The Guardian’s investigations team has spent six months examining the operations of US military bases in Britain, uncovering significant disparities in how sexual assault cases involving American servicemen are handled. Rather than facing prosecution in the British courts system, US military personnel accused of crimes against British citizens have been tried by US court martial panels composed of their military peers.
Journalists attended a court martial at RAF Lakenheath in April involving fighter pilot Jacob Wulfson, who was accused of drugging, strangling, and sexually assaulting a British academic. Under British law, the case would likely have been prosecuted as rape, but the US military panel convicted him only of strangling an intimate partner and formally reprimanded him with six months confinement. Notably, the panel was permitted to consider Wulfson’s combat record during sentencing, a factor that would not be available in British proceedings. Had journalists not observed the proceedings, the trial would have left only a brief entry on an obscure US Air Force webpage as public record.
The investigation identified multiple cases where US service members committed crimes including sexual assault, indecent exposure, and violent attacks against British victims while off duty. In each instance, the US military claimed jurisdiction, preventing prosecution through British Crown courts. Cases examined involved allegations against an airman accused of exposing himself to a 16-year-old and four women, a senior airman accused of rape by two women, and a man accused of raping sleeping women in England. None of the individuals were convicted of rape charges.
Jurisdiction over such cases derives from a 1951 agreement stipulating the US prosecutes its personnel for crimes committed while on duty or against other military members, while British police nominally make the first determination in other cases. However, the investigation found the US military had been aggressively expanding its claimed jurisdiction, with inconsistent interpretations across different police constabularies. Some rape victims were reportedly advised that prosecution through the US military system might provide faster resolution than the British system, which currently experiences average delays of 417 days for case hearings.
Following publication, UK ministers and police chiefs pledged to examine why British law enforcement has frequently ceded jurisdiction to the US military in such cases. The investigation has generated substantial reader correspondence and renewed focus on the provisions governing the US military presence in Britain.
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