Latest news with #HMSIllustrious
ITV News
09-05-2025
- ITV News
Head of Royal Navy Ben Key suspended amid reports of ‘affair with subordinate'
The head of the Royal Navy has been suspended from his duties amid an investigation, which multiple reports said related to an alleged relationship with a subordinate. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed an investigation into 59-year-old First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Benjamin Key was 'ongoing'. The Sun and others reported on Friday that the probe relates to an allegation of an inappropriate relationship with a female officer under his command, in breach of the Navy's 'service test'. The Ministry of Defence did not deny the reports when contacted by ITV News. A MOD spokesperson said: 'An investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.' Key had reportedly been expected to retire this summer, but it is understood he has been told to step back from his role while the investigation takes place. It is believed to be the first time in the Navy's 500-year history that its top officer has faced a misconduct inquiry. It is understood that the Second Sea Lord, Vice Admiral Sir Martin Connell, has taken full command of the Royal Navy while an investigation takes place. Last year in October, Key issued a f ull apology for 'intolerable' misogyny in the Submarine Service after investigations revealed widespread sexual harassment, bullying and abuse of female personnel. 'We must be better than this and do better than we have," he said in a statement. The married father of three, who has served in the Navy for 40 years, has been in his post as First Sea Lord since 2021. He became a vice admiral in 2016 and then served as fleet commander and chief of joint operations before being appointed First Sea Lord. Key has commanded four Royal Navy ships - HMS Sandown, HMS Iron Duke, HMS Lancaster and the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. A veteran of the Iraq War, he was awarded the US Bronze Star and played a key role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As First Sea Lord, he also serves as chief of the naval staff and chairs the Navy Board, overseeing the force's effectiveness, efficiency and morale on behalf of the defence secretary.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Head of Royal Navy steps back after investigation into alleged relationship with female colleague
The head of the Royal Navy has stepped back from the job after an investigation was launched into an alleged relationship with a female colleague, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Ministry of Defence confirmed earlier in the week that Admiral Sir Ben Key had stepped away from being First Sea Lord, sending shockwaves through the service. But a spokesperson at the time merely said this was because of "private reasons". A spokesperson on Friday night updated this response to say: "An investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment at this time." The Sun and The Financial Times first reported the true reason behind his premature exit. Admiral Key had always been due to step down from leading the Navy in the summer. The FT quoted two people familiar with the matter saying that the investigation related to a relationship with a female subordinate. The Sun said Admiral Key, who is married with three children, is suspected of breaking the Navy's strict "service test" which effectively prohibits sexual relationships between commanders and their subordinates. It is not thought that the person involved was in his immediate chain of command. But as head of the Navy, the First Sea Lord is in overall charge of all naval personnel. Admiral Key's sudden disappearance has forced the Navy to cancel its flagship annual Sea Power Conference, which was due to start on Monday with military guests from all over the world. Read more from Sky News: Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Martin Connell has temporarily taken charge of the service before a full-time replacement is announced. General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, a Royal Marines officer who lost out on becoming national security adviser following last year's election, is widely expected to become the next First Sea Lord. If confirmed, he would be the first Royal Marine to head the service. Admiral Key, who was appointed as First Sea Lord in 2021, has placed a strong focus on eliminating unacceptable behaviour in the Navy. Last year, he declared "zero tolerance for unacceptable behaviours". In 2022, he said: "Those who do not wish to serve in accordance with the values and standards of life in the United Kingdom's armed forces will be removed. "There is no place for you." Admiral Key joined the Navy as a cadet in 1984 and commanded two frigates, a minehunter and the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. The Navy lists integrity as one of its six core values. It says: "Integrity is that quality of an individual's character that encompasses honesty, sincerity, reliability and unselfishness. "It is an essential requirement of both leadership and comradeship. Unless we maintain our integrity, others will not trust us and teamwork will suffer." Sky News has approached Admiral Key via the Ministry of Defence for comment.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Head of Royal Navy suspended pending investigation
The head of the Royal Navy has been suspended pending an investigation. Adm Sir Ben Key has been asked to 'step back' as first sea lord, sources at the MoD confirmed on Friday. Key was absent from the lineup of senior military personnel on the Mall on Monday for celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and it is understood that second sea lord V Adm Martin Connell has taken full charge until a permanent replacement is announced. Earlier this week the MoD said Key had departed for 'private reasons'. Key joined the Royal Navy in 1984 as a university cadet, and graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London. As a junior officer he saw service around the world, after qualifying as helicopter aircrew and a principal warfare officer. He was made vice admiral in February 2016, before becoming the Royal Navy's fleet commander and later chief of joint operations until he was appointed first sea lord in 2021. Over his career, he has commanded four ships: the mine hunter HMS Sandown, the frigates HMS Iron Duke and HMS Lancaster, and the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. An Iraq war veteran, prior to taking over the Navy Key was also awarded a US bronze star and oversaw the retreat from Afghanistan. In his current role, he is also chief of the naval staff and chair of the navy board, where he is responsible to the secretary of state for the fighting 'effectiveness, efficiency and morale' of the service. Key last year issued an unreserved apology for 'intolerable' misogyny in the Submarine Service, after a series of investigations across the navy exposed sexual harassment, bullying and assault of women within its ranks. The navy chief said he was 'truly sorry' to the women who had suffered 'misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours' while serving their country. 'We must be better than this and do better than we have,' he said. The MoD said on Friday: 'An investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.'
