invisible woman
Two Police Forces, One Question:
Part One — A Year After the Reports, I Have Asked My MP to Obtain an Accountable Decision
Today, 22 October 2026, I asked my constituency MP, Andrew Rosindell, to seek coordinated representations from the Chief Constables of Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence Police concerning criminal allegations originally reported in September 2025.
The immediate question is who will take investigative responsibility. The more difficult question is how that responsibility can now be exercised independently, given the involvement of both organisations in the institutions, events and records requiring examination.
The same underlying report entered two policing routes.
Hertfordshire Constabulary recorded the matter under crime reference 41/84346/25 and allocated it for investigation. The original report principally concerned alleged conduct by Admiral José Enrique Delgado Roig. The alleged conduct of Group Captain Neil Towers, then Commanding Officer of Northwood Headquarters, was subsequently expressly presented as a connected part of the same factual and institutional chain.
Separately, on 8 September 2025, I submitted the defence-related allegations to the Ministry of Defence Police. MDP recorded the report under 81-080925, referred it to Crime Command for assessment and requested further particulars identifying the suspected offences, individuals and relevant conduct. I supplied that clarification.
More than a year later, I have not been informed whether MDP opened a criminal investigation, declined to investigate, transferred the matter or otherwise disposed of that report. I have received no communicated final decision identifying the decision-maker, the material considered and the reasons.
Hertfordshire’s route was different. There was an allocated investigation and correspondence. In January 2026, after I explained that I could not continue participating in the circumstances then prevailing, the investigation was closed. The force expressly stated that it could be reopened if further information came to light.
I did not withdraw my factual allegations.
On 6 October 2026, I requested reopening in light of additional evidence and identifiable investigative leads. I offered a formal witness statement, original recordings, correspondence, official documents and an indexed evidence schedule.
On 13 October, Acting Detective Sergeant Simon Smith proposed a meeting to review the further information before deciding whether it justified reopening. On 14 October, I confirmed my willingness to cooperate and asked for clarity about the procedural status, responsible investigator, secure submission route and arrangements for assessing institutional conflicts before transferring a substantial further body of sensitive material.
That correspondence should be described accurately. Hertfordshire has not simply remained silent throughout October. It has proposed an assessment meeting. What remains outstanding is a substantive answer about investigative status, responsibility and the safeguards I have requested.
Today, MDP also acknowledged my renewed correspondence. It created contact record 87-22102026, said that it would link it to the original record and explained that the email would be forwarded to the relevant department.
That is an administrative response. It does not yet communicate an investigative decision.
My request to Andrew Rosindell is therefore specific. I have asked him to seek a coordinated response explaining which force will lead, which allegations each considers within its jurisdiction, whether an investigation will proceed and how actual or apparent institutional conflicts will be assessed. If neither force considers itself able to investigate the whole matter with demonstrable independence, I have asked what external arrangement will be considered.
I have asked my MP to obtain an accountable decision. His office cannot determine whether the allegations are proved, and I am not asking it to do so.
The difficulty is that the intervening year has changed the institutional position. During that period, related police records, complaint decisions, disclosure refusals and civil proceedings have accumulated. These are now part of the context in which the original allegations must be assessed.
That history explains why a routine allocation to an officer who did not attend the original incident may no longer answer the independence question.
Part Two — What Emerged During That Year: Criminalisation, Withheld Records and the “Red Sparrow” Narrative
On 23 September 2026, I published an article on Invisible Woman entitled “One Question Answered, Fifteen Avoided: How Hertfordshire’s Police-Oversight System Created an Administrative Catch-22.” This article may still be indexed.
Many readers will not have seen it. It became unavailable when LinkedIn removed the Invisible Woman page on 6 October. The following account restates its substance, with additional explanation of why the subsequent evidence matters.
The starting event was my attendance at Northwood Headquarters on 26 August 2025. I was refused entry, remained outside the operational base and sat on a bench near the Visitor Centre. RAF Police attended, followed by Hertfordshire Police. I was ultimately escorted to the public road. I was not arrested, charged or prosecuted.
Hertfordshire had not made the original military access decision. Its officers entered the situation after receiving information from the military-security environment.
That distinction created a series of questions: what had the officers been told, who supplied the information, what did they independently establish and what legal power did they believe they were exercising?
The complaint process did not provide a sufficiently particularised answer.
An initial response referred to Northwood’s security status, the Official Secrets Act and my alleged non-compliance with a request to leave. A subsequent Professional Standards report, dated 17 April 2026, stated:
“your non-compliance meant a criminal offence had taken place.”
The statement was categorical. It did not merely record that someone had made an allegation or that an officer had considered whether an offence might have occurred.
