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Parents of teen killed in car crash want diplomat’s wife to face justice in the UK

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Harry Dunn’s family wants the woman suspected of killing him in a crash to return to the UK.

The mother and father of Dunn, the 19-year-old who died in August, said in a news conference Monday they want Anne Sacoolas to voluntarily go back or be extradited.

“She needs to just do the right thing and just come back and face what she’s done,” Charlotte Charles, Harry Dunn’s mother, told reporters. “Face us as a broken family. Face our UK (legal) system and just do the right thing.”

Harry Dunn was killed August 27 in Croughton, Northamptonshire, home to a Royal Air Force station controlled by the US Air Force. UK police say he was riding a motorcycle when he was struck by a vehicle that was traveling on the wrong side of the road.

Police suspect Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat in Britain, struck and killed Dunn.

“I promised Harry and we promised Harry as a family when we lost him that night … that we would make sure justice was done,” Charles said. “We thought it would be an easy case with all the evidence that the Northamptonshire police have, but clearly not and that’s why we’re here.”

Sacoolas’ immunity ‘no longer pertinent’

Sacoolas was originally cooperating in the case, police have said, but she left the country despite assuring them she would remain.

Because she is the wife of a US diplomat, she was originally protected by diplomatic immunity.

But now that no longer applies, the UK Foreign Secretary said Sunday.

“The US have now informed us that they too consider that immunity is no longer pertinent,” UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a letter to Dunn’s family.

“We have pressed strongly for a waiver of immunity, so that justice can be done … Whilst the US government has steadfastly declined to give that waiver, that is not the end of the matter,” Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger said in the letter, which CNN has seen.

The Foreign Secretary continued that “the UK government’s position is that immunity, and therefore any question of waiver, is no longer relevant in Mrs. Sacoolas’ case, because she has returned home,” he wrote.

This could provide an opportunity for UK authorities to commence legal action with a view to extraditing Sacoolas back to the UK to face prosecution.

A Foreign Office spokesman told the PA news agency that the office would not comment further on the letter.

The family wants political help

Raab said the family would be in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, willing to meet with any politician who could help them.

Harry Dunn’s parents have appealed to US President Donald Trump to intervene.

“We need him to agree to put her on a plane back to the UK,” Charlotte Charles said.

Harry Dunn’s father was asked by reporters about what Trump need to understand about the case.

“To me, it’s so simple. On that night there was an accident, a lady made a mistake. She killed our son. She didn’t mean to kill him. She didn’t mean to have the accident, but you cannot walk away from that and just leave and expect nothing to happen,” Tim Dunn said. “Our boy died. He deserves to have some justice, whatever that turns out to be. All you hear if your son or child were to die, you’d want justice for your child, and that’s all we want. We want justice, justice for Harry.”

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