Sarah Steele Condemns 6-Month US Court-Martial Sentence for UK Strangling Case

Q: Are there parts of Britain where citizens are not fully protected by UK law from foreign soldiers?

Yes — but not because parts of Britain are outside UK law. The issue is that, in some cases involving foreign troops, Britain shares or cedes criminal jurisdiction under treaties, so a British victim may end up in a foreign military justice system rather than a UK court. The main framework is the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and the NATO Status of Forces Agreement. These apply wherever allied forces are stationed in Britain, including US bases such as RAF Lakenheath. In principle, UK authorities usually have primary jurisdiction over crimes committed off duty and off base against British civilians. But they can waive that right and allow the sending state — here, the US military — to investigate and prosecute. That is what happened in Sarah Steele’s case. The alleged assault took place in Cambridge, not on a base, yet Cambridgeshire police allowed the US military to take primacy. Wulfson was then tried by a US court martial under American military law. Steele’s complaint is not that UK law vanished, but that British authorities chose a legal route that exposed her to weaker victim protections and, experts say, potentially a much lighter outcome than in an English court. So there are not literal “no-law zones” in Britain. But there are real pockets of foreign military jurisdiction, especially around bases hosting visiting forces, where British citizens may not receive the same procedures, protections or sentencing outcomes they would expect under the UK criminal justice system.

1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 26

Sarah Steele said the US military handled her case as “military first, justice second” after Captain Jacob Wulfson was convicted at RAF Lakenheath of strangling her in Cambridge and sentenced to six months.
Within 24 hours of the December 2023 assault report, US military investigators took the lead with Cambridgeshire police consent, even though the alleged crime happened off base on UK soil.
Steele said the process was degrading and opaque: she was formally interviewed while exhausted, cross-examined aggressively in an all-male court-martial panel, and denied protections common in British sexual-assault courts.
Wulfson, 32, was acquitted of sexual-assault charges, is serving confinement at RAF Lakenheath, and can return to the US after release; his conviction now goes to automatic military appeal.
Steele said her case exposes how British police hand cases involving US personnel to American authorities, and she called for formal scrutiny and victim input before future transfers.