U.S. Diplomat’s Wife Charged with Causing Death of U.K. Teenager by Driving Dangerously
The wife of a U.S. diplomat was charged in the United Kingdom on Friday with causing the death of a teenager by driving dangerously. A conviction on the charges would carry a maximum 14-year prison sentence.
Anne Sacoolas had been in the U.K. for just three weeks when she hit and killed 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn while driving on August 27.
Sacoolas’ husband Jonathan is a diplomat who was stationed at the RAF Croughton base in Northamptonshire, which Dunn’s family asserts is a U.S. intelligence base. It is not clear if Jonathan is still in the U.K.
Days after the crash, Anne Sacoolas fled the U.K. and claimed immunity from prosecution as the wife of an American diplomat. Dunn’s family claims the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Britain has told them it does not consider Sacoolas to have diplomatic immunity and U.S. officials concur.
“The U.S. have now informed us that they too consider that immunity is no longer pertinent,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab wrote to the family.
“We believed. We have done it. We have got the charge. It’s amazing,” Tim Dunn, Harry’s father, told Sky News. “It does not matter what happens now.”
Harry’s mother Charlotte Charles told the network she had promised to pursue justice for her son. “I would never have rested properly unless I carried out that promise,” she said.
During an October meeting at the White House, President Trump offered Dunn’s parents the opportunity to meet Sacoolas, who was waiting in another room. The offer shocked the parents, who declined to see Sacoolas but did say they would meet her “on our terms and on U.K. soil.”
Sacoolas’ attorney Amy Jeffress said in a statement to the New York Post that her client will not willingly return to the U.K., but that she is “devastated” by the accident.
“Anne would do whatever she could to bring Harry back,” Jeffress said. “She is a mother herself and cannot imagine the pain of the loss of a child. She has cooperated fully with the investigation and accepted responsibility.”
Jeffress also said the 14-year prison sentence is “simply not a proportionate response.”
