Harry Dunn's parents turn down meeting with Anne Sacoolas as Trump intervenes to broker solution

Harry Dunn’s parents have turned down a surprise meeting with the American woman who killed their son as Donald Trump personally greeted them at the White House to broker a solution.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, parents of the 19 year-old, said that the US president had been warm and sympathetic towards them, but told them that the driver, Anne Sacoolas, would not leave America.

The Dunn family said Mrs Sacoolas was also in the building when they spoke with Mr Trump and had offered to meet with them, but they declined.

Mrs Sacoolas, the wife of an American diplomat, was driving her car on the wrong side of the road in Northamptonshire when she crashed into the teenager on Aug 27, killing him.

Harry's parents had arrived in New York on Sunday to try and convince Mrs Sacoolas to return to the UK and face justice.

They were invited to a meeting at the White House on Tuesday evening and met with Mr Trump there.

The Dunns said that while the president had been respectful and told them he would look at their case again, he also said the US position remained the same and that Mrs Sacoolas would not be returning to the UK.

Mr Dunn said they had chosen not to speak with Mrs Sacoolas at the White House, adding: "We weren't ready to meet her, it would have been too rushed.

"Obviously we've just met the president and we never thought we'd get this far but I don't know whether we're any further along."

Talking on Wednesday morning on the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Dunn said he and Mrs Charles refused the meeting because they feared being "railroaded into a circus".

"We want to do it," Mr Dunn said. "But in the UK. We didn't want to be railroaded, not into a circus as such, but into a meeting we weren't prepared for."

Although Mr Trump was "very graceful and spoke very well to us," when the family declined the invite to meet Mrs Sacoolas, the president's adviser was "quite sharp".

Explaining that they wanted the meeting to happen on home shores, the adviser told the Dunns: "She's not going back to the UK," according to Mr Dunn.

"He [Mr Trump] listened to Charlotte very well - she spoke excellently to him and he was very understanding," Mr Dunn added.

"I genuinely do think he will look to resolve this in a way that will help us."

Mrs Charles said: "When he (President Trump) held my hand, I gripped it a lot tighter and I was honest with him and just said, as I said a while ago, 'if it was your son you would be doing the same as us'.

"He actually gripped my hand a little bit tighter and said 'yes I would be'.

"And that's when he said he would try and look at this from a different angle."

Mrs Charles said: "He seemed to understand that our grief has been locked in for seven weeks now on a case that should have been very, very clear-cut.

"He understands, or he seems to understand, that that meeting (with Mrs Sacoolas) needs to be with therapists and mediators in the room - not just her and us.

"I wouldn't imagine that's even advisable for her, let alone us."

Mrs Charles added: "I can only hope that he was sincere enough to consider doing that for us."

Mrs Sacoolas has, through her lawyer, urged the family to "call off the media", the family's spokesman has said.

Radd Seiger told the PA news agency that Mrs Sacoolas's lawyer, Amy Jeffress, had said the "media frenzy is not helpful" and that Mrs Sacoolas had received "abusive messages" over the case.

Mr Seiger also said the apology from Mrs Sacoolas was "not worth the paper it was written on" and reiterated his view that the family's position on the suspect returning to the UK is non-negotiable and has been from the start.

"I said before we go any further, it's important you understand that our position on Mrs Sacoolas returning to the UK is non-negotiable," he said.

Mrs Charles, ahead of the White House meeting, said: "We are grateful for the invitation, which we hope represents a positive development in our fight for justice."

She said she hoped the meeting would help convince the US officials to send Mrs Sacoolas to the UK for questioning.

"Friends tell each other the truth," she said.

"If Britain and America are friends then we believe there should be no possibility of a citizen of one country hiding from justice in another while falsely claiming a privilege such as diplomatic immunity."

Mr Dunn, asked at a New York press conference on Monday what he would say to Mr Trump, replied: "I would say to him as a man, as a father, see how it is. How could you let this happen? Surely you'd want that person to own up and take responsibility for their actions. That's all we want."

The US president has previously addressed the controversy, calling Mr Dunn's death a "terrible accident" and confirmed his administration would seek to speak to Mrs Sacoolas.

"The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road, and that can happen,” he said last week.

"You know, those are the opposite roads, that happens. I won't say it ever happened to me, but it did.

"So a young man was killed, the person that was driving the automobile has diplomatic immunity, we're going to speak to her very shortly and see if we can do something where they meet."

As he was speaking he was holding a note, caught on camera, which confirmed the US would not send Mrs Sacoolas back to the UK for questioning.

It read: "(If raised) Note, as Secretary Pompeo told Foreign Secretary Raab, that the spouse of the US government employee will not return to the United Kingdom."