‘They said: wear angelic white’: British women who accused US airman of rape tell of American military trial
Minutes after fleeing the home of an American airman, Rebecca called 999 in tears to report that he had raped her. She recalls vomiting at a police station in Suffolk as she described being repeatedly and violently attacked.
Officers took her to a sexual assault referral centre for an intimate examination. There, a nurse measured and photographed her injuries, including bruises and bite marks on her neck.
“I didn’t feel like I was a human,” said Rebecca, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “I know that sounds really extreme but I genuinely looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognise myself.”
Over the following days, Rebecca, then a 20-year-old British midwifery student, was interviewed by local police detectives. She handed over her phone and laptop as evidence. She was given a crime reference number and appointed an independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) to help with the legal process she assumed would take place under the normal rules for prosecutions in England and Wales.
Yet normal rules do not always apply to men like Tyrion Davis, who was then a 22-year-old senior airman in the US air force based at RAF Lakenheath, an American military base. Rebecca alleged that he raped her in June 2020, while he was off-duty and at his home in Brandon, a small market town in rural Suffolk.
Twenty days after Suffolk police commenced their investigation, the force decided to cede control of the case to the US air force. That decision meant Davis would avoid the British justice system, and a possible trial before a jury in a British crown court. Instead, he was prosecuted in a military trial, or court martial, at RAF Lakenheath.
By the time of the trial, in June 2022, the case against Davis had expanded to include similar sexual assault allegations from a second woman: his estranged wife, Emily. Davis insisted his sexual encounters with Rebecca and Emily, both British women, had been consensual.
However, he was convicted of sexually assaulting Emily, whose name has also been changed to protect her identity, “by penetrating her vulva with his penis, without her consent”.
It is unclear why the offence, which involved non-consensual penetrative sex, was prosecuted by the military as sexual assault. In the criminal justice system for England and Wales, such an offence is likely to have been charged as rape.
Davis was acquitted of 10 further counts of sexual assault and abusive sexual contact, and two counts of assault, against Rebecca and Emily.
In interviews with the Guardian, Rebecca and Emily spoke of their horrific allegations against the US airman, and their traumatic experience of giving evidence against him at the court martial.
Rebecca, who now works for the NHS, said she had discovered about a week before the court martial that the jury panel would be composed entirely of Davis’s military peers, rather than members of the public. “It’s like, if I did something wrong outside of work, having all of my nursing colleagues being on the jury,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Rebecca met Davis when she was 18, four months after he had arrived at RAF Lakenheath in June 2017. He was an aircraft metals craftsman in the 48th equipment maintenance squadron. In February 2018, Rebecca introduced Davis, who is originally from California, to her friend Emily. Ten months later, Davis, then 20, and Emily, then 18, got married.
The marriage was short-lived and ended when Emily left him in July 2019. However, Rebecca had considered Davis a good friend. He had met her family, stayed at their home and joined them for roast dinners.
In June 2020, at the end of the first Covid lockdown, Rebecca asked Davis if she could stay in one of the spare rooms at his home in Brandon, which is close to the airbase. Her flatmates had moved out of her university accommodation and the wifi had stopped working properly.
Rebecca alleged that Davis smoked marijuana before attacking her within hours of her arrival on 8 June 2020. “I thought I was going to die there,” Rebecca recalled. She said Davis had pulled her on to his bed before assaulting her. “He bit me. I couldn’t see anything because it was just pitch-black and I didn’t know the layout of the room. I just kind of froze. Everything happened. It was rape, sexual assault and the only time he stopped is when I vomited everywhere from stress.”
Rebecca alleged Davis then pushed her into the shower and attempted to assault her before she escaped to a downstairs bedroom, where she barricaded the door shut with her suitcases.
The full horror of the alleged attack, she said, became clear when she saw bruises and bite marks on her neck in the morning and realised “that wasn’t a bad dream”.
Rebecca tried the front door but found it was locked. She messaged a friend to say she needed somewhere safe to stay, while considering jumping out of a window to escape. Then, she alleged, Davis burst into the bedroom and raped her again.
“I begged him to let me go: ‘Unlock the door, please. Just let me go.’ And eventually he did. I was absolutely hysterical,” she said. “He left the room and I was like: ‘What do I grab?’ I launched all my stuff in the car and started driving.”
In the car, Rebecca said, she phoned a friend who encouraged her to call 999. A court martial document described Rebecca as “audibly distraught and overcome with emotion” in the call. The body camera footage of the Suffolk police officer who met her a short time later showed that she was “visibly shaken, agitated, at some points crying, and appear[ed] to be under extreme stress”, the document said.
At a local police station, an officer told Rebecca they had run out of the rape kits used to preserve evidence, owing to a spate of reported assaults. She was taken to the Harbour Centre, a sexual assault referral centre in Norwich, where intimate photographs and swabs were taken and her injuries documented.