Yet the response did not identify the offence, its statutory provision, the precise conduct satisfying its elements or the territorial boundary within which the alleged offence occurred.
Those are substantive omissions. A military installation’s ability to restrict access does not, by itself, identify the criminal offence committed by a particular individual in a particular place.
Access control, an instruction to leave, trespass, a prohibited place and criminal liability involve distinct factual and legal questions. A reasoned conclusion must explain how they connect in the circumstances under consideration.
I asked for that explanation.
At the same time, I was trying to obtain the records capable of testing the police account. On 30 January 2026, I submitted a subject access request covering incident records, body-worn video, communications, source information and related personal data.
The request sought to establish what Hertfordshire Police had received from RAF Police or Northwood, how it had been recorded, whether it had been independently verified and how it had subsequently been used.
Three propositions needed to be kept separate.
First, someone may have communicated an allegation to the police. Secondly, the allegation itself may be true, false or unverified. Thirdly, a police system may continue to make that allegation available as an operational description of the individual concerned.
An accurate historical record of a communication does not establish the truth of its contents.
Nor does it explain whether the information should subsequently be presented as an allegation, an assessed fact or a continuing status.
The distinction became increasingly important as official descriptions of me acquired further institutional authority.
In June, while the subject access request remained outstanding, I sought preservation, source attribution and appropriate handling of disputed information. Information Rights directed me to the Rectifications and Deletions Team. That team replied that restricting data on police systems was not its role and referred me back to the subject access process.
The substantive issue remained unresolved while responsibility moved between departments.
On 10 August 2026, 192 days after the request, Hertfordshire Police issued a response relying on national-security grounds to withhold the material central to my questions.
That refusal left me unable to establish what had been received, what had been independently assessed and what remained recorded about me.
Elsewhere, however, the documentary record showed that relevant footage had been retrieved and transferred between authorities comparatively quickly. The service-police complaint case diary recorded a request to Hertfordshire for officers’ body-worn video at 10:48 on 8 October 2025. By 20:27 the following day, four clips had been received and downloaded.
Approximately 34 hours for the inter-authority transfer; 192 days for my subject access response.
Those were different requests under different arrangements, so the comparison does not establish that identical disclosure obligations applied. It does establish that the material was identifiable and retrievable. The individual’s difficulty was obtaining access through the procedure available to her.
The complaint-review process then added another layer.
On 8 September 2026, Hertfordshire’s Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner upheld the complaint outcome. It explained that its role was to decide whether the handling and outcome were reasonable and proportionate, rather than reinvestigate the incident.
The review nevertheless left the categorical conclusion of criminality in place without identifying the offence underlying it.
I asked how that conclusion had been assessed, what material had been considered, what authority the reviewer exercised and how my representations had been addressed.
These were several types of question. Some sought reasons for a decision. Some sought governance records. Some concerned the legal proposition the reviewer had accepted.
On 17 September, I was told that the review process was concluded. Requests for Constabulary records were directed back to police information rights. Requests for OPCC governance records had been forwarded internally.
When I asked for confirmation of registration, the responsible team, the applicable procedure and the response deadline, the reply of 23 September confirmed that the request had been forwarded on 17 September at 2 pm. It suggested submitting a subject access request, a Freedom of Information request, or both.
That was the Catch-22.
The complaint process preserved a criminalising conclusion. The records needed to examine it were withheld. Questions about the review were redirected towards information governance. Questions about that referral generated advice to submit another request.
Alongside this procedural history, new material emerged concerning the narrative circulating about me.
On 19 September 2026, El Español published an article reporting that military colleagues had given me the nickname “Red Sparrow.” The article connected that label with my accent, shooting ability, supposed conduct at a social event and relationship with a naval officer. It invoked the fictional Russian operative who uses an intimate relationship to obtain information.
I regard that as sexualised dehumanisation: a woman’s identity, relationship and conduct reduced to the stock character of a sexually manipulative foreign agent.
The evidential significance must be stated precisely. The publication records accounts attributed to military sources describing the nickname and social hostility. It provides investigative leads concerning who used the label, when, in whose presence and with what consequences. It does not, by itself, establish the identity of every participant or prove that the nickname caused a particular official decision.
Nor can anonymous remarks automatically be attributed to a named officer.
What changed was that an allegation I had previously made about a hostile, sexualised and origin-based narrative now had a published source describing that narrative from within the military community.
The British record contains a separate, important confirmation.
At paragraph 78 of Review Wye, dated 30 April 2026, the Service Police Complaints Commissioner recorded that the female RAF Police officer knew of rumours circulating within MARCOM, including one that I was believed to be a Russian spy. At paragraph 80, the reviewer acknowledged that the earlier Professional Standards response was inaccurate insofar as it suggested she had not known of that rumour.
