UK Defence Ministry officials: US pilot's case should have been heard by British courts — The Guardian
Officials at the UK Ministry of Defence believed that Cambridgeshire Police should not have handed over the investigation involving US Air Force Captain Jacob Wolfson to the US military. The Guardian reports that this is stated in documents obtained by the publication under freedom of information legislation.
Cambridgeshire Police allowed US military police to swiftly take over the investigation after Wolfson was accused of sexually assaulting British woman Sarah Steele in his apartment in Cambridge. As a result, the case was not heard in an English criminal court: the American serviceman was tried by a military tribunal at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Defence Ministry officials' position
Under a long-standing agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, British police have the primary right to investigate alleged crimes committed by Americans stationed in the country. The US military can obtain jurisdiction only in a narrow range of cases, including if the offence was committed while on duty or against another service member or US armed forces property.
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In an internal memo dated 8 July, UK Ministry of Defence staff in Washington said that the Steele case did not, at first glance, meet the criteria for transferring jurisdiction to the US military. Another ministry official concluded that the case should have been heard by British courts. An unnamed Greater Manchester Police officer also wrote to Ministry of Defence officials that, in his view, Cambridgeshire Police had mistakenly transferred the investigation to the United States.
Verdict and case review
The incident occurred in December 2023, when Wolfson was off duty. In April, a military tribunal at RAF Lakenheath found him guilty of strangling an intimate partner but acquitted him of the sexual assault charge. The verdict and sentence were determined by male jurors who were US Air Force officers serving alongside Wolfson. He was discharged from the US Air Force and jailed for six months in a military prison at RAF Lakenheath.
Cambridgeshire Police said it is reviewing the case with the assistance of materials provided by US Air Force lawyers and remains in contact with the victim. The British government, meanwhile, is conducting an interdepartmental review into how and why police transferred investigations into serious crimes to the US military. It involves representatives of the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and police chiefs.
