The revolting violation of privacy that sprung from this year’s skype sex scandal where ADFA soldiers watched cadet Daniel McDonald have sex with another cadet in a video broadcast via skype (in 2011) has progressed two weeks after McDonald and fellow cadet Dylan Deblaquiere‘s trial, with the Australian Defence Force terminating McDonald’s service from the army this morning.
The news comes in after the female cadet, known only as Kate, spoke exclusively with the ABC to express her intention to sue ADFA for damages. She told the ABC that after going public about the scandal, she continued to suffer from abuse in the army: “[Some] boys in the room across from me thought it was fun to terrorise me and call me the Skype slut continually every time I left my room,” and asked, of the 12 month good behaviour bonds that were handed down to McDonald and Deblaquiere, allowing them to dodge a jail sentence, “How is that fair?”
According to today’s statement from the ADF, the nature of McDonald’s behaviour and involvement with the widely-publicised scandal was “inconsistent with the values of the Australian Army.” Well, that certainly is one way to describe the heinous act of broadcasting sex without consent.
While the good behaviour bonds handed to McDonald and Deblaquiere certainly weren’t received with unanimous approval, today’s sacking of Daniel McDonald from the Defence Force does chime unmistakably with the hard-lined approach put forward by the Chief of Army David Morrison, whose stern message in June this year denounced unacceptable behaviour within ADF, in a move that was perhaps the most successful PR spin the Army has ever produced. “Those that think that it is OK to behave in a way that demeans or exploits their colleagues have no place in this army….if that does not suit you, then get out,” says Morrison, below. Preach.
Via The Guardian, ABC.
Title image by Ian Hitchcock via Getty.