The review did not find that she had acted discriminatorily because of it. It upheld the complaint outcome.
Nevertheless, the existence of the rumour and an attending British officer’s knowledge of it were recorded in the review. They were no longer solely my account of what I believed others were saying.
Review Wye also recorded that civilian police were told that Commander Pastor and I were under investigation, alongside concerns about dishonest entry and references to national-security legislation.
The Ministry of Defence’s own court submissions, meanwhile, stated that no UK decision-maker had determined that I was a national-security threat. Those submissions defended the restrictions as precautionary measures pending investigations into Commander Pastor. They also expressly defended the relevance of my place of birth to the access decision.
These propositions require examination together. They do not automatically prove criminal wrongdoing, but they identify a concrete evidential problem.
What was the factual basis for the descriptions communicated about me?
Was the rumour investigated, rejected, repeated or left unqualified?
What did the statement that I was under investigation mean?
Which authority owned that investigation?
What information justified the separate restriction against my name?
As I discussed in yesterday’s article, the unresolved issue concerns the route by which an origin-based and sexualised account may have entered official decision-making and policing.
The investigative task is to reconstruct that route, including the possibility that different institutions acted on different information. It requires original communications, contemporaneous records, system histories and evidence from the people involved.
It also requires investigators to remain open to explanations inconsistent with my allegations.
But the questions cannot be answered simply by repeating that Northwood was entitled to control access.
Part Three — Jurisdiction, Institutional Conflicts and the Decision That Is Now Required
The present position involves three separate legal questions: whether particular alleged conduct falls within UK criminal jurisdiction; which police force should investigate it; and what arrangements would make that investigation sufficiently independent.
Those questions should be answered separately.
The presence of Spanish military personnel, NATO structures and defence premises introduces complexity. It does not provide a complete answer about jurisdiction.
CPS guidance recognises that foreign military personnel may remain subject to UK prosecution, while the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and NATO Status of Forces Agreement can affect jurisdiction and its exercise. The analysis depends on the conduct, the individuals’ status and, where relevant, whether the alleged offence arose from official duties. Decisions involving concurrent jurisdictions should be recorded and addressed through engagement between the competent authorities.
It would therefore be premature either to assert that every allegation belongs exclusively to the UK or to dismiss the connected events as an exclusively Spanish matter.
An investigation would need to identify the alleged acts, their location, the people involved, the relevant offence elements and any applicable jurisdictional restrictions. It would also need to distinguish British conduct from Spanish conduct and assess how communications between them fit together.
Early specialist prosecutorial advice could assist with that allocation. A jurisdictional assessment should produce an identifiable decision rather than an indefinite referral.
There is then the allocation between British police forces.
MDP’s powers are governed by the Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987, including the places and circumstances specified in section 2. That provides a statutory basis for considering the defence-related aspects of the report; it does not establish that MDP must investigate every strand.
Hertfordshire has already recorded and previously investigated the allegations. It also has the local connection to events at Northwood.
There are consequently two potentially relevant policing routes. Their respective responsibilities need to be assessed against the actual allegations, rather than inferred from the words “military” or “NATO.”
The harder problem is institutional overlap.
For Hertfordshire, that overlap is direct. The force received information from the Northwood environment and acted on it. Its officers generated relevant records. It handled the related report concerning Commander Pastor’s private material. Its complaint process adopted the conclusion that my non-compliance meant a criminal offence had occurred. It holds records I have sought and has withheld materially related information on national-security grounds.
Its Chief Constable is also the defendant in active civil proceedings concerning substantially overlapping personal data and records.
An investigation of my allegations may therefore require examination of the source and accuracy of information the force received, the way its officers interpreted it, the records it created and the conclusions it subsequently defended.
The potential investigator is also an evidence holder, an institution whose conduct may require scrutiny and a civil defendant with a position to maintain in related proceedings.
None of that establishes personal bias by the officers currently corresponding with me. Nor does it establish that litigation automatically disqualifies a force from investigating connected allegations.
It identifies the conflict that needs assessment.
Appointing someone who did not attend the original incident would address direct personal involvement. It would not, by itself, explain how the investigation would be insulated from the force’s prior complaint conclusions, disclosure decisions and litigation interests.
The question concerns institutional independence as well as the individual investigator’s good faith.
MDP presents a different overlap.
The proposed investigation concerns alleged conduct within the defence structure MDP serves: a former Northwood commanding officer, official military communications, defence systems and records, and personnel within the Ministry of Defence and RAF Police environment.
The Ministry of Defence is defending related proceedings. Other complaints concern personnel who acted within the same information and decision chain.
MDP is a civilian police force with its own Chief Constable. It should not be conflated with RAF Police, and its location within the defence environment does not prove that it lacks operational independence.
