A British Army poster girl has received an apology after suffering years of racist and sexist abuse.

Former Cpl Kerry-Ann Knight, 33, has accepted a “substantial financial settlement” from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) after detailing how colleagues directed slurs about slavery towards her, including references to “lynching” or “tarring and feathering” her.

Ms Knight said the abuse she suffered during her 12 years of service made her life a “living hell” and led her to conclude that the Army is “institutionally racist”.

Despite the ill-treatment, she willingly took part in recruitment campaigns, including a 2019 poster aimed at millennials, because she said she wanted “more people of colour” to join the forces.

In an apology sent to Ms Knight, Maj Gen SL Humphris MBE said on behalf of the British Army: “As Director Personnel (Army) and a member of the Army Board, I sincerely apologise on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

“The Army accepts that you had to work in an unacceptable organisational environment where you experienced racist and sexist harassment. There was a failure within the Army in not responding properly to that environment or your complaints about it.

“The Army wishes to apologise for the treatment you received. Your loss is a matter of regret.”

Despite the apology and financial settlement, the Army has accepted no liability.

Ms Knight had taken the MoD to an employment tribunal.

After agreeing to settle the tribunal before the final judgment, Ms Knight told the BBC: “I’d never encourage any woman, especially of colour, to join, because it’s not going to benefit your life in the long run.”

Ms Knight, who grew up in Nottingham, enlisted at the age of 20 and joined the 26 Regiment Royal Artillery (26 RA) and was posted to Germany.

While on post, she said she had to serve alongside soldiers who praised Hitler and said that they supported far-Right groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the English Defence League and Britain First.

She told the tribunal that there were swastikas and other far-Right symbols on display in some corridors.

The abuse began in 2012, with male colleagues shouting racially offensive slurs but adding: “I’d still shag you though.” A female soldier is said to have said: “This isn’t the ghetto,” after she braided her hair for swimming.

In 2013, she alleged that an assault by a senior colleague was motivated by racism.

Despite repeatedly raising concerns with her superiors, no action was ever taken, the tribunal heard.

In 2021, Ms Knight began working as the only black female instructor at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, which trains soldiers aged 16 and 17.

Several of the white male instructors decided “they were going to make my life a living hell”, she said and they would shout “watermelon” when she entered a room as a “signal that a black person was approaching”.

They also played Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino’s film about a freed slave – “on repeat” and would laugh as they repeated the most racist lines.

At a work event, she was shown pictures of a colleague’s penis and asked to comment on it.

After a fellow instructor shouted insults at her face during a dinner in the officers’ mess in November 2021, Ms Knight raised an official service complaint.

Fearing she would not be taken seriously, she also began to secretly record her colleagues’ comments about her.

One of the men spoke about “lynching” her, while another said that they should just “tar and feather her, it’s what they used to do in the old days”.

Ms Knight is not the only one to complain about her treatment at the Army Foundation College. Nine rapes were reported to North Yorkshire Police in the 13 months up to August last year.

After her complaint was filed, she claimed that the Army closed ranks and tried to “paint her out as an aggressive black woman”.

She took her case to an employment tribunal in June and the MoD settled after hearing seven days of evidence.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which supported Ms Knight in her case, said: “As one of the UK’s largest employers, and a public authority under the Equality Act, the British Army should be a standard-bearer when it comes to protecting their employees from discrimination.

“Former Cpl Knight dedicated more than a decade of her life to serving her country and was an inspiration to young soldiers in her roles as an instructor and a diversity group representative. It is such a shame that the Army has lost a talent like hers.

“Many of the most recent recruits in the Army today will have joined after seeing Ms Knight’s face in a recruitment campaign. Like everyone else in the country, they have the legal right to be treated fairly regardless of who they are or what they look like.”

A MoD spokesman said: “We do not tolerate abuse, bullying or discrimination of any kind and encourage any personnel who believe they have experienced or witnessed unacceptable behaviour to report it.

“All allegations of unacceptable behaviour are taken extremely seriously and are thoroughly investigated. If proven, swift action will be taken.”

“The MoD settled this claim with Kerry-Ann Knight in June, with no admission of liability.”