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Sir Torquil Norman obituary
Torquil Norman, who has died aged 91, was successively a naval pilot, banker and businessman, philanthropist and toymaker. He created several popular toys of the 1980s and 90s, before using his wealth and powers of persuasion to buy the then disused Roundhouse building in north London and raise £30m to restore it to a successful arts and concert venue. In a long and varied career, perhaps somewhat at variance with his establishment background, he opened the swimming pool in the garden of his St John's Wood home each summer for local children, set up with his wife a charitable trust to support young people, was a supporter of the anti-apartheid and anti-slavery campaigns and argued for social and political reform, national community service and constitutional change. He was the third son of Sir Nigel Norman, a civil engineer whose firm designed London's first commercial airport at Heston, Middlesex, close to where Heathrow is now, as well as several other prewar airfields, and Patricia (nee Annesley), Torquil's first name being a nod to her Catholic, northern Irish roots. Nigel was a pioneer aviator and flew Torquil to Switzerland at the age of six to seek treatment for his tuberculosis. It was almost the last memory he had of his father as he and his brother Desmond were evacuated to the US during the second world war and his father was killed in an air crash on active service in 1943. Torquil went to live with his paternal grandmother, the intrepid and pioneering travel writer Ménie Muriel Dowie, in Arizona. Back in England after the war, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied economics and law and rowed in the winning boat race crew in 1957. He had been taught to fly by Desmond and served as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm during national service, despite being 6ft 7in tall – notionally several inches too tall to fit easily into a cockpit. This nearly cost him his life on one occasion, when his aircraft's arrester hook failed as he was attempting to land on the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and, crashing on to the deck, his plane burst into flames. He managed to escape relatively unscathed. Flying became Norman's lifelong obsession; he owned a number of De Havilland Moths and other small planes and flew them across the Atlantic and in Australia. He kept them at an airfield in Gloucestershire co-owned with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. After graduation, Norman became an investment banker in New York, then London, before starting a venture capital company investing in small businesses, one of which was the Berwick Toy Company, which he helped to turn into one of the largest in Britain. He found that he was good at imagining and devising toys. It was said that he combined attention to detail with the outlook of a seven-year-old, and when he was ousted in a boardroom coup in 1979, he set up a company of his own, Bluebird Toys. It was a case of necessity, with five young children to support, after he discovered that the family bank account had been emptied of £40,000 by his wife's philanthropy to good causes. Interviewed on Desert Island Discs in 2010, Norman said: 'I loved designing toys and the kids were a very good research team, and I suddenly had an idea for a toy which turned into the Big Yellow Teapot.' Earlier, Norman had bought and renovated a coach for taking the family on holidays, complete with bunk beds and space for a boat on the roof and motor scooter on the back and that transmogrified into another toy idea: the Big Red Bus. The Big Yellow Teapot was followed by the Polly Pocket series of small, compact dolls' houses and branded plastic lunch boxes. Within 10 years the toy company was one of the largest in the UK, its brands licensed to the US manufacturer Mattel, which eventually bought Bluebird for nearly £100m. With some of the proceeds Norman and his wife, Anne, set up their charitable trust to help young people. When he saw that the Roundhouse in Camden – originally a Victorian railway train turntable building that had been set up as an arts centre in the 60s but was rundown – was up for sale, he bought it for £3m and set about raising a further £30m to renovate it. The project took 10 years and about £7m of his own money, but the building is now a successful arts venue and training centre. Asked what he would like to recognise his achievement, Norman requested that he should have a dry martini whenever he visited an event there – the bar where it is served is called Torquil's. Even into old age and what he described as his fifth retirement, Norman was still trying ideas and inventions, the last being the Ox, a flat-pack truck designed for assembly and use in developing countries. He told Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs that in life he was not content to rearrange the deck chairs, he wanted to redesign the ship. In 2010 he published a book called Kick the Tyres, Light the Fires as a manifesto for social and political reform. Norman married Lady Anne Montagu, an artist and the daughter of the 10th Earl of Sandwich, in 1961. The couple, who originally met on a parachuting course in the US, had five children in seven years, one of whom is the Conservative MP Jesse Norman. Anne died in 2005 after suffering from Alzheimer's for 13 years. Norman is survived by his partner, Iga Downing, an osteopath, and his children, Jesse, Casey, Lulu, Caspar and Amy. Torquil Patrick Alexander Norman, entrepreneur and philanthropist, born 11 April 1933; died 19 March 2025