But the absence of a communicated substantive outcome from the original report makes it necessary to ask how that independence has operated in this case.
Who assessed the allegations?
What material was considered?
Was responsibility accepted, rejected or transferred?
Were conflicts considered?
What happened after I supplied the requested particulars?
A fresh acknowledgement cannot retrospectively answer those questions.
The institutional conflicts: an investigator, an evidence holder and a party defending its own position
The potential conflicts become clearer when the institutions’ investigative responsibilities are placed alongside their existing roles. The concern is structural: an investigation may need to test information, decisions and practices that the same institution has already adopted, withheld from disclosure or defended.
These overlaps do not establish that either force is incapable of conducting a fair investigation. They identify what a conflict assessment must actually address.
For Hertfordshire, appointing an officer uninvolved in the original incident would not by itself resolve the overlap between investigation, evidence custody, complaint findings and civil litigation. For MDP, its separate policing command must be distinguished from the Ministry of Defence’s interests as employer, records holder and litigating department. Equally, an institutional interest held by the MoD cannot simply be attributed to an individual MDP investigator without evidence.
The practical test is whether investigators have the authority, access and organisational freedom to pursue evidence that may contradict their own institution’s previous account—or the account of the department within which they operate.
That assessment should identify who makes decisions about investigative scope, access to records, disputed evidence and any referral elsewhere. Otherwise, the organisation whose position requires examination may also determine the limits of that examination.
The cumulative position also raises a public-expenditure issue.
Over the intervening year, public resources have been used to handle complaints, conduct reviews, process information requests and defend proceedings. Those activities have produced formal conclusions and institutional positions. They have not yet produced a communicated, coordinated answer to the investigative-responsibility question now before the two forces.
I do not have the expenditure figures, and I cannot responsibly quantify the cost. Nor can expenditure alone establish an intention to suppress an allegation.
The question is whether publicly funded processes have been used effectively to establish the facts—or have instead accumulated around unresolved factual questions while making independent examination more difficult.
That is why my request now goes beyond reopening a file.
I have asked for a senior, documented assessment of responsibility and conflicts; separation between investigative work and related litigation, complaint and information-rights functions; clear arrangements for preserving and receiving evidence; and consideration of another force or an external senior investigator if the existing arrangements cannot provide sufficient independence.
An external appointment would not automatically resolve every difficulty. Its effectiveness would depend on its remit, authority, access to records and freedom to examine the whole connected chain, including the conduct of the referring organisations.
Equally, a decision to retain the investigation internally should explain what safeguards make that arrangement adequate.
The allegations must be tested. They may be substantiated, partly substantiated or rejected. A properly reasoned refusal to investigate would itself be a decision capable of examination.
The present difficulty is the absence of a clear, coordinated account of who will make that decision and how the institutional overlaps will be managed.
A year ago, I reported alleged wrongdoing. During the following year, one policing route produced no communicated final assessment, while the other became intertwined with a separate official account criminalising my own conduct.
Since then, published reporting has described the sexualised label circulating about me; a statutory review has recorded a British officer’s knowledge of the spy rumour; and official pleadings have identified propositions that need to be reconciled with the information passed through policing channels.
The appropriate response is an evidence-led decision by an identified authority, made under arrangements capable of withstanding scrutiny.
There are two potentially relevant police forces. Both now have institutional overlaps that require examination.
Who will assess those conflicts, who will decide whether the allegations are investigated, and what will make that decision demonstrably independent?
There is a joke: "The most important thing in any criminal investigation is to make sure the trail doesn’t lead back to you.”
In this case, the arrangements for investigative independence will need to show that it remains a joke.
Today's song - РОЗМІРОМ НЕ НАЛЯКАЄШ
Today, 22 October 2026, I asked my constituency MP, Andrew Rosindell, to seek coordinated representations from the Chief Constables of Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence Police concerning criminal allegations originally reported in September 2025.
The immediate question is who will take investigative responsibility. The more difficult question is how that responsibility can now be exercised independently, given the involvement of both organisations in the institutions, events and records requiring examination.
The same underlying report entered two policing routes.
Hertfordshire Constabulary recorded the matter under crime reference 41/84346/25 and allocated it for investigation. The original report principally concerned alleged conduct by Admiral José Enrique Delgado Roig. The alleged conduct of Group Captain Neil Towers, then Commanding Officer of Northwood Headquarters, was subsequently expressly presented as a connected part of the same factual and institutional chain.
Separately, on 8 September 2025, I submitted the defence-related allegations to the Ministry of Defence Police. MDP recorded the report under 81-080925, referred it to Crime Command for assessment and requested further particulars identifying the suspected offences, individuals and relevant conduct. I supplied that clarification.
