Harry Dunn family’s relief at ‘£1million plus’ damages deal

HARRY Dunn’s mother has spoken of her ‘enormous relief’ at finding a ‘resolution’ in a damages claim against his alleged killer.

Charlotte Charles said she is ‘very confident’ that a criminal case in the UK will proceed after reaching a deal with Anne Sacoolas’s lawyers in the US.

The payout, while undisclosed, is understood to run into seven figures. Before the deal, Sacoolas and her husband Jonathan – both reported to be former CIA agents – had been due to give evidence under oath as part of the civil claim brought by the teenager’s parents in the state of Virginia.

The case had already revealed that 44year-old Sacoolas was working for US intelligence agencies when she was involved in a fatal crash with motorcyclist Harry, 19, in Northamptonshire in August 2019. She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving and returned to the US after Washington asserted her diplomatic immunity.

Alexandria district court in Virginia heard the couple left the UK for ‘security reasons’, which led to speculation the US authorities may have got involved to stop sensitive information emerging.

Mrs Charles said yesterday: ‘It’s an enormous relief for my family and I to have reached a resolution in the civil case.

‘We can now focus on the criminal case and we are very confident that is going to happen now. We have achieved so much but there is still so much more to do.’