We’ll take our fight all the way to the White House
Family of boy killed in crash with diplomat’s wife vow to travel to US to talk to Trump
THE family of a teenager killed in a crash with the wife of a US diplomat have said they will take their fight for justice to the White House.
And as anger over the case intensified on both sides of the Atlantic, Harry Dunn’s father told how he cradled his dying son at the roadside.
His parents have pledged to travel to America if it does not return driver Anne Sacoolas to the UK for questioning. Almost six weeks after Harry, 19, was killed in the crash outside an RAF base, his mother Charlotte Charles said she hoped an intervention by the Prime Minister would help secure the return of Mrs Sacoolas, 42 – who fled the country, claiming diplomatic immunity. It came as:
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab met with US ambassador Woody Johnson to ‘ask the US to reconsider its position and do the right thing by Harry Dunn’s family’;
America was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged the US Department of State’s own guidelines say diplomatic immunity should not be extended to those committing ‘serious or repeat driving offences’ in the US;
Northamptonshire police was set to present a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service;
Harry’s family raised £10,000 via GoFundMe to travel to the US.
With no sign America will back down, Mrs Charles, 44, said her family would travel to Washington if necessary, in the hope of speaking to President Trump.
The Foreign Office and US Embassy have confirmed Mrs Sacoolas’s husband Jonathan and his family are entitled to immunity.
Mrs Charles believes their immunity should be waived as the crime was potentially serious and involved the loss of a life.
In a direct appeal to Mr Trump she urged him to ‘try to see it from our point of view and our heartache’ and said she hoped he could help in bringing Mrs Sacoolas back to the UK for justice and to ‘help us to start grieving again’.
Harry’s parents embarked on a round of interviews yesterday, including an appearance on ITV’s This Morning. Harry’s father Tim has devastatingly told how he cradled his dying son at the roadside.
Mr Dunn, head of maintenance at an independent school, was called to the scene of the collision by a firefighter, a family friend who recognised Harry.
Mr Dunn, who described Harry as ‘the centrepiece of the family and an amazing lad’, asked police whether the driver had been injured, and was told she was fine. Harry suffered multiple horrific injuries and died in hospital.
Harry was going to his father’s house when he was in the collision with Mrs Sacoolas’s Volvo XC90 outside RAF Croughton, a US intelligence hub in Northamptonshire.
Police said Mrs Sacoolas – who has driving offences to her name in America – had been travelling on the wrong side of the road for 400 yards when she collided with Harry’s motorbike at around 8.30pm on August 27. Mrs Sacoolas initially cooperated with police after being told Harry had died, but later fled to the US with her husband and three children, citing immunity due to her husband’s job at the base.
Boris Johnson said it is ‘not right’ to use immunity in this way, and has promised to raise the case with Mr Trump if it is not resolved.
Mrs Charles, who works in a GP surgery, said the family did not want to see Mrs Sacoolas jailed – only to speak to her and for the case to be concluded.
She added: ‘We won’t stop... diplomatic immunity is there to protect the diplomat and or their family when they are in danger – it is not there to protect them when they commit crimes as serious as this.’ She also said Harry’s twin, Niall, was ‘devastated’ and was trying to ‘rediscover who he is’ after the death of his brother.
There are around 23,000 people entitled to diplomatic immunity in the UK. In 2017, 26 crimes were allegedly committed by people with immunity. Five of these were driving-related.
The Sacoolas family were said to have lived in a rented property in a village less than two miles from the scene of the tragedy.
Mrs Sacoolas briefly sent the couple’s children to Winchester House School, where Harry’s father worked as a caretaker.
‘Held his dying son at the roadside’