More than a year later, I have not been informed whether MDP opened a criminal investigation, declined to investigate, transferred the matter or otherwise disposed of that report. I have received no communicated final decision identifying the decision-maker, the material considered and the reasons.
Hertfordshire’s route was different. There was an allocated investigation and correspondence. In January 2026, after I explained that I could not continue participating in the circumstances then prevailing, the investigation was closed. The force expressly stated that it could be reopened if further information came to light.
I did not withdraw my factual allegations.
On 6 October 2026, I requested reopening in light of additional evidence and identifiable investigative leads. I offered a formal witness statement, original recordings, correspondence, official documents and an indexed evidence schedule.
On 13 October, Acting Detective Sergeant Simon Smith proposed a meeting to review the further information before deciding whether it justified reopening. On 14 October, I confirmed my willingness to cooperate and asked for clarity about the procedural status, responsible investigator, secure submission route and arrangements for assessing institutional conflicts before transferring a substantial further body of sensitive material.
That correspondence should be described accurately. Hertfordshire has not simply remained silent throughout October. It has proposed an assessment meeting. What remains outstanding is a substantive answer about investigative status, responsibility and the safeguards I have requested.
Today, MDP also acknowledged my renewed correspondence. It created contact record 87-22102026, said that it would link it to the original record and explained that the email would be forwarded to the relevant department.
That is an administrative response. It does not yet communicate an investigative decision.
My request to Andrew Rosindell is therefore specific. I have asked him to seek a coordinated response explaining which force will lead, which allegations each considers within its jurisdiction, whether an investigation will proceed and how actual or apparent institutional conflicts will be assessed. If neither force considers itself able to investigate the whole matter with demonstrable independence, I have asked what external arrangement will be considered.
I have asked my MP to obtain an accountable decision. His office cannot determine whether the allegations are proved, and I am not asking it to do so.
The difficulty is that the intervening year has changed the institutional position. During that period, related police records, complaint decisions, disclosure refusals and civil proceedings have accumulated. These are now part of the context in which the original allegations must be assessed.
That history explains why a routine allocation to an officer who did not attend the original incident may no longer answer the independence question.
Part Two — What Emerged During That Year: Criminalisation, Withheld Records and the “Red Sparrow” Narrative
On 23 September 2026, I published an article on Invisible Woman entitled “One Question Answered, Fifteen Avoided: How Hertfordshire’s Police-Oversight System Created an Administrative Catch-22.” This article may still be indexed.
Many readers will not have seen it. It became unavailable when LinkedIn removed the Invisible Woman page on 6 October. The following account restates its substance, with additional explanation of why the subsequent evidence matters.
The starting event was my attendance at Northwood Headquarters on 26 August 2025. I was refused entry, remained outside the operational base and sat on a bench near the Visitor Centre. RAF Police attended, followed by Hertfordshire Police. I was ultimately escorted to the public road. I was not arrested, charged or prosecuted.
Hertfordshire had not made the original military access decision. Its officers entered the situation after receiving information from the military-security environment.
That distinction created a series of questions: what had the officers been told, who supplied the information, what did they independently establish and what legal power did they believe they were exercising?
The complaint process did not provide a sufficiently particularised answer.
An initial response referred to Northwood’s security status, the Official Secrets Act and my alleged non-compliance with a request to leave. A subsequent Professional Standards report, dated 17 April 2026, stated:
“your non-compliance meant a criminal offence had taken place.”
The statement was categorical. It did not merely record that someone had made an allegation or that an officer had considered whether an offence might have occurred.
Yet the response did not identify the offence, its statutory provision, the precise conduct satisfying its elements or the territorial boundary within which the alleged offence occurred.
Those are substantive omissions. A military installation’s ability to restrict access does not, by itself, identify the criminal offence committed by a particular individual in a particular place.
Access control, an instruction to leave, trespass, a prohibited place and criminal liability involve distinct factual and legal questions. A reasoned conclusion must explain how they connect in the circumstances under consideration.
I asked for that explanation.
At the same time, I was trying to obtain the records capable of testing the police account. On 30 January 2026, I submitted a subject access request covering incident records, body-worn video, communications, source information and related personal data.
The request sought to establish what Hertfordshire Police had received from RAF Police or Northwood, how it had been recorded, whether it had been independently verified and how it had subsequently been used.
Three propositions needed to be kept separate.
First, someone may have communicated an allegation to the police. Secondly, the allegation itself may be true, false or unverified. Thirdly, a police system may continue to make that allegation available as an operational description of the individual concerned.
An accurate historical record of a communication does not establish the truth of its contents.
Nor does it explain whether the information should subsequently be presented as an allegation, an assessed fact or a continuing status.
The distinction became increasingly important as official descriptions of me acquired further institutional authority.
