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A<\/span> woman strangled by an American fighter pilot at his home in an English city has come forward to criticise the handling of his prosecution via a US court martial, a process she described as \u201cmilitary first, justice second\u201d.<\/p>\n Sarah Steele, a British academic, has come forward to speak about the \u201cdistressing and degrading\u201d experience she had with the US military justice system after she was assaulted by the airman in Cambridge.<\/p>\n Although Jacob Wulfson assaulted Steele on UK soil in late 2023, after the pair met on a dating app, American military police quickly took over the case and the pilot was tried by US air force prosecutors.<\/p>\n <\/span>Wulfson (centre) with colleagues at the Dubai airshow in UAE in 2019.<\/span> Photograph: Tech. Sgt. Joseph Pick\/United States Air Forces Central<\/p>\n UK law enforcement have primary jurisdiction over crimes that occur outside of US bases while military personnel are off duty. However, Steele\u2019s case has put a spotlight on how UK authorities cede authority to the US military.<\/p>\n In her interview with the Guardian, Steele also shed light on the process by which her case was claimed by American military prosecutors.<\/p>\n Wulfson\u2019s court martial \u2013 details of which were revealed by the Guardian<\/strong> \u2013 was heard in April at the airman\u2019s base, RAF Lakenheath in west Suffolk, the largest US military base in the UK.<\/p>\n The 32-year-old US captain was convicted of strangling an intimate partner but found not guilty of sexual assault. He received a sentence of six months in a corrections facility, handed to him by an all-male panel of air force officers who served as the equivalent of a jury.<\/p>\n Had his case been heard in the British criminal justice system, legal experts say, Wulfson would probably have been tried for rape. Any sentence would have been determined by a judge.<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Joshua Bright\/The Guardian<\/span>RAF Lakenheath.<\/span> Photograph: David Goddard\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In an interview, Steele said the US military\u2019s processes had been \u201cconfronting, and at times frustrating and distressing\u201d. She said the court martial felt \u201carchaic and bizarre\u201d, adding: \u201cIt feels like you\u2019ve been put in this absurd Netflix series kind of situation where you\u2019re like, is this real?\u201d<\/p>\n Steele, 42, said one reason for coming forward to the Guardian was that many people in the UK were unaware there were \u201clittle pockets of American jurisdiction\u201d on British soil, where victims of crimes committed by US military personnel can find themselves caught in a foreign and outdated justice system.<\/p>\n She said decisions by UK police forces to cede responsibility of cases to the US military police and prosecutors needed to be \u201csubject to scrutiny\u201d, in particular when crimes committed by visiting American service personnel have affected British citizens.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re going to host these foreign forces here and they\u2019re going to have an increasing presence in our country, I think there\u2019s a necessity that we have a really clear, transparent, focused process by which constabularies hand over these cases,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n <\/span>An F35 Lightning II bearing Capt Jacob Wulfson\u2019s name taking off from Lakenheath base in June 2024.<\/span> Photograph: Benjamin Smith<\/p>\n Steele, who has a doctorate in law, has worked at several universities in the UK. Her research focuses on sexual safety and preventing violence against women and girls, providing her with an informed perspective on the case, though she said it had been deeply uncomfortable to be in the kind of situation she researches.<\/p>\n Wulfson assaulted Steele at their first face-to-face encounter. During the court martial, US air force prosecutors also accused him of drugging her and penetrating her vagina without her consent, an accusation he was acquitted of.<\/p>\n This was charged by the military prosecutors as sexual assault and \u201caggravated sexual contact\u201d.<\/p>\n Wulfson\u2019s lawyer said in the court martial the pilot had been \u201cfalsely accused\u201d and was \u201cunequivocally not guilty\u201d. After he was convicted on the strangulation charge, Wulfson told the court martial that on the night he met Steele he had been drunk and \u201ctook things too far\u201d.<\/p>\n His conviction is now subject to automatic appeal by a higher military court, which has the power to examine all the evidence and testimony heard in the court martial.<\/p>\n For legal reasons, Steele is unable to talk about the facts of the underlying case. However, she can discuss her experience of the US military system, which she said \u201cpicked me up, chewed me out\u201d.<\/p>\n Across several days of the court martial, Steele was subjected to invasive and aggressive questioning. \u201cI do not think that the contemporary British judiciary would have allowed some of the conduct that was experienced in that courtroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It was jarring to have \u201csome of the worst things that have ever happened to you\u201d scrutinised in a military court, she added. At several points during her testimony, she had to pause mid-sentence as fighter jets roared down a runway just a few hundred metres away, their engines rattling the courtroom.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like the shadowlands,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt like this alternative, weird world.