[AFB0011]

Written evidence submitted by Aurora New Dawn

Call for Evidence - Armed Forces Bill 2026

Date: 26th February 2026

Author: Zoe Jackson, Deputy CEO, Aurora New Dawn

Introduction

Aurora New Dawn (‘Aurora’) is a registered Charity, based in Hampshire (UK) providing support to victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and/or stalking through a variety of specialist services. We are accredited by national charity Safelives as a Leading Light service - the mark of quality for domestic abuse services in the UK - and a member of the Women’s Aid Federation of England.

Since 2017, Aurora has worked closely with the armed forces community, developing bespoke support services for personnel and their families who are experiencing domestic abuse, sexual violence, and stalking. Alongside direct support to victims, we provide regular case guidance and training to personnel. Our services – which now include direct advocacy, an international helpline and group work support programmes – are available to Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force personnel and their family members, both across the UK and overseas.

The bespoke support we provide has been highlighted as best practice by The Ministry of Defence (pages 179-180),  HMICFRS (page 25), mentioned in Hansard and featured in a 2022 Times Article in relation to sexual violence in the UK armed forces. In May of 2025 we published 'Invisible Battles', a report exploring the often-overlooked experiences of victims and survivors within the armed forces community, the barriers they face when seeking help and the urgent need for specialist services that respond to their unique needs. On the back of this report, we launched the Armed Forces Practice Network - a group of frontline services and professionals who are working, campaigning, or researching in this space, with a view to sharing knowledge and promoting improved collaboration. In October 2025, we hosted the first conference focusing on Violence Against Women and Girls in the armed forces context, which brought together Armed Forces personnel, frontline services and experts from across the UK. Our work with the armed forces community is referred to in the 2025 Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.

We recognise that those from the forces community are often worried about the consequences of speaking out about these issues. Service life is different, and for those in the forces community experiencing domestic abuse, sexual violence or stalking, the risks, barriers, and the support options can also look and feel different as a result. It is this understanding that forms the basis of the support and training we offer, and on which we have built a specialist team of advocates who have lived experience of the forces community.  More information on our armed forces work can be found here.

Our work with victims necessitates regular engagement with both the Criminal and Service Justice Systems, and our team regularly support their clients in court and at court martial. We have developed close working relationships with Defence Serious Crime Command (DSCC) and the Victim Witness Care Unit (VWCU). DSCC/VWCU are one of the main referrers to our services and a member of our armed forces team is now co-located at the VWCU one day a week. Through her work as an associate trainer for national charity Safelives, our Deputy CEO was involved with the rollout of the College of Policing’s ‘DA Matters’ change programme to the Service police in 2023 and continues to work with DSCC to deliver this training. Drawing on our independent work with victims, and our presence on the ground within the Service Justice System, we advocate for ongoing change at an institutional level, acting as a ‘critical friend’ to our partners in defence, and centering the voices of victims and survivors in our advocacy and campaigning work.

We are responding specifically to the ‘Service Justice System’ element of the call for evidence.

• To what extent will the Bill’s provisions on the Service Justice System help achieve the Government’s target of halving Violence Against Women and Girls within a decade? 

We are pleased to see the introduction of the measures in the Bill and welcome this commitment to strengthening the Service Justice System’s response to violence against women and girls.

If the reforms within the Bill are to deliver meaningful change on the ground, they must be accompanied by clear guidance, training for personnel (at all levels) and the resourcing necessary to enforce relevant provisions and ensure their effectiveness. Plans for implementation and rollout must also consider the unique complexities of military life, the nature of the armed forces as an institution, and the particular barriers and challenges faced by victims and survivors from the forces community when reporting violence and abuse and navigating relevant support systems.

Alongside the Bill’s provisions, which provide for improved responses to victims and survivors after harm has occurred, there is a need to address the conditions in which that harm is able to occur in the first place. Ongoing culture change work is essential, as is robust and early intervention to identify and address attitudes that underpin and support unacceptable behaviour.

• What is the expected impact of granting additional powers to Service Courts to make orders relating to sexual harm, domestic abuse, and stalking? 

The ability for the service police to issue protective orders such as DNPN/Os and Stalking Protection orders is a long-overdue alignment with the protections already available in civilian contexts. We know, through our training work with service police personnel, that they want to do more to protect victims and survivors: having the same tools available to them as their civilian policing counterparts is an important step in the right direction.

In order for these orders to be properly utilised, however, there must be widespread awareness of them, and it is imperative that their rollout is accompanied by sufficient training. The deployment cycle means that policing personnel may return to general policing duties after a period of time away, at any time after the rollout of these orders has occurred, making continual and repeated training a necessity to ensure ongoing effectiveness.

