Shortly after escaping the residence of an American airman, an emotional Rebecca dialed emergency services to report that he had assaulted her. She vividly remembers being overwhelmed with nausea at a police station in Suffolk as she recounted the harrowing details of her violent ordeal.
The police took her to a sexual assault referral center for a thorough examination. A nurse there documented her injuries, which included visible bruises and bite marks on her neck.
“I felt completely dehumanized,” Rebecca, a pseudonym used to protect her identity, stated. “It may sound drastic, but when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me.”
In the days that followed, the then-20-year-old midwifery student was interviewed multiple times by local detectives. She provided her phone and laptop as evidence and was assigned a crime reference number, along with an independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) to guide her through what she expected would be the standard legal proceedings in England and Wales.
However, the typical legal framework did not apply in the case of Tyrion Davis, a 22-year-old senior airman stationed at RAF Lakenheath. Rebecca accused him of raping her in June 2020, during his off-duty hours at his home in Brandon, a small town in Suffolk.
Twenty days into the investigation, Suffolk police transferred control of the case to the United States Air Force, allowing Davis to bypass the British judicial system and a potential jury trial. Instead, he faced a military court martial at RAF Lakenheath.
By the time the court martial occurred in June 2022, new allegations of sexual assault from a second woman, his estranged wife Emily, had emerged. Davis maintained that his interactions with both Rebecca and Emily were consensual.
Nevertheless, he was found guilty of sexually assaulting Emily, who also used a pseudonym for anonymity, by engaging in non-consensual penetrative sex. It remains unclear why this serious offense was classified as sexual assault by the military, as it would likely have been categorized as rape under English law.
Davis was acquitted of ten additional charges of sexual assault and abusive sexual contact, along with two counts of assault involving Rebecca and Emily.
In interviews with the Guardian, both Rebecca and Emily shared their traumatic experiences regarding the US airman and the emotional toll of testifying against him during the military trial.
Rebecca, now employed by the NHS, revealed that she was informed just a week prior to the court martial that the jury would consist solely of Davis’s military colleagues rather than civilian members. “It felt akin to having all my nursing peers on the jury if I had committed a wrongdoing outside of work. It just doesn’t seem right,” she commented.
Rebecca first met Davis when she was 18, shortly after he was assigned to RAF Lakenheath in June 2017. He worked as an aircraft metals craftsman. In February 2018, she introduced him to her friend Emily, and less than a year later, they were married.
The marriage was brief and ended when Emily left him in July 2019. Despite this, Rebecca considered Davis a close friend, as he had spent time with her family and shared meals with them.
In June 2020, following the initial COVID-19 lockdown, Rebecca requested to stay in one of Davis’s spare rooms, as her flatmates had vacated their university accommodation and her Wi-Fi was unreliable.
Rebecca alleged that upon her arrival on June 8, 2020, Davis consumed marijuana before attacking her within hours. “I genuinely believed I was going to die,” she recounted, explaining how he pulled her onto his bed and assaulted her. “He bit me, and in the dark, I was paralyzed with fear. It felt like everything was happening all at once. It was rape, and he only paused when I vomited from the stress.”
She claimed that Davis then forced her into the shower and attempted to assault her again, but she managed to flee to a downstairs bedroom, where she barricaded herself with her luggage.
The severity of the attack became apparent when she saw the bruises and bite marks on her neck the next morning, leading her to realize, “This wasn’t just a nightmare.”
She attempted to leave through the front door but discovered it was locked. Desperate for safety, she texted a friend for help and considered escaping through a window. Shortly thereafter, Davis reportedly entered the bedroom and assaulted her again.
“I pleaded with him to let me go: ‘Please, unlock the door and let me leave.’ Eventually, he did. I was in a state of panic,” Rebecca said. “Once he exited the room, I was frantic, grabbing my belongings and hurriedly drove away.”
While in her car, she contacted a friend who encouraged her to call 999. A court martial document later described Rebecca as “audibly distraught and overwhelmed” during this call. Body camera footage from a Suffolk police officer showed her as “visibly shaken, agitated, at times in tears, and appearing to be under significant stress.”
Upon arriving at a local police station, Rebecca was informed that they had depleted their supply of rape kits due to a surge in reported assaults. Consequently, she was taken to the Harbour Centre, a sexual assault referral center in Norwich, where medical evidence was collected, and her injuries were systematically documented.
