Police should 'absolutely' not have let the US military try an American pilot who strangled a British woman, MoD says

Ministry of Defence officials privately accused Cambridgeshire Police of breaching a long-established US-UK agreement by handing Captain Jacob Wulfson's case to American military police. Wulfson, a US Air Force fighter pilot, had been accused of drugging, raping and strangling British woman Sarah Steele in his Cambridge flat while off duty. The handover meant he faced a military tribunal on a US airbase in Suffolk rather than an English criminal court.

An all-male jury of fellow air force officers convicted Wulfson of intimate-partner strangulation but returned a not-guilty verdict on the sexual assault charge.

MoD officials said Cambridgeshire Police should "absolutely" not have allowed the US military police to take over — calling it a clear breach of the bilateral agreement.

The government is now setting up a high-level inquiry after a series of cases emerged in which US military personnel reportedly escaped British courts entirely.