A dawn raid on a Putney flat last month, in which American Marines spirited away an embassy worker accused of holding indecent images of children, has sparked a row between Downing Street and Washington.
The raid on Tuesday 25 August was run by American personnel who did not involve British police and did not tell them either. The Metropolitan Police learned of it only after the man had been flown out of the country.
The Sun first reported the raid at the weekend, naming Putney as the spot where the raid took place. The BBC, Press Association and national follow-ups only stated south London.
Marine Security Guards, the men who stand watch at the American embassy in Nine Elms, carried out the raid and drove the man to RAF Fairford in a military convoy, according to The Sun. He has not been named and is uncharged in this country. The investigation that brought sparked the raid began in America, and concerns a second man there, believed to be the man’s brother.
Americans cannot arrest anyone in Britain. Nobody applied to extradite him. The embassy is not American soil, and diplomatic status gives American law enforcement no police powers here.
Flight records
A cargo jet came into RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire that morning. Flight records show a Kalitta Air Boeing 747 in from Chicago, landing at 8.34am and gone again by 5.33pm. No Kalitta aircraft had used the base since the middle of June, more than two months earlier. It touched down at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware at 7.44pm, a flight of seven hours and eleven minutes.
The records show the plane came and went. They do not show who was on it, and the man flew home on a scheduled commercial flight, the BBC reports.
The affair reached the office of Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and drew in Downing Street and the Home Office. An American diplomatic source defended the operation, telling the paper they acted decisively because waiting would have meant weeks or months of diplomacy.
The Metropolitan Police say American authorities told them on 25 August that they were investigating suspected offences in London involving indecent images of children, and that the force is still liaising with them. It has not said whether it has opened a case of its own.
The American embassy said it knew of allegations against someone assigned to it, that the United States expects its personnel to meet the highest standards of conduct, and that it takes the allegations seriously. It told the BBC it had informed British law enforcement quickly, acted swiftly, and reassigned the man to the United States while inquiries continue. He was not a diplomat, but carried the protection diplomats carry, according to reports.
Britain has been here before. Harry Dunn, 19, was killed outside an American air base in Northamptonshire in 2019 by a car on the wrong side of the road. The driver, Anne Sacoolas, was flown home.
America refused to send her back. She was sentenced at the Old Bailey three years later, by video link, and she has never returned.
“the United States expects its personnel to meet the highest standards of conduct, and that it takes the allegations seriously.” Except their highest office? Trump-Epstein etc? Holding indecent images is extremely serious. I hope the full force of the law is used against this individual. Perhaps they can finally apply the same across the board.