A US airman stationed in Britain, Staff Sergeant Hannes Marschalek, avoided prosecution in the UK courts after Cambridgeshire Police ceded jurisdiction to the US military, allowing him to face a court martial on his base instead. He was accused of exposing himself to five females, including a 16-year-old girl, over a two-month period in 2022, and the case has renewed concerns about American service personnel escaping British justice.

Marschalek, based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, allegedly exposed himself outside his home in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, in incidents where victims reported seeing him holding a mobile phone. Police arrested and questioned him but handed authority to the US military three weeks later following an official American request. At a 2023 court martial, a plea bargain saw one of two indecent conduct charges dropped, and in April this year his sole guilty verdict was overturned on appeal on the grounds that prosecutors had used the wrong charge — a decision now being challenged. The case follows a similar one involving another Lakenheath airman revealed last month.