Good post tuc, thank you. This scandal extends to the highest reaches of the RAF's food chain, and to pin it on relative juniors would simply serve the purposes of the Star Chamber's cover up.
The RAF has to grasp this nettle and stop the cover up so that proper airworthiness reform can begin, in order to avoid further airworthiness associated accidents and needless deaths. It is a fundamental requirement of any Air Force that its aircraft are airworthy. If that costs the reputations and trinkets of a few old men, then so be it.