In June, while the subject access request remained outstanding, I sought preservation, source attribution and appropriate handling of disputed information. Information Rights directed me to the Rectifications and Deletions Team. That team replied that restricting data on police systems was not its role and referred me back to the subject access process.
The substantive issue remained unresolved while responsibility moved between departments.
On 10 August 2026, 192 days after the request, Hertfordshire Police issued a response relying on national-security grounds to withhold the material central to my questions.
That refusal left me unable to establish what had been received, what had been independently assessed and what remained recorded about me.
Elsewhere, however, the documentary record showed that relevant footage had been retrieved and transferred between authorities comparatively quickly. The service-police complaint case diary recorded a request to Hertfordshire for officers’ body-worn video at 10:48 on 8 October 2025. By 20:27 the following day, four clips had been received and downloaded.
Approximately 34 hours for the inter-authority transfer; 192 days for my subject access response.
Those were different requests under different arrangements, so the comparison does not establish that identical disclosure obligations applied. It does establish that the material was identifiable and retrievable. The individual’s difficulty was obtaining access through the procedure available to her.
The complaint-review process then added another layer.
On 8 September 2026, Hertfordshire’s Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner upheld the complaint outcome. It explained that its role was to decide whether the handling and outcome were reasonable and proportionate, rather than reinvestigate the incident.
The review nevertheless left the categorical conclusion of criminality in place without identifying the offence underlying it.
I asked how that conclusion had been assessed, what material had been considered, what authority the reviewer exercised and how my representations had been addressed.
These were several types of question. Some sought reasons for a decision. Some sought governance records. Some concerned the legal proposition the reviewer had accepted.
On 17 September, I was told that the review process was concluded. Requests for Constabulary records were directed back to police information rights. Requests for OPCC governance records had been forwarded internally.
When I asked for confirmation of registration, the responsible team, the applicable procedure and the response deadline, the reply of 23 September confirmed that the request had been forwarded on 17 September at 2 pm. It suggested submitting a subject access request, a Freedom of Information request, or both.
That was the Catch-22.
The complaint process preserved a criminalising conclusion. The records needed to examine it were withheld. Questions about the review were redirected towards information governance. Questions about that referral generated advice to submit another request.
Alongside this procedural history, new material emerged concerning the narrative circulating about me.
On 19 September 2026, El Español published an article reporting that military colleagues had given me the nickname “Red Sparrow.” The article connected that label with my accent, shooting ability, supposed conduct at a social event and relationship with a naval officer. It invoked the fictional Russian operative who uses an intimate relationship to obtain information.
I regard that as sexualised dehumanisation: a woman’s identity, relationship and conduct reduced to the stock character of a sexually manipulative foreign agent.
The evidential significance must be stated precisely. The publication records accounts attributed to military sources describing the nickname and social hostility. It provides investigative leads concerning who used the label, when, in whose presence and with what consequences. It does not, by itself, establish the identity of every participant or prove that the nickname caused a particular official decision.
Nor can anonymous remarks automatically be attributed to a named officer.
What changed was that an allegation I had previously made about a hostile, sexualised and origin-based narrative now had a published source describing that narrative from within the military community.
The British record contains a separate, important confirmation.
At paragraph 78 of Review Wye, dated 30 April 2026, the Service Police Complaints Commissioner recorded that the female RAF Police officer knew of rumours circulating within MARCOM, including one that I was believed to be a Russian spy. At paragraph 80, the reviewer acknowledged that the earlier Professional Standards response was inaccurate insofar as it suggested she had not known of that rumour.
The review did not find that she had acted discriminatorily because of it. It upheld the complaint outcome.
Nevertheless, the existence of the rumour and an attending British officer’s knowledge of it were recorded in the review. They were no longer solely my account of what I believed others were saying.
Review Wye also recorded that civilian police were told that Commander Pastor and I were under investigation, alongside concerns about dishonest entry and references to national-security legislation.
The Ministry of Defence’s own court submissions, meanwhile, stated that no UK decision-maker had determined that I was a national-security threat. Those submissions defended the restrictions as precautionary measures pending investigations into Commander Pastor. They also expressly defended the relevance of my place of birth to the access decision.
These propositions require examination together. They do not automatically prove criminal wrongdoing, but they identify a concrete evidential problem.
What was the factual basis for the descriptions communicated about me?
Was the rumour investigated, rejected, repeated or left unqualified?
What did the statement that I was under investigation mean?
Which authority owned that investigation?
What information justified the separate restriction against my name?
As I discussed in yesterday’s article, the unresolved issue concerns the route by which an origin-based and sexualised account may have entered official decision-making and policing.
The investigative task is to reconstruct that route, including the possibility that different institutions acted on different information. It requires original communications, contemporaneous records, system histories and evidence from the people involved.
