MoD Said Police Wrongly Let US Military Take Over Assault Case

Ministry of Defence officials privately accused Cambridgeshire police of wrongly handing an investigation to the US military police, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The case involved an American fighter pilot who strangled a British woman.

Police let US military police quickly take control of the inquiry into Capt Jacob Wulfson after Sarah Steele accused him of sexual assault in his Cambridge flat. As a result, Wulfson was not tried in an English criminal court. He was prosecuted in a military tribunal on a US airbase in neighbouring Suffolk.

MoD officials said the force should "absolutely" not have allowed the handover. They called it a clear breach of a long-established agreement with the US.

What the agreement says

Under the deal, police in the UK have the primary right to investigate alleged crimes by Americans stationed in the country. The officials described it as "pretty unambiguous". The US military can take jurisdiction only in a "narrow set of circumstances": if the offences happened while the Americans were on duty, or were committed against another member of their armed forces or against property.

A memo written on 8 July by MoD officials based in Washington said the Steele case "does not, on the surface, appear to meet the bar for a visiting force to be awarded jurisdiction". Four days earlier, an email to colleagues said the decision-making "seemed at odds with what is very clear" in the agreement. Another official wrote that "this should absolutely have been for the UK courts". An unidentified Greater Manchester police officer wrote on 6 July that Cambridgeshire police had handed over the investigation "wrongly, in my view".

Cambridgeshire police said they are reviewing the case with the "assistance of material provided" by US Air Force lawyers. They said they remain engaged with the victim and are working with government and criminal justice partners on "greater clarity of jurisdictional decision making".

The Guardian disclosed the case in June. Downing Street called it "deeply distressing" and "very concerning" that UK authorities were not involved in the prosecution. The government then set up a cross-government inquiry, with officials from the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Foreign Office and MoD, plus police chiefs. It is examining why forces have been transferring serious cases to the US military police.

Wulfson was off duty when he assaulted Steele in December 2023, after the two met on the Tinder dating app. At his court martial at Lakenheath in April, Steele testified that her experience was "degrading and distressing". An all-male jury of air force officers decided the verdict and sentence, and all the lawyers were American. Wulfson was convicted of strangling an intimate partner but acquitted of sexual assault. He was dismissed from the US Air Force and held in a military jail at Lakenheath for six months.

The inquiry is also looking at other cases. Tyrion Davis, accused of raping two women in Suffolk, was convicted of one charge of sexual assault and cleared of ten further counts. Hannes Marschalek, accused of exposing himself to a 16-year-old girl and four young women in Littleport, admitted a charge of indecent conduct in a plea bargain, then won an appeal in a US military court that quashed the conviction on technical grounds. That ruling is being challenged.

More than 12,000 US military personnel are stationed in the UK, at least 15 bases and facilities. The biggest are Lakenheath and Mildenhall in Suffolk.

Source: the Guardian