invisible woman
Ministry of Defence
My disputes with the Ministry of Defence concerns how information about me became a restriction against me — and why obtaining an explanation has required two separate proceedings.
The first is judicial review of the legal and administrative basis of the treatment. The second is an Equality Act claim concerning alleged discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
Both concern something more fundamental than whether I should have been admitted to Northwood on a particular afternoon: how a public authority makes, records and accounts for decisions affecting an identifiable person. The MoD is desperately trying to frame it as my grievance of refusal to have access to the base. Alas, I have never applied for one.
I allege that the Commanding officer of Northwood HQ simply acted ultra vires and is not able to explain his actions. I also allege that subsequently the lawyers of the Ministry invented my place of birth as a "relevant factor" to justify that and facilitated subsequent victimisation.
“Parasitic”: a restriction without an identified status
In its Summary Grounds of Resistance, the Ministry describes my access position as “parasitic” upon Commander Laureano Pastor Veiga’s access (§§28 and 44).
That is the Ministry’s description of an alleged dependency. It is not a recognised administrative status that the Ministry has ever identified to me, which could explain such dependency.
Its own account describes one escorted social visit in December 2024. My question is therefore straightforward: what continuing status existed that could subsequently be suspended or extinguished?
Imagine you have been invited to a Buckingham Palace, where your partner has received the King's Honours. Then your partner is suspected of stealing some royal silver. Or rather it is said that because he visited the palace and there is some silver there, potentially he could have stolen some. Nobody is sure, if any silver got missed. But potentially he could, couldn't he?
And because he could have, now you find out that there is a special record in the royal books, that whatever happens in your life, maybe you could have got your own invitation to the palace, or marry one of the Princes available, that record states in definite terms, that you are prohibited forever from the premises. Because you are a wrong type of the person, born in a wrong country.
This is roughly explains what happened to me. The idea of the authors of this decision was simple - create that record in hope I would never find out. But I did.
I then have asked for the classification, policy, instruction, record or administrative arrangement establishing that dependency. None has been identified to me.
There is also a distinction between losing the opportunity to accompany a particular sponsor and becoming personally subject to a wider restriction. Review Wye records a pre-existing instruction prohibiting my escorted admission, communicated to security staff and recorded on SISYS (§§39–40). That requires an explanation concerning me, even if its origins involved somebody else.
My challenge does not assume that a visitor has an unrestricted right to enter a military establishment. It asks how a restriction concerning that visitor was created, what supported it, how far it extended and how it could be reviewed.
Judicial review: examining the decision-making architecture
My first judicial review, R (White) v Secretary of State for Defence, AC-2025-LON-003621, challenges that architecture.
The Ministry presents the dispute largely through the language of access to Northwood. My case concerns the process behind the outcome:
Who supplied the information?
What was verified?
What did the Commanding Officer decide about me?
Under which power or policy?
How was the instruction recorded and communicated?
What safeguards existed for notification, correction and review?
An explanation of why military access is controlled does not answer those questions.
I placed three focused grounds before the court: illegality, irrationality, and procedural unfairness and proportionality. The alleged absence of an identified administrative basis became part of the challenge itself.
“Born in Russia”: a historical fact converted into a decision-making factor
The Ministry’s November 2025 grounds state that my place of birth was “unarguably relevant” to access-related decision-making (§39). They also state that no UK decision-maker had determined that I posed a national-security threat (§14).
Those propositions require an explanation of what my birthplace was being used to establish.
Since June 2025, I have repeatedly sought identification of the policy or rule under which place of birth could justify adverse treatment of me. I have not been provided with the policy and decision-making explanation I sought.
The legal issue is not whether an authority may know where I was born. It is whether it used that fact as a proxy for nationality, national origins or presumed allegiance, and thereby subjected me to unlawful treatment.
The Equality Act protects nationality and ethnic or national origins within its definition of race. Its national-security exception permits proportionate action for that purpose; it does not provide an unlimited exemption from scrutiny.
My case is that the treatment was discriminatory and lacked the necessary justification. That allegation remains for the court to determine.
“Increasingly Vexatious”: when asking becomes the problem
Internal Northwood correspondence dated 23 March 2026, disclosed to me in August, described my actions as “increasingly vexatious in nature” and an apparent attempt to “circumvent the established process”.
The correspondence acknowledged a further formal complaint. My concern is that the adverse characterisation preceded a substantive answer to its separate subject matter.
My October witness statement in response to a second application of the Ministry of Defence not to file a Defence to my claim, also addresses the Government Legal Department’s presentation of formal complaint correspondence as attempts to write directly to contractors, and ministerial responses treating distinct complaints as the same issue already in litigation.
The Ministry’s judicial-review grounds additionally assert that I suffered no grave “or any” adverse impact (§44).
