Suffolk Police told The Guardian they were not notified of a 2023 drink-driving allegation against a U.S. airman, a gap the newspaper said prevented British authorities from investigating at the time.
The USAF told The Guardian it had no specific written record of notification but had no reason to believe verbal notice was not provided. The accounts do not establish whether police received notice.
The U.S. Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals opinion says the allegation was sent to Royal Air Force Mildenhall’s public affairs office and forwarded to Mooty’s commander. The opinion places the drive to a kebab shop between 11 and 11:30 p.m. ET on March 3 (4 to 4:30 a.m. GMT on March 4), after a night out in Newmarket. A special court-martial found Mooty guilty June 7, 2023; his sentence, entered July 5, included 20 days of hard labor without confinement, a reduction to E-2 and a reprimand.
On July 17, 2025, the appeals court set aside the findings and sentence. It ruled that allowing a sergeant to repeat a woman’s out-of-court account of Mooty’s intoxication denied him the chance to question her, and that the testimony could have affected the verdict. The court authorized a rehearing but did not decide Mooty’s challenges to the factual sufficiency of the evidence or to trial by a military judge alone at a special court-martial.
The Guardian reported that Mooty was arrested in Bury St Edmunds on March 31, 2024, and pleaded guilty to drink-driving and resisting arrest at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court in August 2024. It said he received a one-year driving ban and £871 in fines and penalties. As of Oct. 22, 2026, the newspaper reported, no rehearing had occurred and Mooty had been dismissed from the Air Force after the later incident.
On Oct. 20, Baroness Antrobus, speaking for the government in the House of Lords, said Article 7 of the 1951 NATO Status of Forces Agreement is incorporated into UK law through Section 3 of the Visiting Forces Act 1952, with Section 12 also relevant. She said jurisdiction decisions are made case by case and that no separate legally binding bilateral agreement allocates jurisdiction. The government is working with police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on guidance and data reporting. Antrobus’s remarks addressed jurisdiction; they did not establish whether a notification procedure applied in Mooty’s case or was followed.