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>RAF Lakenheath, said Steele, \u2018felt like the shadowlands\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Joshua Bright\/The Guardian<\/span>Across several days of the court martial, Steele was subjected to invasive and aggressive questioning.<\/span> Photograph: Joshua Bright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Born in Australia, Steele moved to the UK in 2007 for her doctorate at Oxford University, later becoming a British citizen and an expert in public health policy.<\/p>\n In September 2023, after separating from her partner earlier in the year, Steele started to explore online dating and began chatting with Wulfson on Tinder. \u201cI\u2019m a pilot up at Lakenheath,\u201d he wrote to her in one early message.<\/p>\n They continued chatting for several months but it was not until early December 2023, after Steele had undergone surgery to correct an earlier mastectomy, that they met in person, at Wulfson\u2019s apartment in Cambridge. At the time, Steele told the court martial, she was \u201ctrying to feel safe in a very different body\u201d.<\/p>\n Air force prosecutors alleged that at Wulfson\u2019s apartment, Steele was drugged with a potent, fast-acting drug several times stronger than Valium. They advanced several theories about how it was administered but could not say for certain, and Wulfson was ultimately acquitted of the drug-related charge of sexual assault.<\/p>\n <\/span>Wulfson shaking hands with a US air force commander at the Dubai airshow in 2019.<\/span> Photograph: Tech. Sgt. Joseph Pick\/United States Air Forces Central<\/p>\n He was, however, convicted of the strangulation charge. Prosecutors alleged that in his bedroom Wulfson strangled Steele, despite her having told him not to touch her neck in a message sent before arriving in which she had set some \u201cground rules\u201d. They alleged he continued to sexually assault her after she passed out, a charge he was acquitted of.<\/p>\n After she left Wulfson\u2019s apartment the following day, Steele went to hospital, where she was treated for a series of injuries. The next day a friend, a US air force employee, took her to a sexual assault referral centre, where she was examined by a nurse and had an off-the-record conversation with a UK police officer.<\/p>\n Get in touch<\/p>\n If you have something to share about this story, you can contact Harry using one of the following methods:<\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS\/Android) and go to the menu. Select \u2018Secure Messaging\u2019.<\/p>\n To send a message to Harry Davies please choose the \u2018UK Investigations\u2019 team.<\/p>\n You can message Harry using the Signal Messenger app. Use the \u2018find by username\u2019 option and type \u2018hfd.90\u2019.<\/p>\n If you can safely use the tor network without being observed or monitored you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform.<\/p>\n Finally, our guide at theguardian.com\/tips\u00a0lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each.<\/p>\n <\/span>Show more<\/p>\n The friend then took her to speak to military police officers on a nearby US base. Steele met officers from the air force\u2019s office of special investigations (OSI) for what she thought would be a preliminary conversation about her options. At the time, she was trying to work out how she wanted the case to be handled.<\/p>\n Instead, she said, \u201cI found myself being formally interviewed in a way that would be used across the whole case, without having slept properly.\u201d<\/p>\n Within 24 hours, officers from OSI, a federal US law enforcement agency, appear to have rapidly launched an investigation, arrested Wulfson, and notified Cambridgeshire police it would be handling the matter.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the US air force (USAF) police said it \u201cnegotiated jurisdiction\u201d over the case with the local police. \u201cCambridgeshire constabulary agreed to let the USAF take the lead and was an active partner throughout the investigation,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire police confirmed it was agreed in December 2023 that the US military \u201cwould take investigative primacy\u201d <\/strong>in the case.<\/p>\n However, Steele said that Cambridgeshire police did not contact her to discuss whether she wanted the case to be handed over to the US air force, or explain what that would entail. \u201cNo member of the British constabulary ever asked me what I wanted,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Once the US military police took over, she said, it felt like \u201cthe train left the station\u201d.<\/p>\n When Cambridgeshire police officers contacted her several months later, Steele said, she was concerned that if OSI handed the case back to the British police the investigation would start again from scratch.<\/p>\n She also feared Wulfson might try to leave the UK if the US military dropped the case, recalling the case of Anne Sacoolas, the American intelligence official who killed a 19-year-old motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, in a road accident outside the US military base RAF Croughton in August 2019.<\/p>\n Sacoolas fled the UK, evading justice after the US asserted diplomatic immunity. It was only after a three-year campaign that Sacoolas pleaded guilty, via remote video link, to causing the teenager\u2019s death by dangerous driving.<\/p>\n <\/span>A banner calling for justice for Harry Dunn, near the entrance of RAF Croughton in 2021.<\/span> Photograph: Andrew Boyers\/Reuters<\/span>Dunn\u2019s family outside the Old Bailey in London in 2022, after Anne Sacoolas was sentenced.<\/span> Photograph: James Manning\/PA<\/p>\n But Steele said she found herself in an unfamiliar system where the process was different from the British courts. There were no court-issued bail conditions imposed on Wulfson, nor was he remanded into custody. Instead, his commanders issued a military order days after he was arrested that prohibited any contact with Steele, which he subsequently violated.