Hmm, having an unexplained restriction in MoD records, statements of the MoD officials to civilian police that I was "under investigation", watching my former partner dying in a MoD housing, multiple statements from ministers that I was not eligible to file complaints, "you have no rights here" statements from RAF officers, no attempt to stop spreading "Russian spy" rumours, which spread from the NATO and Spanish circles into a British contour and ultimately reached unauthorised recipients... Yes, no adverse impact. I am grateful not to be shot on the spot.
These descriptions matter because they can minimise the questions requiring examination: a personal restriction becomes a derivative access issue; a request for accountability becomes repetitive correspondence; the consequences for the individual become negligible.
My Equality Act claim alleges that the handling (or rather refusal to handle) of my discrimination complaints amounted to victimisation. Persistence alone does not establish that allegation. Equally, describing complaints as vexatious does not answer their substance.
The Equality Act proceedings: now, apparently, a complex matter
My separate claim, White v Secretary of State for Defence, N00RM961, is before Romford County Court.
It concerns the alleged adoption of an origin-linked narrative into UK decision-making, its consequences for me, and the subsequent treatment of my discrimination complaints. It does not make the Ministry automatically responsible for every act of Spanish or NATO personnel.
The contrast in the Ministry’s approach is striking. Its judicial-review grounds sought dismissal as totally without merit. Its March response to my proposed separate claim threatened possible strike-out as an abuse of process. Preparing the Equality Act Defence has since been described as requiring extensive documents, instructions and liaison, potentially including Spanish authorities.
I agreed an initial 28-day extension. Later proposals and applications sought additional time. The latest application, dated 5 October 2026, requests a Defence deadline of 3 November.
My Second Witness Statement explains why I oppose it: the application supplies no concrete account of completed enquiries, outstanding documents or milestones showing why another 28 days is necessary.
Complexity does not prove my case. Delay does not establish liability. But neither supplies the explanation I have been seeking.
The questions remain: what was decided about me, on what basis, and why has challenging it become another reason to characterise me adversely?
Documentary references: MoD Summary Grounds of Resistance, 13 November 2025, §§10, 14, 28, 39 and 44; N244 withdrawal letter, 21 March 2026; Review Wye, 30 April 2026, §§39–40; Equality Act Particulars of Claim, 25 April 2026; Second Witness Statement, 6 October 2026, especially §§26–39 and 50–57. The claims and witness statements set out my case; they are not judicial findings.
The first is judicial review of the legal and administrative basis of the treatment. The second is an Equality Act claim concerning alleged discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
Both concern something more fundamental than whether I should have been admitted to Northwood on a particular afternoon: how a public authority makes, records and accounts for decisions affecting an identifiable person. The MoD is desperately trying to frame it as my grievance of refusal to have access to the base. Alas, I have never applied for one.
I allege that the Commanding officer of Northwood HQ simply acted ultra vires and is not able to explain his actions. I also allege that subsequently the lawyers of the Ministry invented my place of birth as a "relevant factor" to justify that and facilitated subsequent victimisation.
“Parasitic”: a restriction without an identified status
In its Summary Grounds of Resistance, the Ministry describes my access position as “parasitic” upon Commander Laureano Pastor Veiga’s access (§§28 and 44).
That is the Ministry’s description of an alleged dependency. It is not a recognised administrative status that the Ministry has ever identified to me, which could explain such dependency.
Its own account describes one escorted social visit in December 2024. My question is therefore straightforward: what continuing status existed that could subsequently be suspended or extinguished?
Imagine you have been invited to a Buckingham Palace, where your partner has received the King's Honours. Then your partner is suspected of stealing some royal silver. Or rather it is said that because he visited the palace and there is some silver there, potentially he could have stolen some. Nobody is sure, if any silver got missed. But potentially he could, couldn't he?
And because he could have, now you find out that there is a special record in the royal books, that whatever happens in your life, maybe you could have got your own invitation to the palace, or marry one of the Princes available, that record states in definite terms, that you are prohibited forever from the premises. Because you are a wrong type of the person, born in a wrong country.
This is roughly explains what happened to me. The idea of the authors of this decision was simple - create that record in hope I would never find out. But I did.
I then have asked for the classification, policy, instruction, record or administrative arrangement establishing that dependency. None has been identified to me.
There is also a distinction between losing the opportunity to accompany a particular sponsor and becoming personally subject to a wider restriction. Review Wye records a pre-existing instruction prohibiting my escorted admission, communicated to security staff and recorded on SISYS (§§39–40). That requires an explanation concerning me, even if its origins involved somebody else.
My challenge does not assume that a visitor has an unrestricted right to enter a military establishment. It asks how a restriction concerning that visitor was created, what supported it, how far it extended and how it could be reviewed.