Rebecca surrendered her clothing as evidence and left wearing clothes donated by a charity. She returned to the centre a few days later for a formal interview, this time by an officer from Norfolk police, although Suffolk police remained the investigating force. Days later, however, that changed.
On 15 June 2020, six days after Rebecca’s initial report, she said she received an unexpected phone call from Suffolk police. An officer informed her that the Americans had made a request for the US military to take jurisdiction over the case, and that the transfer would be a quicker route to justice.
Rebecca said a similar argument was made by her ISVA, a specialist who provides advice and support to victims in England and Wales.
“She told me the CPS might not take the case,” Rebecca said of the ISVA. “If they do take it, it’s a minimum of two years until the court case. She then said: ‘The Americans, they want to take it on. They’ve said it’ll be six months [for a court martial]. Which one would you prefer?’”
In the traumatic days after the alleged attack, the promise of a faster trial was compelling. Rebecca had already put her midwifery degree on hold while trying to navigate a complex legal system.
She was told there was a two-year waiting list for mental health services on the NHS, but that the Americans could offer her support more quickly. Rebecca also recalls her ISVA giving her statistics about how few rape cases are prosecuted by the CPS – and how long they take to get to court.
“In my head, I was thinking: ‘OK, if I go the American route, it’s quicker, I can continue midwifery and also they’re going to give me support,’” she said.
Rebecca said she was also warned by her ISVA that Davis could try to leave the UK before facing trial in an English court. Nine months earlier, Anne Sacoolas, an American intelligence official, had fled the UK after killing a 19-year-old motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, in a road collision outside the US military base RAF Croughton.
Rebecca agreed to the transfer and the case was formally handed over to the Americans on 29 June 2020. It was only later, she said, that she realised the full implications of that decision.
The promised six-month timetable for a court martial stretched to two years, forcing Rebecca to drop out of her midwifery degree.
Unlike the hundreds of rape and sexual offence victims who give evidence in UK courts each year, Rebecca could not testify from behind a screen. She would have to do so in a small courtroom at the military base. “So all the questioning would be in front of him,” she said.
Rebecca did not meet her US air force-appointed lawyer until weeks before the trial, when she was invited to the airbase to see the layout of the courtroom. Days before she was due to testify, Rebecca received advice about how she should approach the court martial.
“My legal representation contacted me and said: ‘What are you wearing?’” she recalled. “And I was like: ‘I don’t know, probably just a suit or something.’ ‘Whatever you do, don’t wear red lipstick,’ is what I was told. ‘Don’t wear anything red. Wear black, white; if anything, wear white because it’s more angelic.’”
Rebecca added: “That’s always stuck with me and my family. Why does it matter what you’re wearing? But it obviously did.”
When it came to her court martial evidence, Rebecca, who is shortsighted, took off her glasses so she didn’t have to see Davis, who was metres away.
“It was probably one of the worst days of my life,” she said. “Because he was right there and I thought: if I can’t see, I’m safer. I know it sounds stupid, but I just took off my glasses and answered questions.”
Much of the trial was a blur for Rebecca, who, despite the assurances she had received, had been unable to get any mental health support. “The only way I was getting through every day was trying to ignore exactly what had happened because it had such a massive mental impact on me. And in the court case, I feel like I froze because, in my head, he didn’t exist any more for my own protection, and him being there, I just instantly went into ‘fight, flight, freeze’ and I just froze.”
She added: “In the courtroom, my body just kind of shut down. I think I answered yes, no, and just tried my hardest. But because he was there, I was in shock.”
Emily’s experience on the witness stand was not dissimilar. Unlike Rebecca, who initially dealt with Suffolk police after they opened an investigation following her 999 call, Emily’s allegations against her estranged husband were handled entirely by the US military.
Emily reported her allegations to the US air force’s office of special investigations in September 2020, after Rebecca had got in touch to explain that investigators were looking into her allegation of rape against Davis.
Emily accused Davis of sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions in 2018 and 2019, including by allegedly forcing her into sexual acts in the presence of others. She also alleged she had once become afraid for her life after Davis, during consensual sex, strangled her until she began to lose consciousness and her vision became blurry. However, it was another allegation that proved pivotal during the court martial.
One night in July 2019, while they were in bed together, Davis wanted to have sex but Emily told him she did not. She pushed his hand away, told him “no” several times and turned her body away from him. “I had said no because I didn’t want to,” she recalled. “He cuddled up behind me, and I was like: ‘Go away.’ He kept trying, I kept saying no. In the end he just rolled me on to my back and completely ignored me. It was awful. I was crying. He just didn’t give a fuck.”
