Ministry of Defence officials have privately accused a UK police force of "wrongly handing over the investigation" of an American fighter pilot who strangled a British woman to the US military, according to documents obtained by The Guardian's report on those documents. The newspaper published the report on October 31, 2026, under a headline stating that UK police should not have let a US force take over an airbase trial.

According to The Guardian's summary of the documents, officials accused the Cambridgeshire force of breaching the US-UK deal by handing over the case. The summary does not set out the terms of that agreement, and it does not explain how the case came to be transferred.

The Guardian's summary describes the victim as a British woman who was strangled and the suspect as an American fighter pilot, but it does not name either person. It also does not report any on-the-record response from the Cambridgeshire force or from the US military.

The Guardian reported that the accusations were made privately, and its summary does not indicate whether they were issued formally or whether any review of the handover has been announced. The documents were described as having been obtained by the newspaper, and the summary does not say how they were obtained.

The report was written by Rob Evans, Harry Davies, Louisa Loveluck and Emine Sinmaz. The summary available for this account ends mid-sentence, so any details contained only in the full article are not reflected here.

Sources: The Guardian: UK police should not have let US force take over airbase trial, MoD documents show.