breath.

“She felt depressed and stressed. The applicant felt unable to seek medical advice as this would result in her being relieved of her duties.”

After the NCO involved in the target incident took over as her boss, she began to find graffiti about herself on the desks. “She found comments such as ‘Leah is a rat-head’, ‘F*** you Leah’ and ‘Leah is a cow’,” the application states.

In February 2003 her commander saw graffiti about her in the unit bar that said: “Leah is a dog. Tick here if Leah is a dog.” He asked her why she had not complained to him about it. She told him she had no confidence that anything would be done if she did complain.

“The detachment commander agreed the applicant was being victimised by her line managers and said he would speak to them,” the application states. But nothing changed and eventually she left the Det.

Mates, who originally served with Royal Signals, further alleges that she has faced serious sexual harassment and discrimination throughout her 10 years in the army.

She claims that while serving as a lance-corporal in the Balkans in June 1999 she was forced to sleep as the only woman in a tent with seven male soldiers in her section. On another occasion, a corporal who had shared the tent sat down next to Mates as she was working and allegedly ran his hand down her thigh and back. Other soldiers called her “chipboard chest” in a jibe at the size of her breasts, she maintains.

Mates, who is leaving the army, says she worked extremely hard, frequently achieving top marks on training courses, but “the continuing and drawn-out acts of discrimination” have now convinced her it is impossible to fulfil her potential as a soldier. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment ahead of the tribunal.

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