Davis penetrated her vagina in what she said was a “rough” assault that left her bleeding, struggling to walk and in pain for days. Within a week, she had ended their relationship and moved back in with her parents.
Facebook messages disclosed during the trial showed that Emily told Davis on 10 August 2019 that she couldn’t get over what had happened, adding: “I said ‘stop’ more than once.”
Davis replied: “I never said you didn’t say stop. I said you didn’t say it like you meant it … You say stop alot [sic]. And I’m not blaming you for what I did.” In a lengthy message, Emily described the impact of the assault, saying: “I am still getting nightmares from it … Me saying no, actually meant no.”
Publicly available documents about the court martial provide only a partial snapshot of the case, and do not include a full account of the US airman’s defence, including in relation to the accounts over which he was acquitted.
One document shows his lawyers argued that Davis “maintained his relationships with [Emily] and [Rebecca] consisted of consensual encounters”. They accused Emily of telling “repeated lies”, and argued that her testimony showed “a pattern of a young married couple exploring their sexual boundaries”.
While Emily was often initially “uninterested” or “averse” to sexual activities, the lawyers argued, she “eventually agreed to participate”.
Court martials on US military bases can be hard for the public to access, requiring special permission to get into fortified bases. There are no publicly available transcripts of proceedings, and therefore no records of the cross-examinations Emily and Rebecca were subjected to.
Emily recalls giving evidence over two days, when she was five months pregnant, as very intense and invasive. “I was so stressed and emotionally distraught,” she said.
Court documents show Davis’s lawyers argued Emily had fabricated the allegations after returning from a holiday to Ibiza in July 2019, when she slept with one of Davis’s US air force colleagues. His lawyers claimed Emily wanted “to change the narrative from unfaithful wife to victim of sex assault” because it seemed like a “more palatable” reason to leave her husband.
Emily admitted during cross-examination that she had initially lied about the affair, but said it did not change the fact that Davis had assaulted her. “The only reason that it was even brought up [was] because they were trying to call into question my character,” she said. “But even if I had been having an affair the whole time, it wouldn’t have justified what he did.”
Court papers reveal that Emily was also questioned more than 15 times about the fact that she had reported the alleged assaults only after Rebecca got in touch with her. Emily told the Guardian she had feared she would not be believed.
“It took me a while to realise that what he was doing actually wasn’t right. And then at that point, I felt like it had been too long,” she said. “It was my word against his and no one would believe me.”
Emily’s fear – that her attacker’s word would be believed over hers – will be familiar to many victims of sexual violence. In her case, there was the added complication that the jury comprised his fellow airmen on the base.
For the most part, the all-military panel sided with Davis over the two women. He was acquitted of six counts of sexual assault and one count of assault relating to Rebecca’s allegations. He was also acquitted of four further sexual assaults and one assault against Emily. Davis was found not guilty of one charge of wrongful use of marijuana.
Davis was convicted of one count of sexual assault under article 120 of the US uniform code of military justice. It was the charge described not as rape, but as “penetrating her vulva with his penis without her consent”. And it related to the incident in which he subsequently admitted, in a Facebook message: “I never said you didn’t say stop.”
The Davis case has echoes of that involving Capt Jacob Wulfson, a US fighter pilot, also based at RAF Lakenheath, who avoided the British justice system after strangling a woman in his apartment in Cambridge city centre in 2023. He was acquitted of a separate charge of sexual assault, relating to an allegation of non-consensual penetration that, as in the Davis case, was not charged as rape.
Wulfson’s victim, Sarah Steele, an academic at Cambridge University, spoke to the Guardian last month about her “degrading” ordeal at the court martial, prompting widespread cross-party concern in Westminster. David Lammy, the UK’s deputy prime minister, has asked the US government to give a full account of what happened in Steele’s case.
However, the Guardian’s continuing investigation into British crimes prosecuted in US military tribunals suggests her case is far from an isolated one, amid mounting questions over the fairness of the US court martial system.
Had it not been for the Facebook message in which Davis admitted to non-consensual sex, Emily believes he “wouldn’t have even been convicted of anything”. “It was my word against his,” she said. “The only reason he got convicted of that one [charge] is because he admitted to it in text messages, so they could prove it.”
For Rebecca, the conviction over Emily’s complaint brought some measure of relief, despite the acquittals in relation to her own allegations. “At the time of the court case, my mental health was on the floor,” she said. “I think that’s the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve come to accept whatever happened, happened. I did my part. I tried to protect other people.”
Davis later brought an appeal, but in January 2024, a US air force appeals court upheld the conviction.
Contacted by the Guardian about the Davis prosecution, a spokesperson for the US air force’s (USAF) military police said that, as an investigative agency, it could not respond to questions about “decisions around jurisdiction, charges, and legal proceedings”.
“Questions regarding these issues should be directed to the proper authorities. In this case, the local police should be better equipped to respond,” they said.
