A police force in England is under scrutiny for letting the US military handle the case of a woman strangled by an American fighter pilot in his Cambridge apartment.
Cambridgeshire police acknowledged that in December 2023, they allowed the US Air Force to take investigative primacy, even though the crime occurred off-duty and on British soil.
>>> Documentary Exposes Shocking Abuse by Entertainer Rolf Harris
The victim, Sarah Steele, 42, said the US military falsely claimed she did not want to be contacted by local police.
The force said it acted on that information.
Capt Jacob Wulfson, an F-35 pilot stationed at RAF Lakenheath, was convicted in a court martial in April 2026 of strangling Steele on their first in-person meeting after matching on Tinder.
He was acquitted of sexual penetration without consent. In a UK court, that charge could have been classified as rape.
The all-male jury of fellow air force officers sentenced Wulfson to six months in a correctional facility.
Timeline of the Assault
Steele, an academic, began chatting with Wulfson on Tinder in September 2023. They met at his flat on 1 December 2023.
Within 48 hours, a friend took her to a sexual assault clinic and then to military police on a nearby US base.
Steele said she was sleep-deprived and in shock, and believed the meeting with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) was preliminary.
>>> Trump's 250th Birthday Bash: Joyless, Divisive, and All About Him
Instead, she was formally interviewed.
