CAMBRIDGESHIRE POLICE CEDE SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE TO US MILITARY

Cambridgeshire police allowed the United States military to take "investigative primacy" in a sexual assault case despite the crime occurring within the force's jurisdiction and when the accused was off duty. The decision followed an assault in 2023 in Cambridge city centre, where Jacob Wulfson, a fighter pilot, strangled a woman he had met online. Cambridgeshire police stated the victim, Sarah Steele, "did not want to be contacted" by local police. Steele has disputed this claim, insisting it was false. The decision enabled Wulfson to be tried by US military court martial rather than in the British justice system.

Wulfson was convicted at a court martial held at RAF Lakenheath, a US airbase in Suffolk, in April 2026 of strangling Steele during their first in-person meeting after connecting on a dating application. He was acquitted of charges relating to sexual penetration without consent, offences charged as sexual assault and aggravated sexual contact. Under English law, sexual penetration without consent would typically be categorised as rape. The court martial consisted of an all-male panel of air force officers stationed at the same base as Wulfson, who determined both his guilt and sentence of six months in a correctional facility.

Steele has described her experience of the US military justice system as "degrading and distressing", stating it left her feeling the system had "picked me up, chewed me out". Her account prompted an investigation into British crimes prosecuted on US military bases, which generated widespread concern about the jurisdiction of military tribunals in cases occurring on British soil.