The defence secretary promises to look into what went wrong at the college in North Yorkshire.

The Army says it encourages anyone who has experienced or witnessed unacceptable or criminal behaviour to come forward Wes Streeting has said he is "absolutely sickened" by reports of rape and sexual abuse of young female recruits at the Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate. Four women told the BBC they were sexually assaulted and harassed while attending the North Yorkshire college, and described a culture of misogyny and sexual violence. The defence secretary said he would be "looking in detail specifically at what's gone wrong at Harrogate, but also looking more broadly at how we lead a programme of culture change across our armed forces and across defence." The Army said "unacceptable and criminal behaviour has absolutely no place in our armed forces" and urged victims and witnesses to come forward. AFC is the largest military training establishment for under-19s in the UK and it receives all the Army's 16-year-old recruits. North Yorkshire Police told the BBC in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request it had received 16 reports of sexual offences linked to the college in the year to June, including allegations of exposure, voyeurism and sexual assault. A total of 176 complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour at the college were made between January 2018 and June 2025, according to Ministry of Defence (MoD) data.