Suffolk police said in a statement that jurisdiction over prosecuting Davis was transferred to USAF with the “agreement of the victim” [Rebecca], following a discussion with her, an independent adviser, and the air force’s legal services.
Suffolk police did not directly respond to the Rebecca’s complaint that she was not fully informed of the implications of her decision. “We are committed to ensuring our actions continue to be led by the wishes and best interest of victims and are keen to understand examples where this is not the experience of victims,” the statement added.
A spokesperson for Norfolk police, which employs the ISVA who advised Rebecca, did address her complaint. “We recognise the victim’s lived experience and are sorry she feels she was not fully informed about aspects of the military court process before making her decision,” they said. “We will reflect on the circumstances of this case to ensure victims are given the clearest possible information to help them make informed decisions.”
Davis did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the criminal justice system in England and Wales, the offence for which Davis was convicted would likely have been charged as rape. Sentencing would have been determined by a judge, following guidelines ranging between four and 19 years, with a statutory maximum of life imprisonment.
The military system through which Davis was convicted could have imposed a sentence of up to 30 years. Davis’s defence lawyers instead recommended 30 days of confinement. The decision on what would make an appropriate sentence was left to the same panel of officers and airmen who served as the jury.
After deliberating for more than two and a half hours, they settled on 10 months. Davis was also dishonourably discharged from the air force and placed on a sex offender registry, in which his status is now listed as “absconded”.
“He could have had 30 years, but he got 10 months,” Emily said. “Ten months is a slap on the wrist.”
Additional reporting by Sophie Sullivan
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
Two British women alleged that Tyrion Davis, a US Air Force senior airman stationed at RAF Lakenheath, sexually assaulted them. Rebecca, a midwifery student, reported an alleged rape in June 2020. Emily, Davis's estranged wife, reported separate allegations in September 2020. Rebecca's case was transferred from Suffolk police to US Air Force jurisdiction on 29 June 2020, following a discussion with Rebecca, her independent sexual violence adviser, and the Air Force's legal services. The Air Force stated the transfer would reach trial faster (promised six months; actual timeline was two years). Emily's allegations were handled entirely by US military investigators. Both women testified at a court martial at RAF Lakenheath in June 2022. Davis was convicted of one count of sexual assault—penetrating Emily without consent—and acquitted of six counts related to Rebecca and four related to Emily. He received a 10-month sentence and was dishonourably discharged. Emily and Rebecca report that the court martial differed substantially from UK criminal procedure: jurors were Davis's military peers rather than members of the public, witnesses could not testify behind screens, and victim mental health support did not materialise as promised. Under English law, the offence of conviction would likely have been charged as rape, carrying sentencing guidelines of 4–19 years. Davis later appealed; a US Air Force appeals court upheld the conviction in January 2024.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
Minutes after fleeing the home of an American airman, Rebecca called 999 in tears to report that he had raped her. She recalls vomiting at a police station in Suffolk as she described being repeatedly and violently attacked.
Officers took her to a sexual assault referral centre for an intimate examination. There, a nurse measured and photographed her injuries, including bruises and bite marks on her neck.
“I didn’t feel like I was a human,” said Rebecca, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “I know that sounds really extreme but I genuinely looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognise myself.”
Over the following days, Rebecca, then a 20-year-old British midwifery student, was interviewed by local police detectives. She handed over her phone and laptop as evidence. She was given a crime reference number and appointed an independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) to help with the legal process she assumed would take place under the normal rules for prosecutions in England and Wales.
Yet normal rules do not always apply to men like Tyrion Davis, who was then a 22-year-old senior airman in the US air force based at RAF Lakenheath, an American military base. Rebecca alleged that he raped her in June 2020, while he was off-duty and at his home in Brandon, a small market town in rural Suffolk.
Twenty days after Suffolk police commenced their investigation, the force decided to cede control of the case to the US air force. That decision meant Davis would avoid the British justice system, and a possible trial before a jury in a British crown court. Instead, he was prosecuted in a military trial, or court martial, at RAF Lakenheath.
By the time of the trial, in June 2022, the case against Davis had expanded to include similar sexual assault allegations from a second woman: his estranged wife, Emily. Davis insisted his sexual encounters with Rebecca and Emily, both British women, had been consensual.
However, he was convicted of sexually assaulting Emily, whose name has also been changed to protect her identity, “by penetrating her vulva with his penis, without her consent”.
It is unclear why the offence, which involved non-consensual penetrative sex, was prosecuted by the military as sexual assault. In the criminal justice system for England and Wales, such an offence is likely to have been charged as rape.
Davis was acquitted of 10 further counts of sexual assault and abusive sexual contact, and two counts of assault, against Rebecca and Emily.
