Diplomat’s wife left UK from US airbase after crash

THE American wife of a US intelligence agent accused of killing teenager Harry Dunn in a car crash was spirited out of Britain on a private flight from a US airbase, The Daily Telegraph understands.

Anne Sacoolas, 42, a mother of three, claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution, despite not being on the official London diplomatic list.

The Foreign Office confirmed however that Mrs Sacoolas and her husband Jonathan Sacoolas, 43, were given diplomatic immunity before their arrival in the UK under the Vienna Convention.

The immunity is extended to intelligence officers and other Americans working on military bases including RAF Croughton in Northants, where the crash happened.

Mrs Sacoolas is alleged to have been driving her right-hand drive Volvo on the wrong side of the road when her car hit Mr Dunn, 19, who was riding his motorbike. Northamptonshire Police, which is investigating Mrs Sacoolas on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, said yesterday they had no idea how the suspect left the country.

The Telegraph understands that the Sacoolas family, including their children, were flown out of Mildenhall, the US airbase in Suffolk, shortly after the collision on Aug 27. Mr Dunn died the following day in hospital.

Mrs Sacoolas had been in the UK for only three weeks. One of her children was with her in the car. The family have since gone to ground and were not at their home yesterday in Virginia, close to the CIA headquarters at Langley.

Yesterday, the parents of Harry Dunn pleaded with Mrs Sacoolas to return to the UK to face justice. They said they would be prepared for her to face a lesser charge of causing death by careless – rather than dangerous – driving and did not mind if she escaped jail.

Tim Dunn, the dead teenager’s father, said: “We just want her to come back and face the justice system, and if it’s not behind bars then that’s fine, but she just needs to come back and own up to what she’s done and not hide away from it.”

Charlotte Charles, 44, the victim’s mother, said she hoped Mrs Sacoolas would do the right thing. She added: “You would think from human to human that she would actually have the decency to say: ‘Do you know what? Let me go, release me from this diplomatic immunity. I want to go and see them.’ That’s probably our best hope at the moment.”

The US embassy in London declined to comment last night.

Downing Street said Boris Johnson was still planning to urge Donald Trump to intervene personally to lift immunity. The conversation had not taken place as of yesterday evening.

A police file is being prepared for the Crown Prosecution Service and will be handed over this week.