Single mother soldier who claimed £1.1m over childcare left her baby for two years
By Dan Newling and Kathryn KnightLast updated at 11:44 PM on 16th April 2010
Her demand for more than £1.1million from the Army for sex discrimination would have enabled single mother Tilern DeBique to return home to her poverty-stricken Caribbean village in triumph as a rich woman.
Yesterday, however, the former corporal was having to revise her plans after a tribunal ruled she should receive only £17,016.
The 28-year-old from St Vincent, who calls herself SexyT on the internet, was told she made 'an error of judgment' in refusing a job in a family-friendly base where there were childcare facilities.
Tilern DeBique, who is known as SexyT on the internet, claimed £1.1m over childcare, but a tribunal ruled she should receive only £17,016
Yet the Daily Mail has discovered that while portraying herself as a devoted single mother, she has in fact spent nearly two years apart from her daughter after dispatching her to the Caribbean to live with her sister.
Tahlia was just three months old when she was handed over to her aunt Sonia. It was almost a year before Sonia took the child back to the UK to
be with her mother. And less than a year after that, Tahlia was back in St Vincent.
So what is the true story of the woman who poses on MySpace in a see-through top suggesting: 'Give me a shout sometime', and became embroiled in a three-year legal battle with the Army which cost the taxpayer an estimated £100,000?
Tilern 'Tilly' DeBique grew up in Spring Village, ten miles outside St Vincent's capital Kingstown.
The youngest of eight children - six girls and two boys - born to Tilman Jordan and Alina DeBique, Tilern spent her first ten years in a tiny wooden two-room shack, sharing one bedroom. Cooking was outdoors, while a standpipe provided water.
Her father grew bananas and yams in their back yard, a smallholding which could not sustain his growing family.
The youngest of eight children - six girls and two boys - Tilern spent her first ten years in a tiny wooden two-room shack, sharing one bedroom
And so, when Tilern was five, he travelled to Canada to work as a seasonal fruit-picker, remaining there eight months a year for the next 17 years. The money he earned enabled him to build a two-bedroom breezeblock house in the village. Though more spacious than their previous home, it still had no running water or lavatory.
Tilern's mother died eight years ago, but Tilman, Sonia and brother Wayne remain in Spring Village where, this week, they recalled Tilly as a spirited child given to expressing her opinions forcefully from the moment she could articulate them.
'She was very confident and argumentative and had an adventurous spirit,' says Tilman. 'She always had something to say. Even when she was a baby she would climb up on the table and shout it out.'
She did well academically, winning a place at St Vincent Girls' High School in Kingstown where classmates recall her as headstrong and opinionated.
Sonia, 38, the eldest sister and a former primary school teacher, recalled: 'Tilly was always very vocal and self-confident. If she wanted something, she went out and got it.
'She has just always been that way. She was a very argumentative person. She would not back down.'
As, indeed, the British Army has discovered to its cost. Tilern's decision to join up came about after Major Neville Bagley visited the island for three weeks at the end of November 2000 as part of a recruitment drive.
'She told us she saw a British soldier walking down the street in uniform,' says Sonia, 38. 'She asked him what he was doing, he told her, and she decided to apply.'
After passing academic and physical tests, Tilern flew to Britain in January 2001, among the first batch of St Vincentians to join the Forces.
She was assigned to the 10th Signal Regiment in March 2001, joined shortly afterwards in Britain by her brother Roland, who became an engineering technician in a different regiment.
Her new life must have been something of a culture shock, but by all accounts Tilern took to Army life immediately, regularly phoning home say it was everything she had dreamed of.
Tilern DeBique with daughter Tahlia. Miss DeBique argued that she was forced to choose between a military career and her child
She was very attracted to study. She was told that she might be able to use the job to go to university and that is something she always wanted to do.'
Tilern became pregnant in November 2004 while her unit was on a tour of Germany. The circumstances of the conception remain shrouded in mystery; she left the father's name blank on the birth certificate while family and friends refuse to elaborate.
To date, the father plays no role in Tahlia's life. As Sonia puts it: 'It wasn't something she intended to happen, but it did - and that's when it got difficult.'
Only too aware that she did not have family close by, Tilern asked Sonia to be with her when, in August 2005, she gave birth at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital.
It is at this point that her arguments about parenting go awry. For when her daughter was three months old, Tilern handed her over to her sister, who took her back to St Vincent.
Sonia claims they both believed this arrangement was for the best as it allowed Tilern to continue with her work as a soldier. This arrangement lasted for nearly a year - until Sonia returned to the UK with the baby in September 2006.
Sonia continued to undertake childcare living with her sister in Army accommodation in Kennington, South London. When her visa ran out, she was replaced by their brother Wayne, who flew from St Vincent and spent six months looking after Tahlia.
Tilern, however, felt the arrangement was far from satisfactory: she was still not always able to fulfil her contractual obligations despite being placed on a rigid 8.30-4.30 weekday schedule.