In interviews with the Guardian, Rebecca and Emily spoke of their horrific allegations against the US airman, and their traumatic experience of giving evidence against him at the court martial.
Rebecca, who now works for the NHS, said she had discovered about a week before the court martial that the jury panel would be composed entirely of Davis’s military peers, rather than members of the public. “It’s like, if I did something wrong outside of work, having all of my nursing colleagues being on the jury,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Rebecca met Davis when she was 18, four months after he had arrived at RAF Lakenheath in June 2017. He was an aircraft metals craftsman in the 48th equipment maintenance squadron. In February 2018, Rebecca introduced Davis, who is originally from California, to her friend Emily. Ten months later, Davis, then 20, and Emily, then 18, got married.
The marriage was short-lived and ended when Emily left him in July 2019. However, Rebecca had considered Davis a good friend. He had met her family, stayed at their home and joined them for roast dinners.
In June 2020, at the end of the first Covid lockdown, Rebecca asked Davis if she could stay in one of the spare rooms at his home in Brandon, which is close to the airbase. Her flatmates had moved out of her university accommodation and the wifi had stopped working properly.
Rebecca alleged that Davis smoked marijuana before attacking her within hours of her arrival on 8 June 2020. “I thought I was going to die there,” Rebecca recalled. She said Davis had pulled her on to his bed before assaulting her. “He bit me. I couldn’t see anything because it was just pitch-black and I didn’t know the layout of the room. I just kind of froze. Everything happened. It was rape, sexual assault and the only time he stopped is when I vomited everywhere from stress.”
Rebecca alleged Davis then pushed her into the shower and attempted to assault her before she escaped to a downstairs bedroom, where she barricaded the door shut with her suitcases.
The full horror of the alleged attack, she said, became clear when she saw bruises and bite marks on her neck in the morning and realised “that wasn’t a bad dream”.
Rebecca tried the front door but found it was locked. She messaged a friend to say she needed somewhere safe to stay, while considering jumping out of a window to escape. Then, she alleged, Davis burst into the bedroom and raped her again.
“I begged him to let me go: ‘Unlock the door, please. Just let me go.’ And eventually he did. I was absolutely hysterical,” she said. “He left the room and I was like: ‘What do I grab?’ I launched all my stuff in the car and started driving.”
In the car, Rebecca said, she phoned a friend who encouraged her to call 999. A court martial document described Rebecca as “audibly distraught and overcome with emotion” in the call. The body camera footage of the Suffolk police officer who met her a short time later showed that she was “visibly shaken, agitated, at some points crying, and appear[ed] to be under extreme stress”, the document said.
At a local police station, an officer told Rebecca they had run out of the rape kits used to preserve evidence, owing to a spate of reported assaults. She was taken to the Harbour Centre, a sexual assault referral centre in Norwich, where intimate photographs and swabs were taken and her injuries documented.
Rebecca surrendered her clothing as evidence and left wearing clothes donated by a charity. She returned to the centre a few days later for a formal interview, this time by an officer from Norfolk police, although Suffolk police remained the investigating force. Days later, however, that changed.
On 15 June 2020, six days after Rebecca’s initial report, she said she received an unexpected phone call from Suffolk police. An officer informed her that the Americans had made a request for the US military to take jurisdiction over the case, and that the transfer would be a quicker route to justice.
Rebecca said a similar argument was made by her ISVA, a specialist who provides advice and support to victims in England and Wales.
“She told me the CPS might not take the case,” Rebecca said of the ISVA. “If they do take it, it’s a minimum of two years until the court case. She then said: ‘The Americans, they want to take it on. They’ve said it’ll be six months [for a court martial]. Which one would you prefer?’”
In the traumatic days after the alleged attack, the promise of a faster trial was compelling. Rebecca had already put her midwifery degree on hold while trying to navigate a complex legal system.
She was told there was a two-year waiting list for mental health services on the NHS, but that the Americans could offer her support more quickly. Rebecca also recalls her ISVA giving her statistics about how few rape cases are prosecuted by the CPS – and how long they take to get to court.
“In my head, I was thinking: ‘OK, if I go the American route, it’s quicker, I can continue midwifery and also they’re going to give me support,’” she said.
Rebecca said she was also warned by her ISVA that Davis could try to leave the UK before facing trial in an English court. Nine months earlier, Anne Sacoolas, an American intelligence official, had fled the UK after killing a 19-year-old motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, in a road collision outside the US military base RAF Croughton.
Rebecca agreed to the transfer and the case was formally handed over to the Americans on 29 June 2020. It was only later, she said, that she realised the full implications of that decision.
The promised six-month timetable for a court martial stretched to two years, forcing Rebecca to drop out of her midwifery degree.