It also requires investigators to remain open to explanations inconsistent with my allegations.
But the questions cannot be answered simply by repeating that Northwood was entitled to control access.
Part Three — Jurisdiction, Institutional Conflicts and the Decision That Is Now Required
The present position involves three separate legal questions: whether particular alleged conduct falls within UK criminal jurisdiction; which police force should investigate it; and what arrangements would make that investigation sufficiently independent.
Those questions should be answered separately.
The presence of Spanish military personnel, NATO structures and defence premises introduces complexity. It does not provide a complete answer about jurisdiction.
CPS guidance recognises that foreign military personnel may remain subject to UK prosecution, while the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and NATO Status of Forces Agreement can affect jurisdiction and its exercise. The analysis depends on the conduct, the individuals’ status and, where relevant, whether the alleged offence arose from official duties. Decisions involving concurrent jurisdictions should be recorded and addressed through engagement between the competent authorities.
It would therefore be premature either to assert that every allegation belongs exclusively to the UK or to dismiss the connected events as an exclusively Spanish matter.
An investigation would need to identify the alleged acts, their location, the people involved, the relevant offence elements and any applicable jurisdictional restrictions. It would also need to distinguish British conduct from Spanish conduct and assess how communications between them fit together.
Early specialist prosecutorial advice could assist with that allocation. A jurisdictional assessment should produce an identifiable decision rather than an indefinite referral.
There is then the allocation between British police forces.
MDP’s powers are governed by the Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987, including the places and circumstances specified in section 2. That provides a statutory basis for considering the defence-related aspects of the report; it does not establish that MDP must investigate every strand.
Hertfordshire has already recorded and previously investigated the allegations. It also has the local connection to events at Northwood.
There are consequently two potentially relevant policing routes. Their respective responsibilities need to be assessed against the actual allegations, rather than inferred from the words “military” or “NATO.”
The harder problem is institutional overlap.
For Hertfordshire, that overlap is direct. The force received information from the Northwood environment and acted on it. Its officers generated relevant records. It handled the related report concerning Commander Pastor’s private material. Its complaint process adopted the conclusion that my non-compliance meant a criminal offence had occurred. It holds records I have sought and has withheld materially related information on national-security grounds.
Its Chief Constable is also the defendant in active civil proceedings concerning substantially overlapping personal data and records.
An investigation of my allegations may therefore require examination of the source and accuracy of information the force received, the way its officers interpreted it, the records it created and the conclusions it subsequently defended.
The potential investigator is also an evidence holder, an institution whose conduct may require scrutiny and a civil defendant with a position to maintain in related proceedings.
None of that establishes personal bias by the officers currently corresponding with me. Nor does it establish that litigation automatically disqualifies a force from investigating connected allegations.
It identifies the conflict that needs assessment.
Appointing someone who did not attend the original incident would address direct personal involvement. It would not, by itself, explain how the investigation would be insulated from the force’s prior complaint conclusions, disclosure decisions and litigation interests.
The question concerns institutional independence as well as the individual investigator’s good faith.
MDP presents a different overlap.
The proposed investigation concerns alleged conduct within the defence structure MDP serves: a former Northwood commanding officer, official military communications, defence systems and records, and personnel within the Ministry of Defence and RAF Police environment.
The Ministry of Defence is defending related proceedings. Other complaints concern personnel who acted within the same information and decision chain.
MDP is a civilian police force with its own Chief Constable. It should not be conflated with RAF Police, and its location within the defence environment does not prove that it lacks operational independence.
But the absence of a communicated substantive outcome from the original report makes it necessary to ask how that independence has operated in this case.
Who assessed the allegations?
What material was considered?
Was responsibility accepted, rejected or transferred?
Were conflicts considered?
What happened after I supplied the requested particulars?
A fresh acknowledgement cannot retrospectively answer those questions.
The institutional conflicts: an investigator, an evidence holder and a party defending its own position
The potential conflicts become clearer when the institutions’ investigative responsibilities are placed alongside their existing roles. The concern is structural: an investigation may need to test information, decisions and practices that the same institution has already adopted, withheld from disclosure or defended.