Almost a month’s worth of rain fell in an hour in Greater London on Thursday, the Met Office said.

Torrential downpours hit the UK, with flood alerts remaining in place on Friday, according to the forecaster.

A flood alert was issued on Friday for the rivers Eden and Eden Brook in the south-east of England – as well as the upper River Loddon in the south-west.

However, across the weekend, England and Wales will be largely dry with sunny spells – with highs of 25C in southern England on Saturday and Sunday and 20C further north.

Stephen Dixon, a spokesman for the Met Office, said: “What’s replacing the previous weather regime is a transition back to more changeable conditions for the UK, albeit still retaining some level of sunshine.”

On Saturday, showers will continue in the North-West – though for much of England and Wales, it will be a dry day with sunny spells.

The Met Office also shared that Sunday is likely to be increasingly wet for western Scotland and Northern Ireland, while some places in south-west Scotland may see an excess of 70mm of rain from Sunday into Monday.

Sunday will be a fine day for England and Wales, with sunny spells and the odd light shower in parts of northern England.

Next week is predicted to be changeable, with bright, dry and sunny periods interrupted by some unsettled interludes through the week.

Rain will gradually move from west to east and those further south-east will generally see less frequent rain.

Mr Dixon said: “An Environment Agency rain gauge at New Addington, Greater London, recorded 53.4mm of rain as part of yesterday’s thundery outbreaks.”

Average total rainfall for August in the same area was 56mm, the forecaster said.

“However, such is the nature of these localised thundery outbreaks, some private rain gauges that are not a part of the official Met Office network recorded higher totals through the day in parts of southern and central England,” Mr Dixon added.

A senior police officer who hit two women after an argument about Meghan Markle and race on the day of the King’s Coronation while off-duty has been sacked.

Insp Tola Munro, from South Bristol, dragged one woman to the ground and punched her before hitting another in the face on May 6 last year, a misconduct tribunal was told.

The former president of the National Black Police Association “completely lost control of himself” when a discussion about the Duchess of Sussex and race became heated and personal, the BBC reported.

Mr Munro denied the allegations, insisting that he was “provoked” and had acted in self-defence. But barrister Mark Ley-Morgan, representing Avon and Somerset Police, accused him of telling “an absolute pack of lies”.

The senior officer has now been sacked from the force after he was found guilty of gross misconduct.

Jane Jones, the tribunal chairman, labelled the incident a “terrible irony” because Mr Munro had previously helped tackle violence against women and girls.

The tribunal heard that Mr Munro should have “risen above provocation” when one woman, Witness A, became confrontational during a heated discussion about race.

Witness A called 999 at around 1pm that day but apparently changed her mind mid-call. Police traced her number and sent officers to the location where the inspector had punched them, the tribunal heard. 

Witness B, the second woman, told police that Mr Munro had hit her in the side of the face as she tried to step in.

Mr Ley-Morgan said Mr Munro insisted he was “defending myself” after he was arrested on suspicion of two counts of common assault.

The case was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, which deemed there was insufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of a successful prosecution.

Giving evidence, Mr Munro said he grabbed Witness A by the shoulders and guided her down to the floor as she tripped after shouting and screaming at him.

“I didn’t want her to hurt herself. She kicked out at me which I blocked with my hands and then I thought Witness B was coming over to strike me so I put my hand up to block her,” he claimed.

“I believed at the time I was defending myself in response to being kicked at and Witness B intervening who I thought was going to strike me. I didn’t punch Witness A in the face. I didn’t punch Witness B.”

‘Undermines work against gender violence’

Supt Mark Edgington, head of the Professional Standards Department, said: “Ultimately, there is no place in policing for an officer who is found to have assaulted any member of the public.

“Whether on or off-duty, officers and staff must adhere to the standards expected of anyone serving in policing and Inspector Munro failed to do this.

“As an organisation we have carried out a huge amount of work in recent years around the topic of violence against women and girls.

“Insp Munro’s actions have undermined those efforts and will likely damage public confidence in policing.

“We hope the public can see from the actions we have taken that these allegations have been taken seriously from the moment we learned of them.

