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The UK government and police chiefs are reviewing the process through which US military personnel accused of committing serious crimes on UK soil are avoiding the British justice system. The effort, involving multiple government departments, is examining why UK police forces, which have primary responsibility for investigating such cases, have been ceding jurisdiction to US military investigators.
Such decisions pave the way for alleged perpetrators to be tried in a US military court martial process, an alternative justice system in which victims are often not given the same protections as they would get in a British court. The government and police reviews were launched after the Guardian uncovered a series of cases in which British police forces allowed the American military to take over investigations into allegations of serious sexual offences.
Coverage comparison
The Guardian's reporting on this story has been extensive, with three articles examining different aspects of the issue. The first article focuses on the government review itself, detailing the case of Capt Jacob Wulfson, an American fighter pilot accused of raping and strangling a British woman, Sarah Steele. Cambridgeshire police allowed US military police to take control of the case, and Wulfson was prosecuted in a court martial on a US airbase in Suffolk. He was convicted of strangling an intimate partner but acquitted of sexual assault, receiving a six-month sentence served at RAF Lakenheath.
The second article expands on the discrepancy between US and British definitions of rape, noting that victims of sexual attacks by US military personnel that would meet a common definition of rape in the UK are finding that their attackers are instead being prosecuted for lesser offences. The article highlights the traumatic impact on survivors and the unfamiliarity of the military justice system.
The third article presents a detailed case study of James Loubeau, a US airman accused of a 'spree' of rapes and sexual assaults in England. Loubeau was able to avoid British justice after Suffolk police handed over part of the case to the American military. He was eventually convicted in Miami, Florida, of sexual assault and sentenced to five years in prison, but the case has raised questions about the decision-making process of Suffolk police.
Key claims
According to the Guardian's reporting, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the set of laws that govern US forces, carries a narrower definition of rape than that adopted by British courts. British law defines rape as non-consensual penetration, regardless of intoxication, while the UCMJ requires the prosecution to prove that the defendant used force or administered an intoxicant. This means many cases that would be considered rape in the UK are charged instead as sexual assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.
The review was prompted by cases such as that of James Loubeau, who allegedly attacked six women in East Anglia over a four-month period in 2019. Two British women went to Suffolk police in August 2019 to allege that Loubeau and another US airman had drugged and raped them after a night out in Bury St Edmunds. Less than two weeks later, Suffolk police allowed the US air force to take over the investigation. Loubeau was eventually convicted in a US court in Miami and received a five-year prison sentence, with monitoring for two decades after his release.
The Guardian also reports that US military personnel can claim jurisdiction over alleged crimes when the victim is another member of the US armed forces or when the alleged crime occurs while the service member is on duty, under a 1951 agreement between the US and UK. In almost all other instances, local British police have primary responsibility for investigating crimes on UK soil.
Downing Street described the initial case as 'very concerning,' and the government has promised to press the US government for a full account of what happened in the Wulfson case.