A former civil servant who spent three years working at the headquarters of the Special Air Service has described some members of the elite regiment as “feral” and said there was a sense that “no one could touch them”.
Monica Grenfell, 75, worked in logistics at the SAS headquarters at Credenhill, near Hereford, between 2015 and 2018. She has given evidence under oath to the independent inquiry examining allegations of unlawful killings by British special forces in Afghanistan.
Speaking publicly about her experiences for the first time in an interview with The Times, Grenfell said she believed “there are guilty people who need to be found” and rejected claims that the inquiry amounted to a “witch hunt”.
“The SAS are not always the legends and heroes they think they are,” she told The Times, adding that there were “nasty characters” who “really ruled the roost”.
Grenfell described what she regarded as a corrosive culture inside the base.
“Once you are through those gates you can say what you like,” she said was the prevailing attitude.
She told The Times that standards of behaviour were low and described some personnel as “feral”.
Grenfell said she had been told that soldiers in Afghanistan drove detainees around on forklift trucks before braking sharply so that they fell from a height, allegedly “for fun”.
She also described being told by a relatively new SAS soldier that her former boss had been accused of “war crimes”, and that the soldier had been present when they were allegedly committed.
“These things were told casually,” Grenfell said. “He was smiling like everyone was doing it.”
“There was just a feeling no one could touch them,” she told The Times. “It was like there are no rules here.”
Grenfell’s testimony comes as the independent Afghanistan Inquiry examines allegations that UK special forces unlawfully killed Afghans during night raids between 2010 and 2013. The inquiry has yet to publish findings.
The Ministry of Defence told The Times that it would be inappropriate to comment on allegations being examined by the inquiry.
It added that it remained government policy not to comment on UK special forces and said: “All service personnel are held to the highest standards of conduct and are respected worldwide for their excellence and sacrifice on operations.”
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