In addition, these orders can only protect victims – and contribute towards a reduction in violence against women and girls - if they are sufficiently enforced. We know from the work that our Senior Management Team undertake in chairing Domestic Homicide Reviews, that enforcement of protective orders (i.e. the taking of positive action on breach of those orders) is an ongoing issue for the Home Office Police. In practical terms the enforcement of such orders made by the Service Courts will fall, in most cases, to the Home Office police, particularly out of hours and/or where families live ‘outside of the wire’. It will be imperative, therefore, that communication between service policing and Home Office police systems is adequate, ahead of the rollout, so there are no undue barriers to enforcement at the time a breach occurs. Where orders fall to the Service Police to enforce, personnel must be clear on their responsibilities to take positive action and be equipped to do so from the very start (i.e. before the new provisions come into force.) Lessons should be learned here from gaps in the Home Office police response to such orders.

• Do the Bill’s measures go far enough to support and ensure justice for victims of service offences? 

The introduction of improved rights for victims of service offences, alongside the establishment of the Armed Forces Commissioner, signals a shift towards greater transparency. We know from our work with victims from the armed forces community that independent oversight is essential: victims repeatedly tell us that fear of repercussions, rank, or reputational damage continues to deter reporting, and that the Service Complaints process is failing to deliver sufficient accountability and transparency where things have gone wrong. If the Government is serious about culture change, then independence must not only exist on paper but be visible, tangible, and properly resourced.

The introduction of a Code of Practice for victims is a welcome addition to the Bill: we are in full support this move to put the provision of information and support, and the ability to be heard and to challenge, on a formal footing. These are principles which underpin our Armed Forces Advocacy service, and the basis on which we challenge process, policy and practice in our day-to-day work. Having access to a written code improves what is offered to victims, and it enhances our ability, as a service working within the SJS, to advocate on their behalf.

In relation to the provisions within the code regarding access to support services for victims, we would emphasise the importance of support which understands the unique complexities of service life and is able to work in and around relevant policy frameworks and service systems. This is something that was highlighted within our 2025 'Invisible Battles' Report, and the basis upon which we are developing our Armed Forces Service Standards: an initiative funded by the Veteran’s Foundation which will act as a practice framework and associated ‘quality mark’ for frontline domestic abuse and sexual violence services who are working with the forces community.  We believe both in the importance of giving victims and survivors choice over the support that they access, and that they should have access to support that understands their unique needs: through the ongoing development of our Armed Forces Service Standards we aim to facilitate both and contribute to continual improvement in this area.

We would also highlight the importance of proactive referral into support services, and suggest this is incorporated into any practice guidance that accompanies the new code. The most common route into our armed forces support services at the current time is by self-referral, i.e. victims who have found our service themselves and/or made contact directly to seek support. 29% of our referrals in the last 12 months have been self-referrals – greater than any other individual referral source (DSCC, VWCU, individual welfare services, Divisional Officers, Unit Welfare Officers etc)

We recognise that victims and survivors from the forces community may prefer to access services directly for a variety of reasons, not least because they may not want to disclose their experiences to their chain of command, welfare services or similar at that time: we will always offer self-referral options for this reason. However, we are also keen to see increased levels of proactive referral to services like ours (with victim consent) This enables us to reach out to those victims in the first instance, alleviating the pressure on them to contact services themselves and having to re-tell their story unnecessarily. It also assists with getting support in place from an early stage and offers improved opportunities for partnership working. We would suggest that proactive referral into support services (as opposed to simply signposting) is encouraged under the code.

• How will the Service Policing Protocol improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Service Justice System? 

In order to improve confidence in the Service Justice System, victims must be assured that investigations are robust and will be conducted without improper influence or interference.  We welcome the concept of a Service Policing Protocol, and its focus on improving collaborative working and reducing the potential for obstruction in the investigative process.

• Are the Bill’s measures relating to concurrent jurisdiction sufficient? 

We believe that they are, at present. We were pleased to see provisions within the Bill that will allow the victim of a service offence where there is concurrent jurisdiction to express a preference as to which jurisdiction that alleged offence should be tried in. Informed choice is crucial to improving trust and transparency: in relation to this we also note recent announcements on the introduction of free legal advice for survivors of sexual offences, which we will be watching with interest.

