Trim Stab,
I'm with you; apart from the likely internal gnashing of teeth over the loss of a Perisher course graduate on a Trident submarine (if he has any sense he'll resign anyway, his career is over after all), this only serves to perpetuate the long held suspicion that there was and still is one law for officers and one for ORs.
Such a policy, whether true or not, hardly fits the modern perception of the Forces the Government want to convey.
NEO