Unlike the hundreds of rape and sexual offence victims who give evidence in UK courts each year, Rebecca could not testify from behind a screen. She would have to do so in a small courtroom at the military base. “So all the questioning would be in front of him,” she said.
Rebecca did not meet her US air force-appointed lawyer until weeks before the trial, when she was invited to the airbase to see the layout of the courtroom. Days before she was due to testify, Rebecca received advice about how she should approach the court martial.
“My legal representation contacted me and said: ‘What are you wearing?’” she recalled. “And I was like: ‘I don’t know, probably just a suit or something.’ ‘Whatever you do, don’t wear red lipstick,’ is what I was told. ‘Don’t wear anything red. Wear black, white; if anything, wear white because it’s more angelic.’”
Rebecca added: “That’s always stuck with me and my family. Why does it matter what you’re wearing? But it obviously did.”
When it came to her court martial evidence, Rebecca, who is shortsighted, took off her glasses so she didn’t have to see Davis, who was metres away.
“It was probably one of the worst days of my life,” she said. “Because he was right there and I thought: if I can’t see, I’m safer. I know it sounds stupid, but I just took off my glasses and answered questions.”
Much of the trial was a blur for Rebecca, who, despite the assurances she had received, had been unable to get any mental health support. “The only way I was getting through every day was trying to ignore exactly what had happened because it had such a massive mental impact on me. And in the court case, I feel like I froze because, in my head, he didn’t exist any more for my own protection, and him being there, I just instantly went into ‘fight, flight, freeze’ and I just froze.”
She added: “In the courtroom, my body just kind of shut down. I think I answered yes, no, and just tried my hardest. But because he was there, I was in shock.”
Emily’s experience on the witness stand was not dissimilar. Unlike Rebecca, who initially dealt with Suffolk police after they opened an investigation following her 999 call, Emily’s allegations against her estranged husband were handled entirely by the US military.
Emily reported her allegations to the US air force’s office of special investigations in September 2020, after Rebecca had got in touch to explain that investigators were looking into her allegation of rape against Davis.
Emily accused Davis of sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions in 2018 and 2019, including by allegedly forcing her into sexual acts in the presence of others. She also alleged she had once become afraid for her life after Davis, during consensual sex, strangled her until she began to lose consciousness and her vision became blurry. However, it was another allegation that proved pivotal during the court martial.
One night in July 2019, while they were in bed together, Davis wanted to have sex but Emily told him she did not. She pushed his hand away, told him “no” several times and turned her body away from him. “I had said no because I didn’t want to,” she recalled. “He cuddled up behind me, and I was like: ‘Go away.’ He kept trying, I kept saying no. In the end he just rolled me on to my back and completely ignored me. It was awful. I was crying. He just didn’t give a fuck.”
Davis penetrated her vagina in what she said was a “rough” assault that left her bleeding, struggling to walk and in pain for days. Within a week, she had ended their relationship and moved back in with her parents.
Facebook messages disclosed during the trial showed that Emily told Davis on 10 August 2019 that she couldn’t get over what had happened, adding: “I said ‘stop’ more than once.”
Davis replied: “I never said you didn’t say stop. I said you didn’t say it like you meant it … You say stop alot [sic]. And I’m not blaming you for what I did.” In a lengthy message, Emily described the impact of the assault, saying: “I am still getting nightmares from it … Me saying no, actually meant no.”
Publicly available documents about the court martial provide only a partial snapshot of the case, and do not include a full account of the US airman’s defence, including in relation to the accounts over which he was acquitted.
One document shows his lawyers argued that Davis “maintained his relationships with [Emily] and [Rebecca] consisted of consensual encounters”. They accused Emily of telling “repeated lies”, and argued that her testimony showed “a pattern of a young married couple exploring their sexual boundaries”.
While Emily was often initially “uninterested” or “averse” to sexual activities, the lawyers argued, she “eventually agreed to participate”.
Court martials on US military bases can be hard for the public to access, requiring special permission to get into fortified bases. There are no publicly available transcripts of proceedings, and therefore no records of the cross-examinations Emily and Rebecca were subjected to.
Emily recalls giving evidence over two days, when she was five months pregnant, as very intense and invasive. “I was so stressed and emotionally distraught,” she said.
Court documents show Davis’s lawyers argued Emily had fabricated the allegations after returning from a holiday to Ibiza in July 2019, when she slept with one of Davis’s US air force colleagues. His lawyers claimed Emily wanted “to change the narrative from unfaithful wife to victim of sex assault” because it seemed like a “more palatable” reason to leave her husband.
Emily admitted during cross-examination that she had initially lied about the affair, but said it did not change the fact that Davis had assaulted her. “The only reason that it was even brought up [was] because they were trying to call into question my character,” she said. “But even if I had been having an affair the whole time, it wouldn’t have justified what he did.”