Her new life must have been something of a culture shock, but by all accounts Tilern took to Army life immediately
So, by the summer of 2007, she had returned her daughter to St Vincent. Tahlia went back to live with her mother a year later, in 2008, after she had resigned from the Army, claiming it had made it impossible for her to continue as a mother and soldier. 'At the time she joined, the message she got was that single parents are exempted from active duty,' says Sonia. 'She thought you were allowed to work 9 to 5 and have weekends off. But after she had the child and went back to work, she was told she was a 24-hour soldier.'
By June 2008 - just two months after leaving the Army - Tilern had brought a case for both racial and sexual discrimination, arguing that as a Commonwealth soldier, and female, she was unfairly disadvantaged.
As we now know, the tribunal panel agreed with her - a decision which could have massive implications for both current and future recruits, forcing the Army to address the childcare 'rights' of its employees.
In a landmark ruling, panel chairman Jeremy Gordon agreed that Miss DeBique was initially not treated 'on a level playing field' with other soldiers.
But in a victory for common sense, the tribunal found the Army had ' positively discriminated' in favour of Miss DeBique by making her the offer of a posting to Blandford garrison in Dorset, which had childcare facilities.
As a result it did not award her anything for loss of earnings.
Instead, the payout for 'hurt feelings' was just 1 per cent of the £1,142,257 she had demanded.
The panel found that the written offer made it highly unlikely she would have been deployed abroad, allowing her to combine her career and childcare until 2012.
Instead she applied for much more lucrative civilian jobs in Afghanistan even though they would have meant leaving her daughter behind.
Mr Gordon said: 'In the view of the tribunal, it was a mistake not to accept the offer of a transfer to Blandford. The claimant's decision not to accept the offer was an error of judgment. She was unreasonable in not at least taking up the offer and seeing what happened.
'She should have remained in the Army. She was therefore in breach of her duty to mitigate her loss. If she had accepted the offer, she would not have suffered the loss of earnings. We are giving an injury to feelings award but we are not making an award for loss of earnings.'
The panel awarded Miss DeBique £15,000 plus interest of £2,016 for hurt feelings after it earlier ruled she suffered sex and race discrimination.
Her claim had included £473,535 for loss of earnings for a full military career, as well as sums for childcare, prescription charges, dental treatment, housing allowance and the cost of sending her daughter to boarding school, but the panel did not award her anything at all.
Since leaving the Army, Miss DeBique has worked in temporary jobs but is now unemployed and lives in shared accommodation in Tooting, South London
The tribunal agreed that the combined effect of the fact she was a single mother, but on call 24 hours a day, and that her sister was not allowed to move to Britain permanently to look after her daughter because of immigration laws, meant Miss DeBique had been 'indirectly discriminated against'. She quit her post after she was formally disciplined for failing to appear on parade after she could not arrange childcare for her daughter.
Her commanding officer told her that the Army was a ' warfighting machine' and 'unsuitable for a single mother who couldn't sort out her childcare arrangements'.
It was earlier this week that a picture emerged of Miss DeBique in see-through white mesh top and tight jeans relaxing on a brass bed.
On MySpace, she says she 'plays hard' and adds: 'Give me a shout sometime and see how we get on. Hope you're up for a laugh and can manage a good time and the truth cause that's what you get with me.'
Ironic as it might seem given current circumstances, Miss DeBique has a favoured Latin motto from her high school days which she likes to quote in times of difficulty.
Per Ardua Ad Alta translates as Through Difficulties to the Heights - in other words, as she chose to explain in her post on the social networking site, 'hard work brings success and the harder you work for it, the sweeter the victory'.
Since leaving the Army, Miss DeBique has worked in temporary jobs but is now unemployed and lives in shared accommodation in Tooting, South London.
Wearing Army-style fatigues, she told a friend after yesterday's hearing: 'I'm just glad it's over and done with.' Currently behind with her rent, Miss DeBique is now thought
to be planning to work back in St Vincent. Leaving behind her, undoubtedly, a spiralling sense of injustice among her former colleagues who have made their disgust clear on internet forums.
In one thread, an officer speaks of a 'serious loss of faith in the British justice system', while others highlight the paltry compensation paid to members of the military who have been maimed while fighting for their country.
These include paratrooper Ben Parkinson, who lost both legs and suffered brain damage in a landmine explosion in Afghanistan. The 25-year-old from Doncaster, was initially offered only £152,000 and finally got £570,000 after the Government caved in to public outrage.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'We have noted the award made by the employment tribunal and we wish Tilern DeBique the best for the future.'
Tory politician Patrick Mercer, a former Army officer, said: 'I think that £17,000 is a modest sum of money, but it is still £17,000 that could have been spent on those who have been wounded or maimed in action.
'This shows that service inside the armed forces cannot be compared with anything else, and the modest award by the tribunal shows that.' Back in St Vincent, Sonia DeBique insists her sister is 'very upset' and 'does not understand' the anger directed at her.
'When Tilly went to England she was not expecting palaces and maids, but she felt disrespected by the Army,' she says.
'She loved that job. The Army should have considered the fact that this was a single parent who was not at home. They should have been a little nicer to her.'
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