Anne Sacoolas did not have diplomatic immunity in Dunn case, says ex-minister
US claims that the American Anne Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity when she drove into the British motorcyclist Harry Dunn last August have been rejected by the former Conservative minister who signed the agreement covering the base where her husband worked.
In court papers, the former Foreign Office (FCO) minister Tony Baldry said the diplomatic immunity deal reached in 1995 was intended specifically to exclude dangerous driving cases, or indeed any actions not related to the work of the staff at the base.
The interpretation of the agreement lies at the heart of the dispute about whether Sacoolas was able to leave the country and avoid prosecution. It is the first time the minister who signed it has set out his views on what he believes the then government meant.
He added that this limited immunity only applied to the staff at the base and no broader immunity was ever meant to be given to the staff’s family or dependants. This would mean Sacoolas, whose husband Jonathan worked at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, should never have been allowed to leave the country or escape prosecution by police.
The US has claimed the 1995 agreement signed by the UK gave the family of staff at the base wider immunity than the staff themselves.
The conflict has led to a diplomatic standoff between the UK and the US, including a judicial review by Dunn’s parents seeking to show that the government acted unlawfully in granting her the immunity that meant she did not face a prosecution of death by dangerous driving. This is the claim relating to which which the former minister has produced his statement.
The FCO had within days of the accident accepted the US claim that the agreement covering the RAF Croughton
base gave Sacoolas immunity since it did not specifically exclude immunity for dependants.
Baldry’s submission to the high court revealing his intentions at the time he reached the agreement with the US will form part of the judicial review to be heard by the court in the autumn.
In his submission, Baldry says: “I am sure that the US did not and would not not have raised any specific request for dependants to be exempted from the law – had they done so I would have refused, or at the very least referred this matter to the secretary of state for him to decide. I cannot imagine any government agreeing to such an arrangement.”
He added he did not think the FCO lawyers “would have made an oversight or drafting error that would create a situation whereby immunity was waived for agents outside work, but not for their spouses. The UK government position had evidently been explained to the Americans and I believe that, by pressing their request and accepting our conditions, they consented to it.”
The RAF Croughton base started to be used as a US communications relay station for its radio traffic from embassies across Europe from 1963, the court papers show. The US said it was not possible to undertake this work at the main US embassy building in London.
The US then asked the FCO for its technical staff at the base to be given diplomatic status, something the department was reluctant to accept, according to contemporary FCO correspondence now submitted to the court.
The submission sent by officials to Baldry dated 23 May 1995 showed officials were “less than happy” about the increase in numbers of staff, expressing concerns the technical staff might become involved in driving accidents in such a remote area.
The FCO letter to Baldry as a result recommended that acts performed outside the course of their duties should not be subject to immunity from criminal jurisdiction.
In his submission to the court Baldry writes: “The phrase ‘we remain less than happy’, is a civil service euphemism, because we were obviously extremely unhappy at the prospect of technicians and their dependents being placed above the law, and this I made clear by instructing that any agreement must be conditional upon the waiver.”
The FCO said: “Tony Baldry himself
admits he had no recollection of the submission and does not recall seeing the final agreement.”
But the FCO insisted there was no waiver of immunity for spouses in the original Croughton agreement set out in 1995.
It added: “The FCO identified this anomaly after the tragic case of Harry Dunn. The foreign secretary instigated a full review of those historic arrangements – presided over by previous governments – and is now working to correct the anomaly.”