UK Ministry of Defence documents obtained by the Guardian under FOI show MoD officials believed Cambridgeshire police should not have let US military police take over the investigation of USAF Capt Jacob Wulfson, accused of sexually assaulting and strangling Briton Sarah Steele in his Cambridge flat while off duty.

The case was tried at a court martial on a Suffolk airbase, not in an English criminal court. The 1951 Status of Forces Agreement gives the US jurisdiction when the offence is on duty or against force members, property or dependants; otherwise British police have first option — and may refuse a US request to cede the case.

In internal notes MoD officials wrote that on its face the case “does not … appear to meet the bar” for visiting-force jurisdiction, that the decision was “at odds with what is very clear” in the agreement, and that it “should absolutely have been for the UK courts.” A Greater Manchester Police officer emailed the MoD that Cambridgeshire had “wrongly, in my view” handed over the probe.

The UK government has opened a cross-government review of how police forces cede serious cases to US military justice. Victims in military tribunals typically lack the same public-court protections as in the British system.

Cambridgeshire earlier confirmed it agreed USAF would take “investigative primacy,” with local support. The row again asks whether the UK truly exercises its right of first refusal for off-base, off-duty offences.

Image: Ministry of Defence Main Building, London (Wikimedia Commons, OGL v1.0).

Sources consulted: UK police should not have let US force take over airbase trial, MoD documents show - The Guardian.