We are conscious that there has been much debate on the issue of concurrent jurisdiction and increasing calls for serious offences – including rape - to be tried in civilian courts. At present, our position in relation to the issue of concurrent jurisdiction is a pragmatic one. We note that court Martial convictions remain very low: this is something that should be explored in more depth and monitored closely for improvements as new mechanisms – including those within this Bill – are implemented. We are also mindful, however, of clear and identified issues in the Civilian Justice System with regards to these offences, on the basis of which the Rape Review Action plan[1] was introduced. Our experience is that recent changes, such as the introduction of Defence Serious Crime Command (DSDCC) and the Victim and Witness Care Unit (VWCU) have been positive: we have certainly seen improved collaboration in our work as a result. DSCU and VWCU make regular referrals into our service, and one of our armed forces advocates is now co-located within VWCU one day a week.  As opposed to a blanket approach whereby all cases are moved from one problematic system to another, therefore, we support the ongoing monitoring of the Service Justice System’s performance, against an expectation of ongoing, demonstratable improvement. We hope that the introduction of new measures – such as those in this bill – support that process.

We also take this view on the basis of our experience ‘on the ground’ as it relates to both systems. We have previously submitted evidence to the Defence Select Committee (updated as of March 2026) in which we outline some of the potential disadvantages of trying armed forces-related cases in civilian systems, using real case examples, some of which are replicated below:

              “On a recent case at Crown Court, the victim had to explain the whole military process and had               to translate all the language and terminology, including the rank system, when she took the               stand.  This meant her giving evidence took over two and a half hours.  In Court Martial, she               would have probably only taken the stand for an hour.  This goes a little of the way to show what               a difference having military understanding means. Her OIC (civilian), who visited her before she               left Crown Court, said she had no idea how complex the military system was. It is easy for               perpetrators to use the general public’s lack of understanding to their advantage. “

              “In another recent case at Crown Court, the perpetrator had a character reference from his               Warrant Officer.  In this reference, it was documented that he had received a prestigious award               for long standing service, instilling the idea in the civilian jury that he was a true hero for our               country.  The truth is that every serving person receives this award after 15 years of service as               long as they have had good conduct. We made the prosecutor aware of this so that she could               bring it up – but again, without someone with military knowledge being present, this could have               impacted on the result. “

And similarly, an example of where forces knowledge is important to the outcome of a case:

              “On a recent case we worked on in the civilian justice system the judge was fortuitously ex-              forces. For this reason and based on her understanding of military protocol she appropriately               identified that some of the claims the perpetrator was adopting as his defence were               inappropriate:

Both victim and accused were serving personnel, and the defence claimed the victim alleged the rape to ‘avoid punishment’. In this circumstance a jury hearing that a soldier had broken the rules, by drinking the night before going on ranges with live ammunition, may have sounded like a plausible reason to avoid what they believe is a severe punishment. The reality was the judge knew that the CoC were aware there was a mess function the night before (all evidenced) and as such the CoC would be checking personnel were fit to be on the ranges as they arrived. The judge stopped the defence before the jury were able to hear these defence claims. She made it clear that the punishment for drinking before the ranges was not overly cumbersome and never has been. However, without knowledge of forces protocols on punishment, this claim by defence could be made to sound reasonable to a jury. Thankfully the judge did not allow the defence to continue with this narrative, and a conviction was secured. 

              A civilian judge with no military knowledge probably would have believed the perpetrators               defence claims. This links with our previous point about the military service & professional               standing in the community, which is often being viewed positively by those outside military               culture (including juries), the reality is that perpetrators within the forces use this to their               advantage wherever they can.”

• Are the Bill’s measures granting additional powers to Commanding Officers appropriate? 

In principle, this is positive, however as with other provisions in the Bill, additional powers or enforcement mechanisms are of little impact if they are not appropriately utilised and/or if the individual who has those powers does not possess the requisite knowledge or understanding to use them to their full potential.

In order for these additional powers to be effective, Commanding Officers (COs) must possess at least a basic understanding the dynamics of domestic abuse and/or sexual violence and - if they do not – they must be receptive to specialist advice and to working in collaboration with specialists accordingly.

We have been fortunate to work alongside many dedicated COs who have openly embraced partnership working and the taking of advice both internally (e.g. from DSCC and/or welfare personnel) and externally (from specialist support services) to better safeguard victims. We have also worked on cases where COs have been entirely unwilling to accept the safeguarding advice and guidance provided to them and have taken decisions, against that advice, that have placed victims at greater risk and led to further harm. Such variation in responses cannot be allowed to occur. We recognise that COs receive limited – if any – training in this area and would recommend standardised training and/or guidance is produced for them in light of this Bill, with a focus on increasing understanding, providing clarity of responsibility, and reducing inconsistency.

26 February 2026