Judicial review: examining the decision-making architecture
My first judicial review, R (White) v Secretary of State for Defence, AC-2025-LON-003621, challenges that architecture.
The Ministry presents the dispute largely through the language of access to Northwood. My case concerns the process behind the outcome:
Who supplied the information?
What was verified?
What did the Commanding Officer decide about me?
Under which power or policy?
How was the instruction recorded and communicated?
What safeguards existed for notification, correction and review?
An explanation of why military access is controlled does not answer those questions.
I placed three focused grounds before the court: illegality, irrationality, and procedural unfairness and proportionality. The alleged absence of an identified administrative basis became part of the challenge itself.
“Born in Russia”: a historical fact converted into a decision-making factor
The Ministry’s November 2025 grounds state that my place of birth was “unarguably relevant” to access-related decision-making (§39). They also state that no UK decision-maker had determined that I posed a national-security threat (§14).
Those propositions require an explanation of what my birthplace was being used to establish.
Since June 2025, I have repeatedly sought identification of the policy or rule under which place of birth could justify adverse treatment of me. I have not been provided with the policy and decision-making explanation I sought.
The legal issue is not whether an authority may know where I was born. It is whether it used that fact as a proxy for nationality, national origins or presumed allegiance, and thereby subjected me to unlawful treatment.
The Equality Act protects nationality and ethnic or national origins within its definition of race. Its national-security exception permits proportionate action for that purpose; it does not provide an unlimited exemption from scrutiny.
My case is that the treatment was discriminatory and lacked the necessary justification. That allegation remains for the court to determine.
“Increasingly Vexatious”: when asking becomes the problem
Internal Northwood correspondence dated 23 March 2026, disclosed to me in August, described my actions as “increasingly vexatious in nature” and an apparent attempt to “circumvent the established process”.
The correspondence acknowledged a further formal complaint. My concern is that the adverse characterisation preceded a substantive answer to its separate subject matter.
My October witness statement in response to a second application of the Ministry of Defence not to file a Defence to my claim, also addresses the Government Legal Department’s presentation of formal complaint correspondence as attempts to write directly to contractors, and ministerial responses treating distinct complaints as the same issue already in litigation.
The Ministry’s judicial-review grounds additionally assert that I suffered no grave “or any” adverse impact (§44).
Hmm, having an unexplained restriction in MoD records, statements of the MoD officials to civilian police that I was "under investigation", watching my former partner dying in a MoD housing, multiple statements from ministers that I was not eligible to file complaints, "you have no rights here" statements from RAF officers, no attempt to stop spreading "Russian spy" rumours, which spread from the NATO and Spanish circles into a British contour and ultimately reached unauthorised recipients... Yes, no adverse impact. I am grateful not to be shot on the spot.
These descriptions matter because they can minimise the questions requiring examination: a personal restriction becomes a derivative access issue; a request for accountability becomes repetitive correspondence; the consequences for the individual become negligible.
My Equality Act claim alleges that the handling (or rather refusal to handle) of my discrimination complaints amounted to victimisation. Persistence alone does not establish that allegation. Equally, describing complaints as vexatious does not answer their substance.
The Equality Act proceedings: now, apparently, a complex matter
My separate claim, White v Secretary of State for Defence, N00RM961, is before Romford County Court.
It concerns the alleged adoption of an origin-linked narrative into UK decision-making, its consequences for me, and the subsequent treatment of my discrimination complaints. It does not make the Ministry automatically responsible for every act of Spanish or NATO personnel.
The contrast in the Ministry’s approach is striking. Its judicial-review grounds sought dismissal as totally without merit. Its March response to my proposed separate claim threatened possible strike-out as an abuse of process. Preparing the Equality Act Defence has since been described as requiring extensive documents, instructions and liaison, potentially including Spanish authorities.
I agreed an initial 28-day extension. Later proposals and applications sought additional time. The latest application, dated 5 October 2026, requests a Defence deadline of 3 November.
My Second Witness Statement explains why I oppose it: the application supplies no concrete account of completed enquiries, outstanding documents or milestones showing why another 28 days is necessary.
Complexity does not prove my case. Delay does not establish liability. But neither supplies the explanation I have been seeking.
The questions remain: what was decided about me, on what basis, and why has challenging it become another reason to characterise me adversely?
Documentary references: MoD Summary Grounds of Resistance, 13 November 2025, §§10, 14, 28, 39 and 44; N244 withdrawal letter, 21 March 2026; Review Wye, 30 April 2026, §§39–40; Equality Act Particulars of Claim, 25 April 2026; Second Witness Statement, 6 October 2026, especially §§26–39 and 50–57. The claims and witness statements set out my case; they are not judicial findings.
