Harry Dunn: US diplomat’s wife Anne Sacoolas charged with causing death of teenager

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Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat, has been charged with causing the death by dangerous driving of British teenager Harry Dunn.

Ms Sacoolas returned to the US after the car she was driving allegedly collided with the 19-year-old’s motorbike outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August.

She subsequently claimed diplomatic immunity, despite the Foreign Office later saying that her husband was not a registered diplomat in a recognised role.

Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, families of diplomats are granted immunity from arrest or detention, with the sending state able to issue a waiver of that immunity.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), however, the immunity does not apply to dependants of consular officials based outside London.

The CPS reached its charging decision on Wednesday – just under seven weeks after the completed file of evidence was first handed to the prosecution service – and will now begin extradition proceedings through the Home Office.

Mr Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, were informed of the charge on Friday. Ms Charles said she “would never have been able to rest properly” without securing justice for her son.

“I carried out my promise to one of my kids, the promise that I made that we would get that justice,” she told Sky News. “I’ve managed to fulfil the promise. It means everything.”

Ms Sacoolas was twice interviewed by Northamptonshire Police – once on the day after the crash, and on another occasion by officers who travelled to the US.

Amy Jeffress, Ms Sacoolas’s lawyer, said in a statement on Friday that her client had ”co-operated fully with the investigation”. She added: “But Anne will not return voluntarily to the United Kingdom to face a potential jail sentence for what was a terrible but unintentional accident.”

Extradition between the US and the UK is governed by a treaty signed by both countries in 2003, and requests prepared by the CPS are sent by the Home Office to the requested state – in this case, the US – through the diplomatic route.

Mr Dunn’s death was the start of three months of separate legal battles for the teenager’s family: a judicial review against the Foreign Office, a referral of Northamptonshire Police to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), an investigation into the US administration’s handling of the case, and a civil claim against Ms Sacoolas herself.

Since the investigation into the teenager’s death was launched, the family have taken their fight to the US and even met Donald Trump at the White House.

The meeting with the US president also sparked controversy after it later emerged that Ms Sacoolas was sat in the room next door ready to meet Mr Dunn’s parents – an offer the teenager’s family refused.

Following the CPS ruling, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, announced his intentions to address an “anomaly” in diplomatic immunities that offered “family members of US officers serving” at RAF Croughton ”greater protection from UK criminal jurisdiction than the officers themselves”.

He said: “I welcome the taking of a charging decision which is an important step towards justice for Harry and towards solace for his family, but it is not the end.

“I hope that Anne Sacoolas will now realise the right thing to do is to come back to the UK and cooperate with the criminal justice process.”

The US state department later expressed its “disappointment” at the ruling, saying “it will not bring a resolution closer”.

“The United States has been clear that, at the time the accident occurred, and for the duration of her stay in the UK, the driver in this case had status that conferred diplomatic immunities,” a spokesperson said.

The decision to charge the suspect came just days after Ms Charles was left “utterly devastated” by footage that showed Ms Sacoolas reversing out of the driveway of her home in Virginia.

Additional reporting by PA