Court papers reveal that Emily was also questioned more than 15 times about the fact that she had reported the alleged assaults only after Rebecca got in touch with her. Emily told the Guardian she had feared she would not be believed.
“It took me a while to realise that what he was doing actually wasn’t right. And then at that point, I felt like it had been too long,” she said. “It was my word against his and no one would believe me.”
Emily’s fear – that her attacker’s word would be believed over hers – will be familiar to many victims of sexual violence. In her case, there was the added complication that the jury comprised his fellow airmen on the base.
For the most part, the all-military panel sided with Davis over the two women. He was acquitted of six counts of sexual assault and one count of assault relating to Rebecca’s allegations. He was also acquitted of four further sexual assaults and one assault against Emily. Davis was found not guilty of one charge of wrongful use of marijuana.
Davis was convicted of one count of sexual assault under article 120 of the US uniform code of military justice. It was the charge described not as rape, but as “penetrating her vulva with his penis without her consent”. And it related to the incident in which he subsequently admitted, in a Facebook message: “I never said you didn’t say stop.”
The Davis case has echoes of that involving Capt Jacob Wulfson, a US fighter pilot, also based at RAF Lakenheath, who avoided the British justice system after strangling a woman in his apartment in Cambridge city centre in 2023. He was acquitted of a separate charge of sexual assault, relating to an allegation of non-consensual penetration that, as in the Davis case, was not charged as rape.
Wulfson’s victim, Sarah Steele, an academic at Cambridge University, spoke to the Guardian last month about her “degrading” ordeal at the court martial, prompting widespread cross-party concern in Westminster. David Lammy, the UK’s deputy prime minister, has asked the US government to give a full account of what happened in Steele’s case.
However, the Guardian’s continuing investigation into British crimes prosecuted in US military tribunals suggests her case is far from an isolated one, amid mounting questions over the fairness of the US court martial system.
Had it not been for the Facebook message in which Davis admitted to non-consensual sex, Emily believes he “wouldn’t have even been convicted of anything”. “It was my word against his,” she said. “The only reason he got convicted of that one [charge] is because he admitted to it in text messages, so they could prove it.”
For Rebecca, the conviction over Emily’s complaint brought some measure of relief, despite the acquittals in relation to her own allegations. “At the time of the court case, my mental health was on the floor,” she said. “I think that’s the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve come to accept whatever happened, happened. I did my part. I tried to protect other people.”
Davis later brought an appeal, but in January 2024, a US air force appeals court upheld the conviction.
Contacted by the Guardian about the Davis prosecution, a spokesperson for the US air force’s (USAF) military police said that, as an investigative agency, it could not respond to questions about “decisions around jurisdiction, charges, and legal proceedings”.
“Questions regarding these issues should be directed to the proper authorities. In this case, the local police should be better equipped to respond,” they said.
Suffolk police said in a statement that jurisdiction over prosecuting Davis was transferred to USAF with the “agreement of the victim” [Rebecca], following a discussion with her, an independent adviser, and the air force’s legal services.
Suffolk police did not directly respond to the Rebecca’s complaint that she was not fully informed of the implications of her decision. “We are committed to ensuring our actions continue to be led by the wishes and best interest of victims and are keen to understand examples where this is not the experience of victims,” the statement added.
A spokesperson for Norfolk police, which employs the ISVA who advised Rebecca, did address her complaint. “We recognise the victim’s lived experience and are sorry she feels she was not fully informed about aspects of the military court process before making her decision,” they said. “We will reflect on the circumstances of this case to ensure victims are given the clearest possible information to help them make informed decisions.”
Davis did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the criminal justice system in England and Wales, the offence for which Davis was convicted would likely have been charged as rape. Sentencing would have been determined by a judge, following guidelines ranging between four and 19 years, with a statutory maximum of life imprisonment.
The military system through which Davis was convicted could have imposed a sentence of up to 30 years. Davis’s defence lawyers instead recommended 30 days of confinement. The decision on what would make an appropriate sentence was left to the same panel of officers and airmen who served as the jury.
After deliberating for more than two and a half hours, they settled on 10 months. Davis was also dishonourably discharged from the air force and placed on a sex offender registry, in which his status is now listed as “absconded”.
“He could have had 30 years, but he got 10 months,” Emily said. “Ten months is a slap on the wrist.”
