‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,’ wrote James Boswell of Samuel Johnson in his biography of his friend in 1778. Evidently Jonathan Carley did. The retired teacher was found guilty on Monday of impersonating a rear admiral without permission. The 65-year-old was fined £500 by Llandudno magistrates’ court, and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £200 surcharge.
Carley was arrested last November, days after he had appeared at the town’s Remembrance service in naval uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his chest. He told police that he had carried out the deception to have a sense of ‘belonging and affirmation’. Passing sentence, District Judge Gwyn Jones told Carley his actions were ‘totally disrespectful’, adding that ‘it’s a sad reflection upon you that you chose to do such a thing on a very difficult day for so many’.
Half a century ago Remembrance Sunday was indeed a difficult day for the nation. Millions had lived through two world wars, as combatants or civilians, and suffered the grief of losing a father, a husband, a son. That is no longer the case. Of the five million Britons mobilised in the second world war, fewer than 8,000 are still alive, and since 1990 the British Army has shrunk from 155,000 troops to 75,000.
The de-militarisation of Britain allowed Carley to get away with his fakery for 14 years. He exploited the nation’s military ignorance with his ill-fitting uniform and preposterous collection of medals.
In the end Carley’s ego got the better of him. He arrived at Llandudno’s 2024 Remembrance Day parade with a ceremonial sword that caught the attention of veterans. When they peered closely at his medals they were astonished to recognise the Distinguished Service Order, MBE and the Queen’s Voluntary Reserves Medal. The latter is exclusively awarded to military reservists and has never been awarded to a recipient of the DSO.
Forewarned about the mysterious rear admiral, photographer Tony Mottram – a former army reservist who also worked for the RAF – was waiting for Carley at the 2025 parade. He noticed the shabby cut of his tunic. ‘The hemming wasn’t right, the length wasn’t right,’ he said. ‘You either go on parade right or you don’t go at all.’
Some believe Carley got off lightly. His offence, which carries a maximum fine of £1,000, breached the Uniforms Act 1894. As he didn’t gain financially he couldn’t be charged under the Fraud Act 2006. This makes it an offence to profit materially while falsely wearing military uniform or claiming to have served in the armed forces. The Fraud Act carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.
Last month the government said these two acts suffice and there are no plans to ‘introduce additional criminal offences for impersonation of military service or wearing unearned medals’. A group of British veterans called the Walter Mitty Hunters Club – named in honour of the daydreaming character of a 1939 short story by James Thurber – pursue and expose military phoneys such as Carley. They described his punishment as ‘pitiful’ and called for the wearing of unearned medals in public to be a criminal offence. ‘The absence of a “Stolen Valour Law”… is an unfortunate reality we face,’ they explain on their website. ‘This legislative gap is the reason we have taken it upon ourselves (for over a decade) to expose the impostors.’
There is a Stolen Valor Act in the USA, passed in 2013, but this legislation specifically criminalises the act of benefiting materially from false military representation. In other words it is similar to Britain’s Fraud Act. Among the phoneys unmasked by the Walter Mitty Hunters are Chris Webber. The 64-year-old claimed to have been a veteran of the Falklands War but his downfall came in 2023 when he was among a group of ex-military personnel invited to No. 10 Downing Street to meet Rishi Sunak.
When he was alive, they explain, ‘he didn’t like to talk about what he did in the war’
The prime minister and his aides didn’t have the knowledge to spot that two of Webber’s medals were non-military, but members of the Walter Mitty Hunters Club did when they saw photographs of the event. They also recognised that not only was Webber incorrectly wearing his beret, but that its badge was unique to the second world war.
Many of the 300 fakes exposed by the Walter Mitty Hunters Club claimed to have served in the special forces, usually the Special Air Service (SAS). This is a phenomenon I have also encountered as a military historian of the second world war. I interviewed around 75 wartime veterans of the SAS, along with a few who claimed to have served but didn’t.
I still receive enquiries from people asking for details about what their deceased relative did in the SAS. When he was alive, they explain, ‘he didn’t like to talk about what he did in the war’. I run their name through my extensive records and about one in two turn out to be fictitious.
Why did these old men lie to their families? To impress them, or more likely to impress themselves. Jonathan Carley read history at Oxford and then embarked on a successful career teaching the subject. He taught at Eton, Berkhamsted and Cheltenham College, three illustrious academic institutions, but at some point he decided he needed to be more distinguished. He began telling people he’d served in the army, the navy and military intelligence, not forgetting a stint at Nato.
Probably his pupils and their parents began looking at him with more respect. He felt he was someone. Carley’s defence solicitor told the court that his client ‘underestimated the anxiety, anger and distress’ that his actions caused. Above all, his deception caused disgust, for every man thinks meanly of the impostor who claims to have been at sea.
Comments