The army missed opportunities to prevent the suicide of a “positive and bubbly” officer cadet at the Sandhurst military academy, an inquest has found.
Olivia Perks, 21, was found hanged in her room at the elite training school in Berkshire on 6 February 2019.
The coroner Alison McCormick recorded a conclusion of suicide at the end of the inquest on Friday, with her medical cause of death recorded as asphyxia due to hanging.
She said the army missed an opportunity to get Perks seen by a doctor after the Falklands Ball on 1 February 2019, after which she slept in a colour sergeant’s room.
The fact that stress was a factor that placed Perks at higher risk was also not passed on to the chain of command after her first term, meaning they were less likely to believe it was necessary for her to have medical attention.
McCormick said: “The risks to Olivia were not managed in accordance with the army policy for the risk management of vulnerable people.
“There was a missed opportunity by the chain of command to recognise the risk which the stress of her situation [after the Falklands Ball] posed to Olivia and a medical assessment should have been, but was not, requested.
“It is not possible to know what the outcome would have been had a medical assessment taken place, but it is possible that measures would have been put in place which could have prevented Olivia’s death.”
The inquest at Reading Town Hall, which took place over 16 days, heard Perks was a victim of a “complete breakdown in welfare support” during her time at the academy.
She tried to kill herself during a Royal Engineers visit in July 2018 but was deemed at “low risk of reoccurence” afterwards.
She was back on duty two days later and was told she risked losing her place at the academy if she engaged in similar behaviour again.
The inquest was told Sandhurst had an “irresponsible” lack of welfare support despite being rated outstanding by Ofsted three times before the tragedy.
It had one welfare officer for 2,500 people, according to Lt Col Rupert Whitelegge, who was commander of the academy’s Old College at the time.
Witnesses told the hearing that during the Royal Engineers visit, Perks had confessed that she wanted to go in the sea, wanted to kill herself and asked for a belt and knife. She also tried to strangle herself.
She had been in a banned relationship with the then staff sergeant Mark Easingwood, who worked as a fitness instructor for cadets, in the months before she died.
Sophie Given, whom Perks had met on a dating site, told the hearing her friend told her she “may be pregnant” with a staff sergeant’s baby.
Easingwood told the hearing they “kissed once” and had “an emotional bond” but denied their relationship was sexual.
After the Falklands Ball, she spent a night in the room of Colour Sgt Griffith. The pair had denied sexual activity took place, claiming Griffith had invited her in out of concern for her welfare and she had slept there.
When she was seen leaving his room in her ball gown the regimental sergeant major told her: “My office, now”, and she later missed a parade.
Perks felt an “overwhelming sense of embarrassment” as she thought she had got the colour sergeant into trouble and feared losing her place at the academy.
Friends told the inquest that in the days before her death, Perks said she felt like she was “on trial” as the academy’s leaders questioned her about the incident and rumours about it spread on WhatsApp.
As she was being informally questioned about that night by a largely male group, one staff member told her she had “had enough male company”.
In a letter to her mother, which was found in her room after her death, she said she “just can’t deal with the false rumours which have ruined my army career”.
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