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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Harry Davies and Rob Evans

‘Degrading’: why did a US fighter pilot avoid British trial after strangling a woman in England?

A collage combining a photo of a Wulfson in sunglasses, a Lady Justice statue, a US flag and barbed wire
Capt Jacob Wulfson’s case was tried at a court martial on a US airbase according to US military law, despite his alleged crime taking place while he was off duty and in an English city. Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

When Sarah Steele woke up on the morning of 2 December 2023, she found herself in a pool of cold water in a bathtub. She was naked and in the apartment of an American fighter pilot she had met in person for the first time the night before. She was confused. Her head hurt, and so did her neck.

This was the account Steele, a British academic, provided to prosecutors. They later accused the pilot, Capt Jacob Wulfson, of drugging and strangling Steele in his apartment in the east of England, and penetrating her vagina with his penis without her consent.

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