Additional reporting by Sophie Sullivan
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
Tyrion Davis was a US Air Force senior airman stationed at RAF Lakenheath. Rebecca, a British midwifery student, reported to Suffolk police in June 2020 that Davis raped her on 8 June 2020 after she stayed at his home in Brandon, Suffolk. Rebecca called 999 immediately after leaving Davis's home and was examined at a sexual assault referral centre; injuries including bruises and bite marks on her neck were documented. On 15 June 2020, six days after Rebecca's report, Suffolk police informed her that the US military had requested jurisdiction over the case. Rebecca was told by her independent sexual violence adviser and Suffolk police that a US court martial would resolve the case in six months, compared to a minimum two years under the English system, and that the US military could offer mental health support more quickly. Rebecca agreed to the transfer; the case was formally handed over to the US Air Force on 29 June 2020. The actual timeline for the court martial was two years, not six months as promised. Emily, Davis's estranged wife, reported allegations of sexual assault to the US Air Force's office of special investigations in September 2020, after Rebecca contacted her. Emily alleged that in July 2019, Davis penetrated her vagina without consent after she repeatedly said no; she said the assault left her bleeding and in pain for days. Facebook messages disclosed at trial showed Davis responding to Emily's complaint by writing: 'I never said you didn't say stop. I said you didn't say it like you meant it.' The court martial occurred in June 2022 at RAF Lakenheath. The jury panel consisted entirely of Davis's military peers—fellow officers and airmen on the base. Rebecca could not testify from behind a screen; she testified in a small courtroom metres from Davis. Davis was convicted of one count of sexual assault under Article 120 of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice for penetrating Emily without consent. Davis was acquitted of six counts of sexual assault and one count of assault related to Rebecca's allegations. Davis was acquitted of four counts of sexual assault and one count of assault related to Emily's other allegations. Davis was acquitted of one count of wrongful use of marijuana. Under English criminal law, the offence for which Davis was convicted would likely have been charged as rape, carrying sentencing guidelines of 4–19 years with a statutory maximum of life imprisonment. Under the US Uniform Code of Military Justice, the offence could carry a sentence of up to 30 years. Davis received a 10-month sentence and was dishonourably discharged from the Air Force. Davis was placed on a sex offender registry, listed as 'absconded'. Davis's appeal was upheld by a US Air Force appeals court in January 2024. Rebecca states: 'I didn't feel like I was a human... I genuinely looked in the mirror and I didn't recognise myself,' describing her emotional state after the alleged assault. Rebecca recalls her legal representative advising her days before trial: 'Whatever you do, don't wear red lipstick. Don't wear anything red. Wear black, white; if anything, wear white because it's more angelic.' Rebecca chose not to wear her glasses during her testimony so she would not have to see Davis. Rebecca states: 'It was probably one of the worst days of my life' and 'I just took off my glasses and answered questions.' Rebecca reports she was unable to access any mental health support despite assurances from the US military. Emily gave evidence over two days while five months pregnant and describes the cross-examination as 'very intense and invasive.' Davis's lawyers argued his relationships with both women 'consisted of consensual encounters' and accused Emily of 'repeated lies.' Davis's lawyers argued Emily fabricated allegations after an affair and wanted 'to change the narrative from unfaithful wife to victim of sex assault.' Court martials at US military bases require special permission to access and have no publicly available transcripts of proceedings. Rebecca states that the promise of a faster trial and military support was compelling in the days after her alleged attack, causing her to agree to the jurisdiction transfer. Rebecca also recalls being warned by her adviser that Davis could attempt to flee the UK before facing trial in an English court, referencing the case of Anne Sacoolas. Rebecca dropped out of her midwifery degree due to the extended court martial timeline. Emily states: 'It was my word against his. The only reason he got convicted of that one charge is because he admitted to it in text messages, so they could prove it.' Emily states: 'He could have had 30 years, but he got 10 months. Ten months is a slap on the wrist.' Rebecca's description of wearing white as 'more angelic' suggests criticism of court procedures pressuring female complainants to conform to gendered expectations. Rebecca's metaphor comparing an all-military jury to having 'all my nursing colleagues on the jury' implies bias concerns about peer judging. The article frames the 10-month sentence as lenient by contrasting it with potential sentencing under English law (4–19 years) and military law (up to 30 years). The Guardian's framing—noting the Davis case 'has echoes' of the Jacob Wulfson case and referencing 'mounting questions over the fairness of the US court martial system'—suggests a pattern of concerns. Emily's failure to report immediately is presented with context (self-doubt about being believed) that frames delayed reporting as a structural barrier rather than evidence weakness.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
- Two British women allege senior airman Tyrion Davis sexually assaulted them; one case transferred from UK police to US military jurisdiction in 2020, tried in court martial at RAF Lakenheath in 2022.
- Davis was convicted of one count of sexual assault (non-consensual penetration) relating to his estranged wife Emily; acquitted of 10 other counts across both women's allegations.
- Both women report the court martial process differed significantly from UK criminal procedure: all-military jury, no witness screens, limited victim support, and a 10-month sentence versus potential 4–19 years under English law.
- The case raises questions about jurisdiction transfer, fairness of military tribunals for crimes by off-duty personnel, and victim support during cross-military prosecution.