A fugitive who owes it to her own children to face justice

THere can be few things worse than seriously injuring or killing someone by accident.

if it ever happened to me, i would be utterly devastated, out of my mind with guilt and regret, driven mad by what-ifs.

So i am prepared to concede that Anne Sacoolas, the American diplomat’s wife accused of killing british teenage motorcyclist Harry dunn, might have made an understandable error of judgment when she returned to the U.S. under diplomatic immunity.

You can see that, after allegedly pulling out of an rAF base in Northamptonshire on to the wrong side of the road, she may simply have panicked and done what many people might have felt like doing: run and hide.

but now that Harry’s parents have spoken out so bravely — especially when you consider the forces they are up against (there is speculation that the American couple may have been connected to the intelligence services) — she must return to face the music.

Not for the sake of UK/U.S. diplomatic relations, but because, as a mother of three and a fellow human being, it is the very least she can do for Harry’s family. ANYTHiNg

less would be to show not only stunning arrogance, but a disdainful lack of respect for the grieving parents of a blameless child. Parents who need to feel the death of their son was not merely a minor inconvenience, worth so little that his loss could simply be dismissed.

As Harry’s mother, Charlotte, put it: ‘it is not much to ask.’ There cannot be a single person in britain who doesn’t agree with her. but it doesn’t seem anyone is listening.

Not that, for all the fuss about to- ing and fro- ing between embassies, this is really about diplomacy. it’s just about right and wrong.

mrs Sacoolas still has a chance to put things right. but she needs to get a move on. because if she doesn’t make the decision to return and face justice soon — and i mean now — what might have been a tragic accident, one of those terrible things that sometimes happens, will become a fullblown moral crime, compounded by cowardice and callousness. i know she must be scared. Scared that if she is found guilty of a criminal offence and jailed, her children will be deprived of their mother — if only for a time.

but, however bad it might be, it won’t ever be as bad as what Harry’s parents will be going through for the rest of their lives.

How will mrs Sacoolas live with herself, tucking her kids in at night, or dropping them off at school in a leafy American suburb, knowing her actions may have deprived another mother of her son? What kind of freedom is that?

For any normal person, the guilt would be too much to bear. it would gnaw away at them over the years, the spectre of that young boy on his motorbike forever hovering over them.

running away won’t banish it. it will simply make it a thousand times stronger.

mrs Sacoolas doesn’t just owe it to Harry’s family to do the right thing; she owes it to her own. She needs to set an example to her children: if you make a mistake, face up to it. She needs to be a person of whom they can be proud — not someone to be ashamed of.

it is the best chance she has of redemption, and the best chance of being fairly judged if it comes to court. but most of all, it is the very least she can do for the memory of young Harry dunn.