Institution | Existing involvement | What an investigation may need to examine | Conflict requiring assessment |
Hertfordshire Constabulary: operational involvement | Officers received and acted on information from RAF Police or Northwood. The force generated incident records and handled related communications. | The source, accuracy and verification of that information; the officers’ understanding of it; and its subsequent recording and use. | The prospective investigating force may need to examine its own officers’ actions and the reliability of its own records. |
Hertfordshire Constabulary: complaint handling | Its Professional Standards process adopted the conclusion that my non-compliance meant a criminal offence had occurred. The OPCC subsequently upheld the complaint outcome. | The evidential and legal basis of that conclusion, including whether information supplied by another institution was independently assessed. | Investigators may encounter an existing institutional conclusion that must be tested rather than treated as a settled premise. The OPCC’s separate role also requires examination where relevant. |
Hertfordshire Constabulary: evidence and civil litigation | The force holds relevant records, has withheld materially related information on national-security grounds, and its Chief Constable is defending civil proceedings concerning overlapping data and records. | Preservation, completeness, provenance, accuracy, access histories and onward disclosure of the evidence. | Investigative decisions may overlap with matters affecting the force’s disclosure position and civil defence. Clear separation of functions is needed. |
Ministry of Defence: underlying decisions | The alleged chain includes decisions by the former Northwood Commanding Officer, military communications and the use of defence systems. | Who supplied, authorised, transmitted and acted on the relevant information; what was known at each stage; and the basis and purpose of the measures taken. | The department holds evidence concerning conduct by its own personnel and decisions for which it has accepted institutional responsibility. |
Ministry of Defence: litigation and information handling | The department is defending related proceedings and has taken positions concerning the justification for the restrictions and access to relevant information. | Whether the original records support those positions, what qualifications or corrections were available, and how inconsistencies were addressed. | Findings from an investigation could affect positions the department is maintaining in litigation and information-rights disputes. |
Ministry of Defence Police: prospective investigation | MDP received the original defence-related report and would potentially investigate personnel, communications and systems within the defence environment it serves. | Both the underlying allegations and the handling and recorded disposal of its September 2025 referral. | The arrangements must demonstrate operational independence from departmental interests and permit scrutiny of MDP’s own prior handling where necessary. |
These overlaps do not establish that either force is incapable of conducting a fair investigation. They identify what a conflict assessment must actually address.
For Hertfordshire, appointing an officer uninvolved in the original incident would not by itself resolve the overlap between investigation, evidence custody, complaint findings and civil litigation. For MDP, its separate policing command must be distinguished from the Ministry of Defence’s interests as employer, records holder and litigating department. Equally, an institutional interest held by the MoD cannot simply be attributed to an individual MDP investigator without evidence.
The practical test is whether investigators have the authority, access and organisational freedom to pursue evidence that may contradict their own institution’s previous account—or the account of the department within which they operate.
That assessment should identify who makes decisions about investigative scope, access to records, disputed evidence and any referral elsewhere. Otherwise, the organisation whose position requires examination may also determine the limits of that examination.
The cumulative position also raises a public-expenditure issue.
Over the intervening year, public resources have been used to handle complaints, conduct reviews, process information requests and defend proceedings. Those activities have produced formal conclusions and institutional positions. They have not yet produced a communicated, coordinated answer to the investigative-responsibility question now before the two forces.
I do not have the expenditure figures, and I cannot responsibly quantify the cost. Nor can expenditure alone establish an intention to suppress an allegation.
The question is whether publicly funded processes have been used effectively to establish the facts—or have instead accumulated around unresolved factual questions while making independent examination more difficult.
That is why my request now goes beyond reopening a file.
I have asked for a senior, documented assessment of responsibility and conflicts; separation between investigative work and related litigation, complaint and information-rights functions; clear arrangements for preserving and receiving evidence; and consideration of another force or an external senior investigator if the existing arrangements cannot provide sufficient independence.
An external appointment would not automatically resolve every difficulty. Its effectiveness would depend on its remit, authority, access to records and freedom to examine the whole connected chain, including the conduct of the referring organisations.
Equally, a decision to retain the investigation internally should explain what safeguards make that arrangement adequate.
The allegations must be tested. They may be substantiated, partly substantiated or rejected. A properly reasoned refusal to investigate would itself be a decision capable of examination.
The present difficulty is the absence of a clear, coordinated account of who will make that decision and how the institutional overlaps will be managed.
A year ago, I reported alleged wrongdoing. During the following year, one policing route produced no communicated final assessment, while the other became intertwined with a separate official account criminalising my own conduct.
Since then, published reporting has described the sexualised label circulating about me; a statutory review has recorded a British officer’s knowledge of the spy rumour; and official pleadings have identified propositions that need to be reconciled with the information passed through policing channels.
The appropriate response is an evidence-led decision by an identified authority, made under arrangements capable of withstanding scrutiny.
There are two potentially relevant police forces. Both now have institutional overlaps that require examination.
Who will assess those conflicts, who will decide whether the allegations are investigated, and what will make that decision demonstrably independent?
There is a joke: "The most important thing in any criminal investigation is to make sure the trail doesn’t lead back to you.”
In this case, the arrangements for investigative independence will need to show that it remains a joke.
Today's song - РОЗМІРОМ НЕ НАЛЯКАЄШ