“The public’s trust in policing is dependent on rooting out any officer, no matter their rank or experience, who should not be serving the public. We hope the robust action taken in this case highlights that commitment.”

The official at the centre of the Olympic boxing gender row was one of Sir Keir Starmer’s best men at his wedding.

Mark Adams, the spokesman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has known the Prime Minister since the two men were at school together.

Mr Adams expressed concerns earlier this week about a “witch hunt” against boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who have previously failed gender eligibility tests.

On Thursday, Angela Carini, the Italian boxer, was forced to abandon a fight against Khelif at the games in Paris, claiming she had been hit so hard by her opponent that she feared for her life.

The IOC faced widespread condemnation for placing Carini, who had a suspected broken nose, in a position of danger.

Responding to Khelif’s victory on Thursday, Mr Adams told reporters: “Testosterone is not a perfect test. Many women can have testosterone, which is in what would be called ‘male levels’ and still be women, and still compete as a woman.

“So this panacea, this idea that you do one test for testosterone, that’s not the case I’m afraid. But each sport needs to deal with its issues, they know their sports and their disciplines the best and they need to target and tailor I should say the testing and so on.

“But I hope we’re all agreed we’re not calling for people to go back to the bad old days of sex testing, which was a terrible thing to do and I’m sure we all agree that’s not the way forward in this situation.”

He went on to insist “this is not a transgender issue” and criticise “misreporting” of the row, which has cast a shadow over the Paris Olympics.

Khelif and Yu-Ting were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March 2023 after failing gender tests. However, the IOC has different rules from the International Boxing Association.

Mr Adams said earlier this week that he was comfortable with the rules.

He said: “These boxers are entirely eligible, they are women on their passports, they have competed for many years.

“I actually think it is not helpful to start stigmatising people who take part in sport like this. They are women who competed in Tokyo.

“I think we all have a responsibility to dial down this and not turn it into some kind of witch-hunt. These are regular athletes who have competed for many years in boxing, they are entirely eligible and they are women on their passports,”

In 2014, Mr Adams referred to Sir Keir as “my old mate” as he congratulated him on his selection as the Labour candidate for St Pancras and Holborn at the 2015 general election.

“Over the moon that my old mate Keir Starmer has been selected… He’ll be a real campaigner for constituents,” he said.

When Sir Keir was subsequently elected on May 7, Mr Adams wrote: “Congrats to a great bloke.”

He was one of Sir Keir’s four best men.

Mr Adams, a former broadcast journalist, joined the IOC as its director of communications in 2009.

He worked at the BBC, ITN and EuroNews before spending 10 years in a senior communications role for the World Economic Forum

Like Sir Keir, who has a season ticket at the Emirates Stadium, Mr Adams is a lifelong fan of Arsenal Football Club.

Speaking to Tom Baldwin, Sir Keir’s biographer, in May, Mr Adams said: “Keir’s a regular bloke who has always liked a pint or two, talking nonsense with his mates and playing far more football than is good for him.

“It’s how he plugs back into his private network and recharges himself.”

In a separate profile of the Prime Minister in The Times, Mr Adams said he often teases Sir Keir about how he is becoming more like his late father Rodney, adding: “Keir hates it when I do that.”

Mr Adams attended Reigate Grammar School in the 1970s alongside Sir Keir and fondly recalled his time at the school on social media.

Everything to the nth degree

Mr Adams has lived in Lausanne ever since he began his role with the IOC, having lived and worked in Geneva during his time at the World Economic Forum.

In a 2020 profile of Sir Keir in the Financial Times, Mr Adams described him as a perfectionist “does everything to the nth degree”.

He recalled: “I once asked him why he gave up playing the flute and he said, ‘If I can’t practise every day, I can’t be top level, so I don’t want to do it’.

“As a lawyer, he would work on cases until 3am and get up at 7am and feel fine. He is someone who works like a dog but also has a forensic intellect.”

In February, Mr Adams was among guests including Sean Dyche, the Everton manager, at a drinks party for senior sport figures held by Sir Keir, who reportedly namechecked his old school friend in his speech.