<\/p>\n When Steele later learned of this order, she wanted it to be extended to cover her child and protect other members of the public. This required her to go to Wulfson\u2019s base and personally make the case to his commander. \u201cI had to somehow figure that out [and] ask for the thing I wanted and needed to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n At the court martial, Steele had to spend extended periods on the witness stand. While victims in sexual assault cases can give evidence from behind a screen in the English criminal courts, no equivalent protection exists in US courts martial. Steele had to sit just metres from Wulfson.<\/p>\n To her side sat a panel of eight uniformed US air force officers who were acting as the jury in the case. That they were all men was troubling, Steele said. \u201cTo say they weren\u2019t representative of society at large would be an understatement.\u201d<\/p>\n For Steele, the process felt strikingly foreign and in the hands of people with little appreciation of life in the UK, despite the assault having happened in an English city. \u201cThe American flag is there. Everybody is in American uniforms. Everybody, as you appreciate it, is American,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As an academic familiar with criminal procedure, Steele said she anticipated Wulfson\u2019s lawyers would try to cast doubt on character and testimony. But the defence in the court martial felt \u201cabnormal and in-your-face\u201d and more aggressive than she would have expected in the British courts.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to withstand extended periods of intrusion into things that you never thought would be publicly shared, into things that you never thought would be questioned,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels like you\u2019re being ripped up.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Steele had to sit just metres from Wulfson at the court martial.<\/span> Photograph: Antonio Olmos\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Wulfson did not give evidence in the court martial, relying instead on his lawyers\u2019 attacks on Steele\u2019s credibility.<\/p>\n While his conviction is appealed \u2013 a process that could take several years \u2013 Steele is unable to comment on Wulfson\u2019s sentence. He is now serving six months of confinement in a facility at RAF Lakenheath, after which he can fly home to the US. His sentence does not include restrictions on contacting Steele after he is released.<\/p>\n Although the panel also decided to dismiss Wulfson from the air force, which is a severe punishment in the military, legal experts said a six-month prison sentence for a strangulation case such as this would be considered lenient had it been heard in the English criminal courts.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for US air force said: \u201cThe military justice process includes strict procedural safeguards by design to ensure proceedings are fair, transparent and thorough. Maintaining the trust that underpins our partnership, while ensuring accountability and the fair administration of discipline, remains our priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Steele believes there needs to be greater scrutiny of how British police forces handle cases involving visiting forces, in particular when their victim is a British citizen or unconnected to the US military.<\/p>\n She said the police need to formally record and then account for decisions to hand over cases to the US, and to seek the views of the survivors before doing so.<\/p>\n This is critical, she said, because it was in the US military\u2019s interest \u201cto have their cases heard in their own settings, according to their own laws, because then they can control everything\u201d. Its processes are \u201cguided by the US military\u2019s mission and what the US government wants, and that isn\u2019t necessarily what\u2019s best for British civilians\u201d, she added.<\/p>\n Steele said \u201cthe system itself\u201d had been bruising, but she hoped that by speaking out future victims of crimes by US military personnel stationed in the UK would have some insight from somebody who had \u201cbeen through what\u2019s inside that black box\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only way I\u2019ve been able to rationalise and kind of start to move forward is to do things like say, how could this have been better? How can we fix it? How can people in the future not go through what I\u2019ve experienced?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A woman strangled by an American fighter pilot at his home in an English city has come forward to criticise the handling of his prosecution via a US court martial, a process she described as \u201cmilitary first, justice second\u201d. Sarah Steele, a British academic, has come forward to speak about the \u201cdistressing and degrading\u201d experience<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1837,24854,7167,1206,1846,744,11269,1226,17290,272,2131,668],"class_list":{"0":"post-50679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-airbase","9":"tag-allmale","10":"tag-bizarre","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-jury","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-pilot","15":"tag-questions","16":"tag-strangled","17":"tag-tells","18":"tag-trial","19":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Unfamiliar system<\/h2>\n
Contact Harry Davies about this story<\/h4>\n
Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/h4>\n
Messaging apps<\/h4>\n
SecureDrop<\/h4>\n
\u2018It feels like you\u2019re being ripped up\u2019<\/h2>\n