She left school hoping to join the police and fight crime in her home village.
But because Sophia Turner was not yet 18, she was deemed too young for her local force.
So the determined teenager signed up with the Army’s Royal Military Police instead – and has become a Helmand heroine after notching up a record number of Taliban arrests in a single day.
During a recent operation, 5ft 3in Lance Corporal Turner, now 20, arrested 17 male insurgents who had been plotting to murder and maim British troops and civilians in the most dangerous province in Afghanistan.
The fanatics were caught near Lashkar Gah wearing stolen Afghan National Police uniforms, driving a stolen police vehicle and carrying a vast haul of weapons, ammunition and bomb-making equipment.
As the Red Cap on duty, the young woman had to take command of a unit of 100 experienced soldiers.
She organised the soldiers to carry out a fingertip search of the mud-walled compounds where the captured Taliban lived and patted down the insurgents to make sure they were not concealing weapons or drugs.
L/Cpl Turner, from Seven Sisters, near Neath, South Wales, then had to formally arrest the insurgents, handcuff them and take their fingerprints and samples of DNA before arranging for them to be taken into custody.[More..]
04-04-2011, 11:15 AM
The Heroine of Helmand: Young military police officer makes a record 17 Taliban arres
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