\n<\/p>\n
American service personnel accused of rape on British soil are being charged with lesser offences by their military courts, a discrepancy that experts say is deepening the traumatic impact on survivors long after verdicts are passed.<\/p>\n
There are more than 12,000 personnel stationed in US military bases across the UK, most of them in England. Although UK law enforcement has primary jurisdiction over crimes that occur when personnel are off duty, local police often choose to cede authority to the American military.<\/p>\n
When that happens, British victims are thrust into an unfamiliar world, where their alleged attackers are tried at courts martial, often by a panel of American military personnel stationed at the same base.<\/p>\n
Victims of sexual attacks by military personnel that would meet a common definition of rape are also finding that their attackers are instead being prosecuted for lesser offences, which carry more lenient sentences.<\/p>\n
Under the set of laws that govern US forces, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the crime of rape carries a narrower definition to that adopted by the British courts, meaning many cases are charged instead as sexual assault.<\/p>\n
British law defines rape as when someone puts their penis in another person\u2019s vagina, anus or mouth without their consent and carries a maximum life sentence. Whether or not a victim was intoxicated is not relevant; the law centres on whether the alleged victim consented to the sexual act.<\/p>\n
In contrast, under article 120 of the UCMJ, a rape charge requires the prosecution to prove that the defendant, without consent, used force or administered an intoxicant. In cases where the victim was drinking alcohol voluntarily, or is not proven to have been overwhelmed by force, the case is charged as sexual assault, with a maximum penalty of 20 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s concerning if the occupation of the accused pulls a survivor into a justice system that she doesn\u2019t know very much about, or understand, and isn\u2019t one that she feels she has got a voice in,\u201d said Kelly Johnson, a senior criminology lecturer at the University of Glasgow whose research examines policing responses to sexual violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cA process might say it\u2019s complying with its own formal rules, and still be experienced by survivors as alienating, degrading, and fundamentally unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the case of Capt Jacob Wulfson, an American fighter pilot, prosecutors accused him of drugging and strangling Sarah Steele, a British academic, during a date in his apartment in December 2023, before penetrating her vagina with his penis without her consent.<\/p>\n
The charge for the non-consensual penetration was sexual assault and \u201caggravated sexual contact\u201d \u2013 a crime that does not even appear in UK statutes.<\/p>\n
An all-male panel of airmen found Wulfson not guilty of the sexual assault charge, but guilty of strangulation. They sentenced him to be confined to a corrections facility for six months.<\/p>\n
Steele said: \u201cWords have power. Legal terminology isn\u2019t just a technical exercise, it shapes how victims are understood. I respect that the law uses precise definitions, but the language carried a profound emotional weight for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recalled \u201chaving to explain what the legal label meant and what it didn\u2019t mean. Having to repeatedly explain that distinction has been exhausting and, frankly, retraumatising.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another case, Tyrion Davis, an American airman, was tried in a court martial in June 2022 after two British women, including his wife, accused him of rape. The official charge sheet said that he was convicted on one charge of sexual assault \u2013 described as penetrating the victim\u2019s vagina with his penis without consent \u2013 but acquitted of 10 further counts of sexual assault and abusive sexual contact, and two counts of assault.<\/p>\n
Experts working with survivors of sexual violence say that a perception that the crime on the charge sheet reflects their lived experience can be integral to how a victim is able to process their experience.<\/p>\n
Katrin Hohl, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of London, said: \u201cThe way other people respond to what happened to you, the way other people label it and frame it and see it has profound consequences for your ability to move forward. If the criminal justice system treats you in a way that denies you validation, it doesn\u2019t just not help you recover, it actually adds further trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/span>Show more<\/p>\n An earlier version of the UCMJ\u2019s article 120 defined crimes of sexual violence more loosely, but a new definition adopted in 2007, and refined several times since then, instituted the narrower definition of rape.<\/p>\n Critics of article 120 say it fails victims because it was not developed in consultation with victims\u2019 rights groups and individuals specialising in the field of sexual assault.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the intention came from a good place,\u201d said Don Christensen, who served as chief prosecutor for the US air force between 2010 and 2014. \u201cThey modelled some of these changes on some state laws, but they didn\u2019t really, to my understanding, talk to many of us who were prosecuting cases to ask us what the problems were.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel VanLandingham, a law professor and former US air force judge advocate involved in efforts to reform military law, said the broader problem with prosecuting sexual offences under the UCMJ was a structural one.<\/p>\n \u201cThey pick the charges and then they get to pick the jury members, which is completely structurally unfair, but the system was never designed to be fair. It was designed to be a commander\u2019s tool for strict discipline,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n For victims, the consequences of having their experiences funnelled through such an opaque and militarised process can be devastating. \u201cWhen victims don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re taken seriously, they\u2019re not treated with respect and dignity, they\u2019re not heard, that causes retraumatisation or what\u2019s known as a secondary victimisation,\u201d said Johnson, of the University of Glasgow. \u201cSome victims say this is more profoundly damaging and harmful than the initial experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org\/rcip\/internl.html<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" American service personnel accused of rape on British soil are being charged with lesser offences by their military courts, a discrepancy that experts say is deepening the traumatic impact on survivors long after verdicts are passed. There are more than 12,000 personnel stationed in US military bases across the UK, most of them in England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1038,13368,4516,2282,744,25086,25087,359,418],"class_list":{"0":"post-51497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-alleged","9":"tag-assaults","10":"tag-criminal","11":"tag-justice","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-prosecutes","14":"tag-rapes","15":"tag-sexual","16":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51497","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=51497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}